Around 4:30 a.m. early Tuesday morning journalist Michael Hastings died in a fiery car crash while driving through Hollywood. The 33-year-old Hastings was an infamous thorn in the side of the Obama administration when, in 2010, he exposed the scandal that led to the firing of General Stanley McChrystal as America’s top commander in Afghanistan.
His recent work on the CIA and the NSA have led to some serious speculation about his untimely and mysterious death. Could his death have been a conspiracy?
Here’s what you need to know:
1. The Car Fire Was Out of Control
The fire that consumed Hastings’ car (watch above) looks like something out of a movie, especially considering it hit a tree. Cars hit trees all the time and few of them burst into a ball of fire. For comparison, here is a video of Hastings’ model of Mercedes on its crash test:
2. The Body Was Unrecognizable
According to the Los Angeles Times, Hastings was pronounced dead on the scene, but the body was so badly burned that it could not be identified and, in fact, still has not been officially identified. No autopsy was done today and it is unclear when one will happen. The body has been labeled
“John Doe 117.”
3. He Was Reporting on the CIA and NSA
Hastings final article, which was pushed on Buzzfeed on June 7, was titled, “Why Democrats Love to Spy on Americans.” We know that Hastings had turned his attention to NSA and domestic surveillance, and we also know that Hastings, unlike many other journalists of our generation, knew how to find the stories worth telling. Is it possible he discovered something that made him a government target? Or maybe he just found something so big that he had to drive his car very quickly through Los Angeles at 4:30 a.m.? The final words of his final article are:
Perhaps more information will soon be forthcoming.
4. The Engine Was Found 60 Yards Away and a Neighbor Said It Sounded Like an Explosion
How quickly does a car have to be moving so that when it crashes into a tree it flings an engine that weighs around 300 pounds 60 yards, according to NY Daily News? Because that is what happened. The same article also cites multiple neighbors as saying they heard an explosion.
5. Wikileaks Said Hastings Called Their Lawyer That Night
Michael Hastings death has a very serious non-public complication. We will have more details later.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 19, 2013
Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 19, 2013
These two tweets were released to by Wikileaks. According to them, a few hours before he died Hastings called Wikileaks Lawyer Jennifer Robinson worried that he was under investigation by the FBI. Are the two things connected? We’ll let you know as the story unfolds.