Grok says: <\/p>\n
Michael Hastings, the journalist behind the explosive Rolling Stone piece \u201cThe Runaway General\u201d that toppled General Stanley McChrystal in 2010, was a live wire in the years before his death on June 18, 2013. His final months were a whirlwind of intense work, personal turbulence, and a creeping paranoia that friends and family later flagged as uncharacteristic. Here\u2019s what was swirling around him before that fiery crash in Los Angeles.
\nHastings was deep into his craft, chasing stories that poked the powerful. At the time of his death, he was a BuzzFeed staff writer, digging into a profile of CIA Director John Brennan for Rolling Stone. Brennan was a big fish\u2014the architect of Obama\u2019s drone program and a key player in tracking journalists and their sources. Hastings\u2019 last BuzzFeed post, dated June 7, 2013, \u201cWhy Democrats Love to Spy on Americans,\u201d ripped into the NSA\u2019s surveillance machine, sparked by Edward Snowden\u2019s leaks. He was rattled by the government\u2019s pursuit of whistleblowers\u2014his friend Jeremy Scahill\u2019s film Dirty Wars screenings, which he attended, only fueled that fire. On June 17, he emailed colleagues at BuzzFeed, blind-copying a military pal, Staff Sgt. Joe Biggs, saying he was \u201conto a big story\u201d and needed to \u201cgo off the radar.\u201d He added that the feds might be sniffing around his circle\u2014pure Hastings, always suspecting the worst.
\nHis personal life was a mess too. Hastings had a history of substance struggles\u2014sober from alcohol for 14 years by 2013, per the coroner\u2019s report, but he\u2019d started dabbling again. Family told investigators he\u2019d picked up drugs about a month before, possibly meth (traces of amphetamine showed up in his system, though not enough to cause the crash) and maybe DMT, a hallucinogen. His brother Jonathan flew to LA on June 17 to stage an intervention, fearing a \u201cmanic episode\u201d tied to drugs or trauma. Hastings had been institutionalized for rehab in 1999, and his fianc\u00e9e\u2019s death in a 2007 Baghdad bombing left scars\u2014PTSD, some said. His widow, Elise Jordan, later called it \u201cemotional volatility,\u201d not suicidal intent, though he\u2019d once bragged about feeling \u201cinvincible,\u201d like he could leap off a balcony and walk away.
\nThe paranoia spiked in those final days. Friends like Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks said he was \u201cincredibly tense,\u201d convinced his Mercedes was being tampered with. USA Today reported he told people he was scared and wanted out of LA. Hours before the crash, he hit up WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson, hinting at trouble. Then, around 4:25 AM on June 18, his car smashed into a palm tree on Highland Avenue at over 100 mph, erupting in flames. The coroner said he died instantly from blunt force trauma\u2014skull fractures, a torn aorta\u2014not the fire or drugs. No note, no clear why.
\nWhat was going on? Hastings was a man on edge\u2014pushing a big story, wrestling old demons, and seeing shadows. Some scream conspiracy (the FBI denied investigating him, despite a FOIA\u2019d file showing they\u2019d tracked his work since 2012). Others, like Jordan, call it a tragic fluke\u2014a crash, not a hit. Either way, he was a pressure cooker: brilliant, battered, and burning out fast.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grok says: Michael Hastings, the journalist behind the explosive Rolling Stone piece \u201cThe Runaway General\u201d that toppled General Stanley McChrystal in 2010, was a live wire in the years before his death on June 18, 2013. His final months were … Continue reading