Journalist Michael Hastings reportedly working on story about CIA chief before death

This undated photo provided by Blue Rider Press/Penguin shows award-winning journalist and war correspondent Michael Hastings. (AP)

Journalist Michael Hastings, who was killed in a fiery car crash in June, reportedly had been working on several big stories including one on CIA Director John Brennan before his death.

San Diego 6 News reports that Hastings had focused his latest project on Brennan, the former White House counterterrorism adviser and current CIA director.

Hastings' wife Elise Jordan also told CNN that a Brennan piece from her late husband will soon be published in Rolling Stone magazine.

San Diego 6 News also reported on a purported email from a CIA contractor which said Brennan was behind "witch hunts of investigative journalists" and someone from the White House was targeting anyone printing material "negative to the Obama agenda."

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A CIA spokesperson told San Diego 6 News, though, that "any suggestion that Director Brennan has ever attempted to infringe on constitutionally-protected press freedoms is offensive and baseless." Another spokesman said the CIA had a cordial relationship with Hastings.

In the early morning of June 18, Hastings was driving a Mercedes C250 when he lost control in Los Angeles' Hancock Park neighborhood, causing the car to fishtail and crash into a tree. The 33-year-old was killed.

Conspiracy theories surrounding Hastings' death began to circulate almost immediately.

On Twitter and several sites across the web, speculation was rampant that the death of Hastings -- whose 2010 article for Rolling Stone led to the resignation of U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then head of the U.S. operation in Afghanistan -- was no accident.

But LAPD officials said in June that no foul play was suspected in the fatal accident, though that did little to quell theories about his death.