Luke Harding | |
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| Born | 21 April 1968 (1968-04-21) (age 57) Nottingham (United Kingdom) |
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| Occupation | Journalist,writer, foreign correspondent |
| Employer |
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| Works | Mafia State,The Snowden Files,WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy |
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Luke Daniel Harding (born 21 April 1968) is a British journalist who is aforeign correspondent forThe Guardian. He is known for his coverage ofRussia under Vladimir Putin,WikiLeaks andEdward Snowden.
He was based inRussia forThe Guardian as their Moscow bureau chief from 2007 until, returning from a trip out of the country in 2011, he was refused re-entry to Russia and deported the same day.[1] His 2011 bookMafia State discusses his experience in Russia and the political system underVladimir Putin. His subsequent books includeWikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy andThe Snowden Files.
Harding was educated at theUnited World College of the Atlantic in South Wales,[2] then studied English atUniversity College, Oxford. While there he edited the student newspaperCherwell. He worked forThe Sunday Correspondent, theEvening Argus in Brighton and then theDaily Mail before joiningThe Guardian in 1996.[3]
He has lived in and reported fromDelhi,Berlin, andMoscow, and has covered conflicts inAfghanistan,Iraq, andLibya.[4] In 2014 he was the recipient of the James Cameron prize for his work on Russia,Ukraine,WikiLeaks, andEdward Snowden.[5]
In 2007,The Guardian retracted one of his articles for containing text "substantially similar to paragraphs" in another article, published earlier that year inThe eXile.[6]
Harding moved to Russia asThe Guardian's Moscow bureau chief in January 2007.[7] On 5 February 2011, Harding was refused re-entry into Russia following a trip to the UK. According to Harding, this made him the first foreign journalist to be expelled from Russia since the end of theCold War.The Guardian said his expulsion was linked with his unflattering coverage of Russia, including speculation aboutVladimir Putin's wealth and Putin's knowledge of the London assassination of ex-Russian spyAlexander Litvinenko.[8] The director ofIndex on Censorship,John Kampfner, said: "The Russian government's treatment of Luke Harding is petty and vindictive, and evidence – if more was needed – of the poor state of free expression in that country."[9] Elsa Vidal, head of the European and Central Asia desk at the media freedom watchdog, was quoted inThe Washington Post as saying: "This is a serious and shocking step, unprecedented since the Cold War [...] It's an attempt to force correspondents working for foreign media in Moscow to engage in self-censorship."[10]
However, on the following day, Russian Foreign MinisterSergei Lavrov explained at a press conference that no visa cancellation had taken place and the problem had been caused by the fact that Harding's visa had expired, a statement disputed by Harding due to his visa being valid until May of that year.[11] According to Lavrov, Harding had requested an exceptional visa extension until May which was approved. Lavrov also added that Harding had previously broken the rules of his press accreditation by visiting the area ofcounter-terrorism operations without informing the relevant security authorities.[12]
The expulsion preceded a visit to Britain by Lavrov, which led to suggestions fromLabour MPChris Bryant that the British government might rescind Lavrov's invitation.[13] On 9 February, Russia reversed the decision not to re-admit him[8] although it only granted him a short term visa. Harding chose not to seek a further visa and returned to the UK in February.
Harding has said that during his time in Russia he was the subject of largely psychological harassment by theFederal Security Service, whom he alleges were unhappy at the stories he wrote.[14]
In 2011, the bookWikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy, written by Harding andDavid Leigh, was published by Vintage Books in the US and Guardian Faber in the UK.[15] On 1 September 2011, it was revealed that an encrypted version of WikiLeaks' huge archive of un-redactedUS State Department cables had been available viaBitTorrent for months and that thedecryption key had been published by Leigh and Harding in their book.[16][17][18]WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy was made into a Hollywood film,The Fifth Estate (2013). Wikileaks said that the film was "careful to avoid most criticism of US foreign policy actually revealed by WikiLeaks" and covered "almost none of the evidence WikiLeaks published ... of serious abuses within the US military and the State Department".[19]
Harding's book onEdward Snowden,The Snowden Files (2014), was reviewed byThe New York Times'sMichiko Kakutani,[20] who observed that it "reads like a le Carré novel crossed with something by Kafka. . A fast-paced, almost novelistic narrative. . .. [The book] gives readers . . a succinct overview of the momentous events of the past year. . . . Leave[s] readers with an acute understanding of the serious issues involved". Additionally, it received positive reviews from several other major publications, includingThe Guardian,[21] theLondon Review of Books,[22] and theWashington Post,[23] as well as a mixed review fromThe Daily Telegraph'sDavid Blair.[24] It was adapted into a film,Snowden, directed byOliver Stone and starringJoseph Gordon-Levitt, released in September 2016.
