BREITBART’S RED MURDER
[Note: this is a collaboration between me and Dagny D’Anconia. I am indebted to her for much of this — JW]
On February 9, 2012, in Washington DC, Andrew Breitbart told Sinclair News, "Wait ‘til they see what happens on March 1st."
Yet, instead of the release of what he predicted would be "damning" evidence of Obama perfidy, what happened on March 1st was a horribly unexpected tragedy: Andrew Breitbart suddenly died. He was 43. The Coroner of Los Angeles County states he died of natural causes, specifically heart failure. Did he?
A lot of people don’t think so – especially when a coroner who participated in Mr. Breitbart’s autopsy, Michael Cormier, died of arsenic poisoning on the very day the Coroner’s Report was released (April 20).
Conspiracy theorists had a field day – but it was all suspicion with no specifics. Until now. What you are about to read is going to completely blow you away. Here is how Andrew Breitbart could have been easily murdered, and who could have murdered him.
First, let’s watch this short video. It is an interview of Christopher Lasseter, the eyewitness who saw Breitbart collapse and die outside The Brentwood, a bar-restaurant in West LA.
So, we know that Andrew Breitbart’s face was bright red when he died. That is not the face of heart failure. Heart failure causes ashen, bluish or pale skin. That is a fact, and no amount of wishing Andrew Breitbart died of simple heart failure will make that stubborn fact go away.
Given that he did not die of simple heart failure, and had alarmingly red skin, what are the necessary implications? Something must have caused the reddening. It was not alcohol, because he only had one glass of pinot noir prior to his death.
But note also, that in addition to Breitbart’s bright red face, the eyewitness saw a band of bloodless white skin around the top of his head. Several poisons cause a sudden reddening of the skin and a sudden collapse. Of them, there is one in particular that can cause this.
Moreover, this one particular poison is readily available everywhere in America, without any order being made to a chemical supply house. I could get my hands on this substance in a matter of minutes in any neighborhood.
Only 700 mg, less than three-quarters of a gram, are needed to cause death. It is odorless, tasteless, and highly soluble in water. There would be no trouble dissolving this in a glass of red wine. It is not stable in vivo and would be gone by the time the autopsy was performed. There are many other possible poisons which could also have been used, but this one in particular is very accessible.
It’s the propellant in your car’s airbag. Automotive airbags contain tens of grams of sodium azide. How can less than a gram kill you? The lethal biochemistry is: "Azide inhibits cytochrome oxidase by binding irreversibly to the heme cofactor in a process similar to the action of carbon monoxide. Sodium azide particularly affects organs that undergo high rates of respiration, such as the heart and the brain."
In the Symptoms of Sodium Azide Chemical Poisoning, note two: skin redness and reduced blood pressure. The latter could account for the "white band" above his bright red face.
Sodium azide is especially toxic to the heart and hence causes a rapid extreme drop in blood pressure. Breitbart may not have had enough blood pressure to pump blood up to the top of his head, so that blood would drain down, and he would faint. If the heart stopped at that time, the poisoned blood would never be pumped to the top part of his head, hence the white band on top.
Note that symptoms such as blisters are caused by exposure to dust and would not occur if it were drunk – say, in a glass of wine.
So, what was Andrew Breitbart doing just before he died? Having a glass of wine with a stranger, a man whom he had never met before, at the bar of The Brentwood.
The stranger was Arthur Sando. The New York Times identifies him as a mere "marketing executive," treating as a mere bystander. In fact, the stranger who just happened to have a glass of wine with Breitbart, then left the murder scene just before his collapse and death, has a very relevant and interesting past that has not been previously reported:
Arthur Sando was a political person from the start, with a degree in Political Science and a "native of Washington DC." He started out as a news anchor, bouncing from one station to another back in the 1970’s in Philadelphia and New York. In January of 1977 he landed a job as Press Secretary to a member of the House of Representatives. Presumably he was working for one of the 36 Democrat representatives who lost their position in January of 1981 in the election that brought Ronald Reagan to power. Thus when the Reagan Revolution arrived, he lost his job.
He was immediately picked up by Turner Broadcasting as their first Public Relations Director. After that he was VP of Corporate Affairs at COMSAT, and then Senior Vice President at King World Productions and then Winstar Communications. After that he was named Senior Vice President at CBS Television Distribution from January 2001 to January 2007. This was certainly the big time for him. Apparently it was paved by his contacts working on the Democrat side of the House of Representatives.
Sando is now 64, so in 2007 he was about 60 years of age when he left or was asked to leave his high level job at CBS. However, he kept somewhat active with his own consulting firm, helping arrange a tribute to Ted Turner last year. He also was a media representative for an old friend who had been a Turner and CBS executive.
Quite often when someone has their own consulting firm it can be thought of as the same thing as "looking for a job". There were no more high level positions for him through the great recession. Eventually, in August last year, Sando took a job as VP of Corporate Communications at MonaVie. This was a substantial step down from his illustrious past.
In fact, he was now working for an apparent pyramid marketing scheme run from Salt Lake City by Mormon executives. FEC records show these executives gave money primarily to Republicans. How the mighty have fallen! Having to work for Republicans for the first time, at a much lower level of prestige, and for a multilevel marketing operation that is widely thought to be a pyramid scam. I suspect he must have needed the money.
Further evidence of needing money was his willingness to give an interview on Breitbart’s death to an obscure on line news site, in an apparent trade for advertising for MonaVie. Immediately after the interview is an advertisement for MonaVie. In that interview he appeared nervous and ill at ease, with incongruent eye accessing cues. He could have been interviewed by CBS et al, but chose that obscure website.
