Journalist Investigating CIA Director Dies in Suspicious Car Hack Crash

On June 18, 2013, a Mercedes C250 wrapped itself around a palm tree on a Los Angeles street at 4:25 AM. The driver, Michael Hastings, was pronounced dead at the scene. Hastings was no ordinary victim of a traffic accident—he was an investigative journalist who had just published a Rolling Stone profile that forced General Stanley McChrystal to resign from command in Afghanistan. At the time of the crash, he was investigating CIA Director John Brennan.

The official story was straightforward: Hastings had been driving recklessly at high speed and lost control of his vehicle. The Los Angeles Police Department ruled it an accident. Case closed. No criminal charges. No further investigation.

But the narrative fractured almost immediately. Hours before the crash, Hastings had contacted colleagues at Buzzfeed, his employer, with an urgent message. He said the FBI was investigating him and he needed to go "off the radar." He mentioned erratic behavior from his car. He was frightened. Then he was dead.

Richard Clarke, the former National Security Advisor and counterterrorism czar under Presidents Clinton and Bush, made a striking observation. In an interview with HuffPost, Clarke stated that the crash was "consistent with a car cyber attack." He didn't speculate wildly. He simply noted that someone with the right skills could remotely manipulate a vehicle's acceleration, braking, and steering. At the time, this sounded like science fiction to most people.

Then Vault 7 happened. In March 2017, WikiLeaks released thousands of classified CIA documents. Among them were detailed descriptions of the CIA's Vehicle Exploitation program—a toolkit that gave CIA operatives the ability to hack into and remotely control vehicles, including late-model Mercedes sedans. The capability Hastings's colleagues feared. The capability Clarke said was possible. It had existed all along.