Report: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email About FBI Probe Hours Before Death
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The Internet erupted with
debates about the fiery one-car crash that killed journalist Michael
Hastings, who was known as a tenacious reporter unbowed by threats. A
community board on Reddit speculated last week that the car was either
rigged to lose control or burst into flames at a certain time.
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The journalist's fiery 4 a.m. single-car crash in Los Angeles came 15 hours after he sent friends an email warning them the FBI was on his tail. 'Hey — the feds are interviewing my “close friends and associates,"' the message said. ‘Also: I'm onto a big story, and need to go off the [radar] for a bit.’
He had a big story and wanted to get off the radar until things cooled down.
Hours later, Michael Hastings was dead. The 33-year-old journalist's fiery 4 a.m. single-car crash June 18 in
Los Angeles came 15 hours after he sent friends a panicked email warning
them the FBI was on his tail.
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Paul Morigi/Getty Images for The Guardian
‘Hey [redacted] — the feds
are interviewing my “close friends and associates,”’ reads the email
that journalist Michael Hastings sent 15 hours before he died. ‘Perhaps
if the authorities arrive “BuzzFeed GQ,” er HQ, may be wise to
immediately request legal counsel before any conversations or interviews
about our news-gathering practices or related journalism issues.'
"Hey [redacted] — the feds are interviewing my 'close friends and associates,'" reads the email, acquired Friday by KTLA-TV.
"Perhaps if the authorities arrive 'BuzzFeed GQ', er HQ, may be wise to
immediately request legal counsel before any conversations or
interviews about our news-gathering practices or related journalism
issues.
"Also: I'm onto a big story, and need to go off the radat (sic) for a bit.
"All the best, and hope to see you all soon," Hastings signed off. The email was sent at around 1 p.m. Monday.
KTLA
The email ‘alarmed me very
much,’ said Staff Sgt. Joseph Biggs, one of the message’s recipients,
who provided a copy of the note to KTA. ‘I just said it doesn't seem
like him. I don't know, I just had this gut feeling and it just really
bothered me.’
Few probably saw him alive after that, and the story was never written. Instead, Hastings slammed his new Mercedes at high speed into a tree on Hollywood's Highland Avenue. The Internet erupted shortly after debating conspiracy theories about the death of Hastings, who was known as a tenacious reporter unbowed by threats. 
KTLA
Journalist Michael Hastings
was killed in a fiery car crash early morning June 18 in Hollywood,
Calif. One theory being floated online speculates Hastings sped away
down Highland Ave. as he tried to lose someone tailing him.
Hastings, who wrote for BuzzFeed and Rolling Stone, famously brought down U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal in a 2010 Rolling Stone cover story. He was most recently covering Edward Snowden's leak of the NSA's classified domestic monitoring program. |
Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him.The FBI denied Hastings was under investigation and police continue to examine the circumstances of the fatal crash.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 19, 2013
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Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
Flowers and condolence notes
shown here form a makeshift memorial for award-winning journalist
Michael Hastings, whose reporting for Rolling Stone helped bring down
Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan. The 33-year-old
journalist died in Los Angeles when his car crashed into a tree and
caught fire.
But the email's content worried Staff Sgt. Joseph Biggs, who was blind-copied on the note sent to Hasting's colleagues.
"It alarmed me very much," said Biggs, who provided a copy of the note
to KTLA. "I just said it doesn't seem like him. I don't know, I just had
this gut feeling and it just really bothered me."
One theory being floated online speculates Hastings sped away down
Highland as he tried to lose someone tailing him. But a news
photographer, Scott Lane, says his dashboard camera caught Hastings
blowing through a red light at a high speed - minutes before the crash.
The footage doesn't show a car following the reporter, Lane said while
speaking with the TV station.
A community board on Reddit speculated last week that the car was
either rigged to lose control or burst into flames at a certain time.
Biggs, who got to know the reporter in Afghanistan while Hastings
embedded with his unit in 2008, spoke affectionately of his friend, who
was known for going after stories others would shy away from.
"I thought he was a great person," he told KTLA. "He spoke the truth,
he said what needed to be said, he said what a lot of people were scared
to say. It does offend a lot of people but the truth hurts."
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