How Trump and His Allies Have Run With Russian Propaganda – Mother Jones

This concept is directly inspired by the Soviet playbook: planting false information and using it to influence the positions of the people and government of another country. this “Active measures” The Kremlin’s Cold War-era style appears to have been revived with alarming success in its attack on the 2016 presidential election, and that has been echoed in the tactics used by President Donald Trump and his cronies, according to Clint Wattsa senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

“Part of the reason active measures have been so successful in this U.S. election is that the commander-in-chief has used Russian active measures at times against his opponents,” Watts, the former FBI agent, said recently. to attest To the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Key to this equation are RT and Sputnik International, two Russian state-sponsored news outlets. Both only reach relatively small audiences in the United States (RT is… He is able to arrive About 8 million people via cable TV), but their influence has been greatly amplified online, with their stories republished on what Watts calls “gray” conspiracy websites like Breitbart News and InfoWars. Twitter bots and other social media accounts amplify stories. In several cases, Trump or his associates have directly cited false Russian propaganda in a speech or interview. Here are some examples:

False report of a terrorist attack on a NATO base in Türkiye: last July, R.T Both Sputnik and Sputnik reported a fire at the Incirlik base, describing it as a possible act of sabotage. Pro-Russia and pro-Trump accounts spread on Twitter and amplified the false reports, but major news organizations did not pick up the report because it was not true, Watts explained. In a piece for The Daily Beast. However, in mid-August, Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman at the time, escalated the story to a terrorist attack. Complaint to CNN And the American media was not covering it adequately. The policy has been exposed Manafort’s allegations, noting that Turkish authorities reported small peaceful demonstrations outside the base, but that there was no actual attack on the base.

Benghazi fake email case: On October 10, WikiLeaks published a batch of hacked emails from campaign chairman John Podesta’s email account. Around 5 p.m. Eastern time that day, Sputnik News published a story About leaked Clinton campaign emails titled “Hillary’s Best Friend: Benghazi Could Have Been Prevented.” The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is negligent.” About an hour later, Trump told supporters at a rally in Pennsylvania that Clinton ally Sidney Blumenthal called the Benghazi attack “almost certainly preventable.” “This came out a little while ago,” Trump said. Those words It wasn’t actually Blumenthal Sputnik later deleted the story – but by then the headline had gone viral.

False claims of widespread voter fraud: RT has been trying to delegitimize the American electoral process since 2012 by describing the American voting system as fraudulent, according to Reuters. Declassified version From the report issued by the Director of National Intelligence last January. In his Senate testimony, Watts called this the “number one topic” pushed by Russian media. In October 2016, a Kremlin-controlled think tank circulated a strategy document that stated that Russia should end pro-Trump propaganda “and instead intensify its messaging about voter fraud to undermine the legitimacy of the US electoral system and damage Clinton’s reputation in an attempt to undermine it.” Presidency,” according to A Reuters investigation.

In the same month, Trump strongly emphasized the idea of ​​election fraud; On October 17, Trump chirp “Of course there is widespread voter fraud occurring on and before Election Day.” All sources cited by his campaign have been debunked politicalwhich noted that Trump also tweeted in 2012 about dead voters setting up Obama’s victory.

The Swedish attack that was not: Trump’s strategy of dealing with false information didn’t stop when he won the election — and it wasn’t limited to Russian-owned media: He also used Fox News reporting in a similar way. In February, Trump appeared to be hinting at a rally in Florida That a terrorist attack had occurred the night before in Sweden. Sweden itself had no idea what he meant and the Swedish embassy contacted them to ask for clarification. Twitter users, including many Swedes, mocked Trump’s statement, with references ranging from IKEA to the Swedish chef character from the movie “The Muppets.” Trump later said he was referring to a Fox News story about violence allegedly committed by refugees. That reportwhich aired the night before Trump’s rally, did not mention a specific terrorism-related attack; It focused on reports of increased cases of rape and armed violence since Sweden began receiving a record number of refugees in 2015.

Wiretap Allegations Pushed by Fox News Personality: In March, although Trump’s claim that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower was directly debunked by top US intelligence officials, the president seized on the baseless lie. Claim by a Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano said that British spies eavesdropped on Trump at the request of former President Obama. Fox News later disavowed Napolitano’s statement. Trump continued to do so He reiterated his conviction that he had been eavesdropped onAlthough US and British intelligence officials insist there is no basis for these allegations.

Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich killed: Trump’s allies recently pushed another story: It started as a conspiracy theory Online and fueled by Russian media. Fox’s Sean Hannity aired several segments focusing on the unsubstantiated claim that Rich was behind the Clinton campaign email leaks and then killed for his actions, although police said it was likely he was killed in an attempted robbery. When these allegations were completely debunked, Fox I backed away from the story From its website – but not before Spread by a Trump ally and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Even after Fox withdrew the story, Gingrich He told the Washington Post“I think it’s worth looking into.”

In his testimony before the Senate… Watts noted that Trump is vulnerable to further manipulation by the Russians: He warned that Twitter accounts linked to Russia are actively trying to co-opt the president by sending him conspiracy theories. “Until we get a solid foundation of fact and fiction in our country, and we get some agreement on the facts, we’re going to have a big problem,” Watts said.