Marcy Wheeler, an independent journalist (who some may remember around dKos as emptywheel), wrote an extraordinary post on her blog today. In it, she describes sharing information with the FBI about someone she had reason to believe was helping the Russians interfere with the 2016 election.
She reveals that she’s received threats:
Several times since I first considered sharing information with the FBI, I’ve asked my attorney to contact the FBI to tell them of what I perceived to be a real threat that arose from sharing that information. One of those times, I let law enforcement officers enter my house without a warrant, without me being present.
(If the last sentence strikes you as odd, it’s because Wheeler is a privacy advocate— her letting law enforcement into her house sans warrant is a sign that her worries about her safety are significant).
Her post is about the negligence of the GOP to take the Russian investigation seriously, essentially putting her life (and, she points out, the lives of other people who’ve provided information) at risk.
It infuriates me to observe (and cover) a months-long charade by the House GOP to demand more and more details about those who have shared information with the government, at least some of whom were only trying to prevent real damage to innocent people, all in an attempt to discredit the Mueller investigation. As someone who has worked to rein in dragnets for over a decade, I’m all the more disgusted to see so many lifelong cheerleaders of surveillance pretend to care now.
But the post also reads to me as a genuine “If something happens to me...” insurance note. Marcy Wheeler is not an intellectual lightweight nor a conspiracy type— if she’s gotten threats she thinks are credible, I’m inclined to believe her. Read the post.
Oh, also, she points out that Putin won on Syria.