Prior to his death, the late-journalist Michael Hastings was working on an exposé on Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan, San Diego 6 reports .
The article, first confirmed by Hastings’ widow Elise Jordan on CNN, is expected to be published in an upcoming issue of Rolling Stone.
Brennan was implicated in an alleged internal email from private intelligence firm Stratfor, published by Wikileaks, as the head of the federal government’s crackdown on investigative journalists when he served as the White House’ counter-terrorism adviser.
The email was obtained from a December 2011 hack against the firm by the hacktivist collective Anonymous.
While the CIA confirmed that Hastings was working on the story about Brennan, the agency denied allegations that he was hunting down investigative journalists.
One of the hackers allegedly involved in Stratfor hack, Jeremy Hammond, is currently facing a maximum sentence of up to a decade in federal prison and a $2.5 million fine, under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, for his role in the hack.
