WH National Sec spox John Kirby calls destruction of Nord Stream 2 an ‘act of sabotage’; journalist Hersh calls it a ‘cover-up’

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called the explosions that took out the Nord Stream gas pipelines “an act of sabotage” on Wednesday, but assured reporters that the U.S. had nothing to do with it.

Asked about the “scuttlebutt” surrounding the damage done to the pipelines and “any progress on a government investigation” into the incident, Kirby noted that “there are three, now, national investigations being done into the Nord Stream 2 explosion by three of our allies.”

“We are not going to get ahead of that,” he explained. “That work is still ongoing.”

We still do believe it was an act of sabotage,” he continued. “The United States was not involved in any way, contrary to some press reporting out there.”

As BizPac Review reported last month, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh wrote an explosive article on Substack in which he cited one anonymous source and claimed that, in June, “Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.”

Though it was largely dismissed by the mainstream media, Hersch’s claims were not a hard sell to his readers, considering President Joe Biden stated very clearly for the world to hear that, should Russia invade Ukraine, the Nord Stream pipeline would be taken out.

Earlier this month, BPR reported that U.S. and European intelligence leaks suggested that it was a rogue pro-Ukrainian partisan group that was potentially behind the attack, with the goal of damaging Russia’s ability to export oil to the West.

In a follow-up to his article — coincidentally posted to Substack on the same day Kirby made his claims — Hersh says that story was a “cover-up,” fed to The New York Times by “US and German intelligence agencies” after President Joe Biden met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the Oval Office on Mar 3.

Reports Hersh:

In early March, President Biden hosted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Washington. The trip included only two public events—a brief pro forma exchange of compliments between Biden and Scholz before the White House press corps, with no questions allowed; and a CNN interview with Scholz by Fareed Zakaria, who did not touch on the pipeline allegations. The chancellor had flown to Washington with no members of the German press on board, no formal dinner scheduled, and the two world leaders were not slated to conduct a press conference, as routinely happens at such high-profile meetings. Instead, it was later reported that Biden and Scholz had an 80-minute meeting, with no aides present for much of the time. There have been no statements or written understandings made public since then by either government, but 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.

 

“In the words of the intelligence community,” the investigative journalist writes, “the agency was ‘to pulse the system’ in an effort to discount the claim that Biden had ordered the pipelines’ destruction.”

Online, Hersh’s story — despite his citing of anonymous sources — is once again gaining traction.

“Everybody knows that Scholz betrayed his own country by protecting Biden the NordStream pipeline terrorist,” tweeted the controversial Kim Dotcom. “93.3% of 12,000 German votes declared Scholz a traitor.”

“The New York Times is part of the cover up,” replied another user on Twitter.

“Seymour has a long celebrated history of exposing evil (Google him),” noted a third, “and you can see how corrupt MSM is today trying to bury his Nordstream reporting.”

As for Kirby, his assurance that America’s hands were not involved in the Nord Stream 2 incident is being met with skepticism.

“WE INVESTIGATED OURSELVES AND WE FOUND NO WRONG DOINGS,” tweeted one user. “Kirby can’t even get himself to say the name of Seymour Hersh.”

https://twitter.com/Rome_Colt45/status/1638843110733262848?s=20

Melissa Fine

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