Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh claims the CIA planted fake news in mainstream outlets to cover up the Biden administration’s responsibility for destroying the Nord Stream pipelines last year.
Concerns the pipelines were “sabotaged” circulated among some European government officials and users across the internet last September, after images released by the Danish military appeared to show geyser-like natural gas eruptions in the Baltic Sea.
The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline systems were intended to transport natural gas from Russia to Europe, with each system being made up of two separate pipelines. Prior to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Biden made cryptic comments suggesting the pipeline would be terminated in the event of an armed conflict.
While mainstream sources were reticent to assign blame for the destruction, Hersh eventually went public with claims that the United States sabotaged the pipeline to favor its domestic energy exports and nullify Russia’s ability to pressure Europe in Ukraine by threatening to withhold its natural gas supply.
Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, (White House Photo)
Following Hersh’s accusations, a rogue Ukrainian group was blamed, though skeptics have questioned how a Ukrainian cell without state backing could have had the training, maritime equipment, and explosives necessary to plant an underwater payload capable of destroying the pipelines.
This week, Hersh reaffirmed his allegations that Joe Biden ordered the destruction of the $11 billion pipeline and accused U.S. and German intelligence agencies of a running a Western media disinformation campaign to hide the American government’s culpability in the attack.
“It’s been six weeks since I published a report, based on anonymous sourcing, naming President Joe Biden as the official who ordered the mysterious destruction last September of Nord Stream 2, a new $11-billion pipeline that was scheduled to double the volume of natural gas delivered from Russia to Germany,” Hersh wrote.
“The story gained traction in Germany and Western Europe, but was subject to a near media blackout in the US. Two weeks ago, after a visit by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Washington, US and German intelligence agencies attempted to add to the blackout by feeding the New York Times and the German weekly Die Zeit false cover stories to counter the report that Biden and US operatives were responsible for the pipelines’ destruction,” the journalist claimed.
Joe Biden with G7 leaders (White House Photo)
Hersh in February published an expose that claimed that the CIA, under the order of Biden, sent U.S. Navy divers to the Baltic Sea to destroy the Russian gas pipelines.
The journalist noted that the CIA, in response to his story and in collaboration with German intelligence networks, seeded western media outlets with an “alternate version” of the story to “pulse the system” and steer public attention away from any U.S. involvement.
“I was told by someone with access to diplomatic intelligence that there was a discussion of the pipeline exposé and, as a result, certain elements in the Central Intelligence Agency were asked to prepare a cover story in collaboration with German intelligence that would provide the American and German press with an alternative version for the destruction of Nord Stream 2,” Hersh said.
“In the words of the intelligence community, the agency was ‘to pulse the system’ in an effort to discount the claim that Biden had ordered the pipelines’ destruction.”
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This news and commentary by Andrew White originally appeared on Valiant News.
