The WikiLeaks Mole
How a teenage misfit became the keeper of Julian Assange's deepest secrets - only to betray him
By David Kushner
January 6, 2014 9:00 AM ET
... Siggi still lives with his parents in a nondescript high-rise, sitting at his computer in a bedroom lined with stuffed animals, including an orangutan-size Garfield he bought for $2,000. But his jet-black Mercedes ML350 is parked outside, which, along with his recent conviction for sexual misconduct against a 17-year-old boy (he says the relationship was consensual), speaks to his bizarre double life.
The revelation of Siggi's role as an FBI snitch has polarized WikiLeaks insiders. When I met with WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson (Assange declined to talk for this story), he grew red in the face, dismissing Siggi as "a pathological liar," a party line echoed by the WikiLeaks faithful. "It all sounds rather absurd," Hrafnsson says, "to go and to spend all this time analyzing the absolute bullshit that is flowing out of this young man, who is so troubled that he should be hospitalized."
While other WikiLeaks insiders also question Siggi's credibility, they insist that his story can't be discounted, and there's more to it than the organization is letting on. Tangerine Bolen, founder of the whistle-blowing advocacy organization RevolutionTruth, which used to work closely with WikiLeaks, is among those who say the group's efforts to discredit Siggi are "patently false. They're scared. The fact is Siggi played a key role in the organization and was very close to Julian."
The truth, it seems, may be held in the leaks. Siggi has provided Rolling Stone with more than a terabyte of secret files he claims to have taken from WikiLeaks before he left in November 2011 and gave to the FBI: thousands of pages of chat logs, videos, tapped phone calls, government documents and more than a few bombshells from the organization's most heated years. They're either the real thing, or the most elaborate lie of the digital age ...
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-wikileaks-mole-20140106