In 2016, Harding publishedA Very Expensive Poison, an account of themurder of the Russian ex-KGB whistle-blower and Putin criticAlexander Litvinenko. The book garnered a positive response from reviewers, including fromThe Spectator,[25]The Guardian,[26]The Times,[27] andLondon Review of Books;[28] Robert Fox, writing for theEvening Standard described it as "one of the best political thrillers [he had] come across in years".[29]Lucy Prebble adapted the book for the stage. A production ran atThe Old Vic theatre, London, from August to October 2019.[30]
In November 2017, Harding publishedCollusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win on the subject ofRussian interference in the 2016 United States elections. The book examines thedossier by former British spyChristopher Steele, and alleges thatTrump was the subject of at least five years of "cultivation" by Soviet/Russian intelligence services prior to his election, and possibly by theKGB as soon as 1987.[31][32] In May 2021, formerThe New York Times reporterBarry Meier publishedSpooked: The Trump Dossier, Black Cube, and the Rise of Private Spies, which cited the Steele dossier as a case study in how reporters can be manipulated by private intelligence sources; Meier named Harding and MSNBC'sRachel Maddow as examples.[33]
On 27 November 2018, Harding co-authored an anonymously sourced article forThe Guardian claiming thatJulian Assange andPaul Manafort met several times at the Ecuadorian embassy in 2013, 2015, and 2016 possibly in relation to the2016 Democratic National Committee email leak.[34] Manafort and Assange both denied that they had ever met, and Manafort saidThe Guardian had "proceeded with this story even after being notified by my representatives that it was false".[35] According toGlenn Greenwald citingTommy Vietor, "if Paul Manafort visited Assange at the Embassy, there would be ample amounts of video and other photographic proof demonstrating that this happened.The Guardian provides none of that."[36] No other news organization was able to corroborate the story,[37] and according to Paul Farhi ofThe Washington Post, "[T]heGuardian’s bombshell looks as though it could be a dud".[37]
In 2020, Luke Harding published the bookShadow State, covering Russian covert operations, from thepoisoning of Sergei Skripal by theGRU, to digital influence operations.[38] Harding describes how, in his view, Trump has made the United States “uniquely vulnerable” to the disinformation techniques employed by the Kremlin. According to David Bond, Harding'sShadow State also "raises fresh questions about the way the UK government has handled claims ofKremlin interference in Britain’s democratic processes."[39]
In July 2021, Harding,Julian Borger, andDan Sabbagh announced thatThe Guardian had received adocument allegedly leaked from the Kremlin. The document, said to have been produced on January 22, 2016, appears to authorize Putin's plan for Russian interference in the 2016 US election on behalf of "mentally unstable" Donald Trump. The document apparently confirms the existence ofkompromat on Trump and matches some incidental details already known about Russian interference.[40] According toAndrei Soldatov, the leaked material is "consistent with the procedures of the security services and the security council".[40] Philip Bump of theWashington Post was skeptical of the document's veracity because it was "convenient for generating enthusiasm", contains predictions of destabilization that would have been difficult to make in advance, and because the 2016 document contains discussion of "how Russia might insert 'media viruses' into American public life" when these efforts had in fact been underway since at least 2014.[41] Experts on Russian disinformation and propaganda encouraged caution.[42]
Harding published a book about theRussian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 calledInvasion, covering the first part of the conflict from February until September 2022 and based on Harding's reporting from the frontlines.[43]
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