How Trump and his allies nominate with Russian propaganda – Mother Jones

The concept directly from the Soviet play book: Sprinkle wrong information and use it to influence the positions and government of the people of another country. this “Active Measures” It seems that the technology from the Cold War era has been resumed with disturbing success by the Kremlin in his attack on the 2016 presidential elections – and he repeated it in the tactics that President Donald Trump and his partners used the tactics and partners. Clint WhatsAppOld colleague at the Institute of Foreign Policy Research.

“Part of the reason that the active measures worked in these American elections is that the Supreme Leader has sometimes used Russian active measures against his opponents,” WhatsApp, a former client of the Federal Investigation Office, recently to attest To the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The key to this equation was RT and Sputnik International, which are news sponsored by the Russian state. Both only reach relatively small fans in the United States (RT IS Estimated About 8 million people via cable TV), but their influence has been largely amplified online, with their stories redeploy on what WhatsApp calls “gray” plot sites such as Breitbart News and Infowars. Twitter robots and other social media accounts hurt the stories. In many cases, Trump or his partners were martyred directly with fake Russian propaganda in a speech or interview. Here are some examples:

A false report on a terrorist attack at the NATO base in Türkiye: Last July, RT Sputnik was reported on a fire at the Incirlik base, which puts it as a potential sabotage. TWTTER accounts are published by Russian and supportive of Trump’s wrong reports, but the prevailing news organizations did not pick up the report because it was not true, as Watts explained In a piece of daily monster. However, in mid -August, Paul Manafort – the head of the Trump campaign at the time – corrected the story to a terrorist attack, A complaint on CNN The American media was not sufficiently covered. Politifact revealed Manafort’s allegations, noting that the Turkish authorities reported small and peaceful demonstrations outside the base, but there is no actual assault on the base.

The issue of fake email Benghazi: On October 10, Wikileaks released a set of emails that were hacked from the email account of the campaign president, John Bodista. At 5 pm Easter on that day, Sputnik News published a story About the leaked emails in the Clinton campaign, entitled “Hillary Confirmation: Be Benghazi” is preventable “; neglecting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” Almost an hour later, Trump told their supporters at a gathering in Pennsylvania that Clinton, a Sydney Blumentel ally, was described as a Benghazi attack, “It is certain that it can be prevented.” “This has come out a short time ago,” Trump said. Those words It was not actually Bluomantals Sputnik later deleted the story – but by that time, the title spread widely.

False allegations of voter fraud: RT has been trying to transfer the US electoral process since 2012 by calling the US fraudulent voting system, according to The designer version From the report, the Director of National Intelligence issued last January. In his testimony in the Senate, WhatsApp called this “first topic”, which was paid by Russian outlets. In October 2016, the Kremlin -controlled research company has distributed a strategic document that Russia should end its propaganda supporting the garment “instead of its messages about the voters’ fraud to undermine the legitimacy of the American electoral system and the damage of Clinton’s reputation in an attempt to undermine its president,” according to “A”. Reuters investigation.

In the same month, Trump strongly prompted the issue that the elections were forged; On October 17, Trump Tweet “Of course, there is widespread fraud in the range and before the election day.” The sources that his campaign indicated that all of them were exposed PolitifactWho indicated that Trump was tweet in 2012 about the dead voters who won Obama’s victory.

The Swedish attack that was not: Trump’s strategy of running for wrong information did not stop when he won the elections-and was not limited to Russian-owned media real estate: I also used Fox News reports in a similar way. In February, Trump seems to indicate a gathering in Florida The terrorist attack took place the day before in Sweden. Sweden itself had no idea what it means, and the Swedish embassy continued to request clarification. He mocked Twitter users, including many Swedes, Trump’s statement, with references ranging from IKEA to the Swedish chef from “MUPPTS”. Trump later said he was referring to the Fox news story about the violence committed by refugees. This reportWhich was broadcast on the night before the Trump gathering, did not mention a specific attack linked to terrorism; It focused on reports that rape and armed violence have increased since Sweden began obtaining a record number of refugees in 2015.

Advances to eavesdrop on phone calls pushed by Fox News: In March, although Trump’s claim about Trump Obama was exposed direct Claim Fox News Analyst Andrew Napoltano said that the British spies arrested Trump at the request of the former President Obama. Fox News later invented the Napoltano statement. Trump continued He repeated his conviction that eavesdroppingAlthough US and British intelligence officials insist that there is no basis for demands.

DNC SETH RICH employee was killed Trump’s allies recently pushed another story It started as a conspiracy theory On the Internet, it was nourished by Russian news. Sean Hanity from Fox broadcast several sectors that focus on the unprecedented prosecution that Rich was behind email leaks in the Clinton campaign and then killed because of his actions, although the police said he was probably killed in an attempt to steal. When the claims were completely exposed, Fox Retreat From its website – but not before that It is spread by Trump an ally And former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich. Even after Fox pulled the story, Gingrich I told the Washington Post“I think it is worth looking at.”

In his testimony in the Senate, WhatsApp indicated that Trump is vulnerable to more manipulation by the Russians: He warned that the Russian -related Twitter accounts are trying to actively involve the president by sending conspiracy theories to him. Watts said: “Until we get a fixed basis on reality and imagination in our country, get some agreement on the facts,” We will face a big problem. “