Also strange is his statement that he did not recognize Andrew Breitbart. "I couldn’t place him." How could anyone "Well-versed in traditional and new media, has deep roots in television, maintains wide-ranging media contacts and keeps eye on big picture while attending to details," not recognize Andrew Breitbart? This is especially true of a politically connected person like Arthur Sando. He does not appear to be telling the truth.
Arthur Sando’s history paints a picture of a jealous, 4 year out of work lefty denizen of DC and media. It looks like he was forced to take a job with a Mormon pyramid scheme to pay the bills. He may have lost his cushy congress job long ago for some Democrat representative in the Reagan Revolution sweep. Talk about bitter! Andrew Breitbart epitomized and empowered the Tea Party Revolution. While Breitbart rose in wealth, stature and political success, Arthur Sando lived the opposite. And now Breitbart was about to unveil a video that would destroy Obama.
This is not to accuse Mr. Sando of anything, much less murder. It is only a possibility that he could have slipped a tiny yet lethal amount of odorless, tasteless, soluble sodium azide into Breitbart’s wine in those last critical minutes as Breitbart frequently checked his blackberry. Sando had motive, opportunity, connections, and no alibi for his being there. He claims he was just driving along home and stopped to have a drink there, for no particular reason, "on impulse." Thus he has no excuse, no alibi, for being there.
But it is just a possibility, not an accusation. There was the waitstaff at the bar, other people were around who joined in a conversation with the famous Breitbart. Whoever it was, the sodium azide must not have been put in until there was little wine left in the glass.
Since just 50 to 60 mg of the poison causes non-fatal collapse within 5 minutes, the full dose would have to be drunk in the last part of the glass or the collapse would happen before a full dose was administered. That also means the administration of the poison into the wine glass had to be within the last 5 minutes before his collapse.
As Breitbart neared the end of his glass of wine, Arthur Sando paid his bill and left the bar. One or two minutes later Breitbart also paid and left, walked across the street in a normal manner, and then collapsed and died. Arthur Sando seems to be the only one with access to the glass of wine during that critical last few minutes.
Remember that the facts are stubborn things. Breitbart did not die of simple heart failure. While the coroner’s report stated death by heart failure, no coronary artery blood clot was found nor evidence of a stroke. His skin was bright red. We have a witness who repeatedly stated that he saw the red skin, with that band of blood-drained white skin above.
Who else saw the red skin? You would think that the staff at the hospital he was taken to would have seen it. However, the hospital he was supposedly taken to (Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center) did not show his admission and at one point denied he had been admitted. Hospital staff would have recognized the signs of poisoning. However, it appears Andrew Breitbart’s corpse was not taken inside there where it could be seen, red skin and all.
Who else would have seen the red skin? The hospital referred inquiries to the Coroner’s office.
Michael Cormier was a technician in the Coroner’s office whose job was to photograph corpses and autopsies as well as assist in them. He might have seen Breitbart’s red skin. He might have taken photographs of Breitbart’s skin. It was his job.
A few days before the Coroner’s report was to be released, Cormier had excruciating stomach pains and checked himself into the Kaiser Permanente hospital. They kept him for observation overnight and then released him the next day. Shortly thereafter he fell ill again and this second time he died. The apparent cause of death is arsenic poisoning. As he was incapacitated and dying the release of the coroner’s report was announced for the next day.
Thus Michael Cormier would not be able to object to anything in the report, nor would he be able to produce any photographs or other witnesses names.
Cormier also had registered a DBA as an autopsy consultant. Exposing the story on Breitbart would have meant a lot of work for his consulting firm.
Ed Winter, the Los Angeles Coroner’s Assistant, has stated that Cormier had nothing to do with the Breitbart autopsy. Ed Winter is the person who made the "natural causes" announcement on Andrew Breitbart in just hours after Breitbart’s death, and long before the autopsy could have been performed. (Recall that the cause of death for Whitney Houston took many weeks.) Ed Winter is also the man who claims that Breitbart was pronounced dead at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
Ed Winter’s job is to talk to the press on behalf of the Coroner’s office. Thus Ed Winter has had a long string of celebrity overdose press conferences over the years. Indeed, Ed Winter is a Hollywood celebrity in his own right. The LA County coroner’s office is unique in that it is the only one in the world to have its own tacky gift shop called Skeletons in the Closet.
Does the Coroner’s office have its own skeletons in the closet? How could they possibly miss the bright red skin of Breitbart? How could one of their own photographers die from poisoning, possibly after a second murder attempt when the first one failed?
Andrew Breitbart said "Wait till they see what happens March 1st." "Breitbart told WND at CPAC that the not-yet released videos included footage of Ayers and Obama openly discussing revolution while Obama was a student at Harvard Law School." Yet what was actually released was something quite different and less inflammatory: Obama introducing a radical professor named Bell.
"’The video did not seem as earthshattering as Breitbart initially claimed it to be, just weeks before the 43-year-old unexpectedly passed away at his home last Thursday,’" the New York Daily News observed. The bombshell was never able to be launched by Breitbart. Apparently someone could not let him get to the sunrise of March 1st to launch it.
It might be more comforting to think Andrew Breitbart died of simple heart failure, but his bright red skin stands as mute testimony to the truth. As Sherlock Holmes/Conan Doyle stated "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." The collapse and resulting heart failure was due to poison, possibly the one that fits the symptoms and is easily available everywhere.
One person in a position to administer it was a likely bitter, financially strapped, big media has-been, Democrat operative. Whoever administered the sodium azide was not, however, a lone wolf. Michael Cormier’s murder points to others involved in Breitbart’s Red Murder. At least now, conspiracy theorists have something to sink their teeth into.