Biden and German Chancellor Scholz met behind closed doors, and there was no press briefing of the type we usually see when foreign heads of state meet the president. Mr. Hersh reports:
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 agency was “to pulse the system” in an effort to discount the claim that Biden had ordered the pipelines’ destruction.
About the time of Scholz’s visit the NY Times floated a story , obviously sourced by the CIA, that a Pro-Ukrainian group blew up the pipeline .
Some of the doubts and criticism aimed at Hersh’s piece, especially the fact that it appears to rely on a single source, are valid, but Hersh has a long track record of breaking major stories about covert operations and U.S. war crimes. And he has frequently proved his critics wrong. Hersh’s narrative also has the benefit of abundant public circumstantial evidence in the form of statements by the president and his advisers appearing to threaten to take out the pipeline and then gloating once it was destroyed. The U.S. had the motive and the means to carry out the operation.
And there are very few that had the motive and the means to do this, Fred. Think about how difficult it would be to pull this off. It almost certainly had to be a state actor that did this.