Journalist Michael Hastings, the 2010 George Polk Award winner known for covering the war in Afghanistan and an exposé that led to the resignation of General Stanley McChrystal, died in a brutal, one-car, fiery accident on Tuesday. The coroner positively identified Hastings’ body today shortly after WikiLeaks announced that Hastings was being investigated by the FBI.
WikiLeaks posted on Twitter.com, “Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him.” However, according to USNews.com, LA field office spokeswoman Ari Dekofsky would “ neither confirm nor deny FBI investigative activity.”
Foul play is not suspected, writes the LATimes.com, but conspiracy theories abound, and the investigation is ongoing. With all of the recent leaks of top-secret government information, Hastings, who wrote about the hotly debated NSA surveillance program, may simply have been one of many reporters being looked at by the FBI. Yet given the government’s seizure of news agencies’ phone records, it could be more.