John McAfee: Yet Another Silenced Whistleblower or Deceptive 'Deep State' Operator?
10:51 GMT 15.07.2021 (Updated: 13:20 GMT 06.08.2022)
© REUTERS / Jorge Lopez
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Antivirus mogul John McAfee's death continues to trigger a heated debate with some observers suggesting he was a truth-seeker who fought against government corruption and others insisting that the businessman was merely a troll. Who was John McAfee and what did he know?
On 14 July, wife of British-American businessman John McAfee released his alleged suicide note, found after his death in a Spanish jail, insisting that it is "fake". She insists that her husband did not kill himself.
"The handwriting is suspect and I doubt the authenticity of the note", Janice McAfee wrote on Twitter. "It reads more like someone trying to imitate John's style of tweeting. And if this note was found in his pocket where are the markings of the note being folded into his pocket?"
The 75-year-old mogul was found dead in his prison cell on 23 June 2021 after a Spanish court ruled to extradite him to the United States to face federal criminal tax evasion charges and up to three decades in prison. According to El Pais, a preliminary autopsy concluded that McAfee died by suicide. It was reported that a note had been found in his pocket written in capital letters with several lines crossed out. It read: "I am a phantom parasite" and "I want to control my future, which does not exist".
Was McAfee 'Whacked' by the 'Deep State'?
McAfee's suicide was almost immediately questioned by observers and social media users who quoted his earlier posts warning that should he be found dead it would mean he was "whacked". The mogul claimed the US authorities wanted to kill him and make it look like suicide.
Europe should not extradite those accused of non-violent crimes to a court system so unfair—and prison system so cruel—that native-born defendants would rather die than become subject to it. Julian Assange could be next.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) June 23, 2021
Until the system is reformed, a moratorium should remain. https://t.co/tUociySmVy
The antivirus creator earlier alleged that he had evidence of "corruption within the American government" and attempts by the federal authorities to accumulate power in their hands at the expense of ordinary Americans' freedoms.
Corruption within the American Government pic.twitter.com/VyWIpqKKbm
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) June 14, 2019
To add to the controversy, hours after the Spanish media reported about McAfee's death, a new post appeared on the businessman's verified Instagram account displaying a large letter "Q". The mogul had not updated his Instagram since November 2019.
"It is unclear if the post was a scheduled one created by McAfee himself, or if a member of his entourage was tasked with posting it", Vice suggested on 24 June. "Either way, the QAnon community ran with it". QAnon is a conspiracy theory largely blamed for the 6 January Capitol siege.
According to Vice, there are several theories concerning McAfee's mysterious death: one says that he was killed by the "deep state", another one insists that he is still alive, and that the anonymous poster known as "Q" was the software tycoon himself. Some people suggested that the programmer was "snatched by Q" because he wrote the encryption that protected the Dominion voting machines at the centre of the controversy surrounding the 2020 presidential election.
Janice McAfee, a wife of John McAfee, flanked by her lawyer Javier Villalba, speaks to media as she leaves the Brians 2 prison where her husband was found dead in his prison cell after the Spanish high court had authorised his extradition to the U.S., in Sant Esteve Sesrovires, Spain June 25, 2021.
© REUTERS / ALBERT GEA
'A Hedonistic Corporatist'
Did McAfee really possess damning information exposing widespread corruption within the US government? Jason Goodman, an American investigative journalist and founder of Crowdsource the Truth does not think so.
"I do not believe a single thing he has ever said", Goodman says. "McAfee was an expert at talking a lot and saying very little. He could hold an audience rapt for hours but leave them having learned nothing at all. Saying this or that government agency is corrupt is like saying there is air pollution. Who is causing it, what's the mechanism, how are we affected, how can we stop it? These are pertinent questions. None of these questions are answered by the things McAfee typically spewed".
The investigative journalist notes that it appears odd to him that John McAffee has become a "prominent internet counterculture hero", a "whistleblower" or a "truth-seeker", when in fact being "a hedonistic corporatist himself".
"His history of employment at 'deep state'-linked corporations like Booz Allen Hamilton and Lockheed Martin should cause the sceptical reader to consider his motives carefully", Goodman notes.
When it comes to apparent secrets in McAfee's possession, one needs to bear in mind that his software could indeed provide him with unprecedented access to a wide range of personal computers and the information on them just at the time these devices were becoming pervasive in modern life, according to the journalist.
"The implications from a spying standpoint are clear but who McAfee could have been spying on remains unknown", he suggests. "Even his own likely fabricated 'whistleblower' story relies on the acceptance of the premise that he had access to many people's digital information. McAfee was surrounded by social engineers like alleged former CIA Robert David Steele, former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, and unhinged YouTube personality, [and] self-described former McAfee employee George Webb".
McAfee & QAnon
Goodman is not surprised that McAfee's name was eventually associated with the QAnon conspiracy: "It is precisely this type of disinformation that I would expect from McAfee, even posthumously", the journalist remarks.
According to Goodman, the mixture of QAnon, McAfee, and Dominion Voting Systems' role in the 2020 election "is red meat for the masses". For his part, the journalist believes it is necessary to separate wheat from chaff: there should be a comprehensive investigation into the 2020 election results and private firms delivering voting equipment, according to him.
Dominion Voting Systems denies the assumption that its machines could have been involved in alleged voter fraud and filed a defamation lawsuit against US lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani who accused the company of ballot manipulation.
"Why didn't Lin Wood, Sidney Powell, or even Rudy Giuliani simply challenge Dominion Voting Systems based on Dominion's own claims?", asks Goodman. "They hold a patent titled 'Electronic correction of voter-marked paper ballots'. The patent abstract describes 'Methods, systems, and devices are described for electronically correcting votes made on voter-marked paper ballots'. I must ask of all these formerly high-priced and now largely discredited attorneys, why didn't they simply challenge Dominion's own claims based on these legal facts? I for one would like to know how many times Dominion's own software routine was invoked and how many voter-marked paper ballots were determined to be marked 'incorrectly' by the artificial intelligence described in Dominion Voting Systems' own patent".
Now, when some US states are proceeding with 2020 election audits or adopting ID laws to ensure election integrity, conspiracies surrounding McAfee only serve to distract the public's attention and "diminish legitimate claims of election fraud", according to Goodman, who sees the software mogul as, possibly, "a deceptive deep state operator himself".
