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

Concept directly from the Soviet play: plant false information and use it to influence the attitude of the people and government of another country. This “Active measures” The technique of the Cold War era, in the visible, resurrected with anxious success of the Kremlin as a result of an attack on the 2016 presidential election – and was repeated in the tactics used by President Donald Trump and its employees, according to Clint WattsSenior researcher at the Institute for Research of Foreign Policy.

“One of the reasons why active measures worked in these elections in the United States is that the chief commander from time to time used Russian active measures against his opponents,” – recently former FBI agent, the FBI agent, recently. testifies To the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The key to this equation was RT and Sputnik International, two Russian news agencies sponsored by the state. Both reach only a relatively small audience in the USA (RT According to estimates, it is achieved About 8 million people on cable television), but their influence has increased significantly on the Internet, and their stories were written about what Watts calls the “gray” conspiracy sites, such as Breitbart News and Infowars. Twitter bots and other accounts on social networks further strengthen history. And in some cases, Trump or his partners directly quoted fake Russian propaganda in speech or interviews. Here are a few examples:

A false report on a terrorist attack on the basis of NATO in Turkey: In July last year, RT And Sputnik each of them reported a fire based on Incirlik, creating it as a potential sabotage. Pro-Russian and pro-trample accounts on Twitter spread and increased false reports, but the main news organizations did not take the report, because it was not true, as Watts explained In a piece for Daily BeastNevertheless, in mid -August, Paul Manafort – the chairman of the Trump campaign at that time – emphasized the story with a terrorist attack, Salary on CNN that American media did not illuminate it. The politifact was debunked Managhaf’s allegations, noting that the Turkish authorities reported small, peaceful demonstrations outside the base, but no actual attack on the base.

The case of a false email Bengham: On October 10, WikiLeaks released a batch of emails, hacked from the account of email, Chairman of the campaign of John Podest. Around 17:00 east of the east that day, Sputnik News has published history On the leak of electronic letters of the Clinton of the campaign with the heading of Hillary Confident: Benghazi was “preventive”; The negligence of the State Department. ” After about an hour, Trump told the supporters at a rally in Pennsylvania that Clinton Ellie Sidney Blmental called Bengham's attack “almost certainly preventive”. “It just went a little back,” Trump said. These words There were not Blumenthal And the satellite later deleted the story – but by that time the title had spread everywhere.

False claims of common fraud with voters: RT has been trying to delegate the American electoral process since 2012, calling the US voting system fraudulent, according to Declassified version The director of National Intelligence published from the report in January. In his testimony, the Senate Watts called it the “number one theme” put forward by Russian retail outlets. In October 2016, controlled by the Kremlin, an analytical center that extended a strategic document, which said that Russia should put an end to its propaganda for Trump “and instead strengthen its reports on fraud with voters in order to undermine the legitimacy of the Clinton’s reputation in order to undermine its president” Reuters investigationField

In the same month, Trump stubbornly instructed that the elections were falsified; October 17 Trump Twisted “Of course, on the day of the election, a large -scale fraud with voters takes place.” The sources indicated by his campaign were refuted PolitifactWhich noted that in 2012 Trump also wrote on Twitter about the dead voters who won Obama.

The Swedish attack that was not: Trump's work strategy did not stop with false information when he won the election, and was not limited to the Russian properties of the media: he also used Fox News reports in a similar way. In February, Trump seemed to mean at a rally in Florida That a terrorist attack occurred last night in Sweden. Sweden himself had no idea what he had in mind, and the Swedish embassy extended his hand to ask for clarifications. Twitter users, including many Swedes, ridiculed Trump's statement, with links, starting from IKEA to the Swedish character of Shever from Mappeta. Trump later said that he had in mind the news of Fox about violence, allegedly perfect for refugees. This reportwhich was broadcast over the night before Trump’s rally, did not mention a specific attack related to terror; He focused on reports that the violence of rape and violence with the use of weapons has increased since in 2015 Sweden began to take a record number of refugees.

Listening to applications for listening to the personality of Fox News: In March, despite the fact that Trump was a statement that Obama was listening to the best US intelligence officers listening to Trump, the president absorbed to no avail Claim Fox News Analyst Andrew Napolitano that the British spies were listening to Trump at the request of the former President Obama. Fox News later disavowed the statement Napolitano. Trump continued Repeat his belief that he was listenedAlthough American and British intelligence officials insist that there are no grounds for claims.

Murder of an employee DNC Seth Rich: Trump's allies recently pushed out another story that begins as a conspiracy theory Online and were fed by Russian news agencies. Sean Hanniti Fox translated several segments devoted to the unreasonable statement that Rich was leaks on Clinton’s e -mail, and then killed for his actions, although the police said that he was probably killed in an attempt to rob. When the claims were completely refuted, Fox He pulled the story with his web site – but not earlier than he was The spread of Trump's ally And the former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich. Even after Fox pulled out a story, Gingrich told The Washington Post“I think it's worth looking.”

In his testimony of the Senate, Watts noted that Trump is vulnerable to further manipulations by Russians: he warned that Russian accounts on Twitter were actively trying to attract the president, sending him the theory of conspiracy. “Until we get a firm foundation for facts and fiction in our own country, we will not get some consent about the facts,” said Watts, “we will have a big problem.”