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The Russians have infiltrated the Republican Party

A. B. Man III
10/12/2020

The Republican Party was once a great party that is no longer the case. They once stood up to Russia, they told the American people how much stronger they were at protecting and defending America from the Russians and others threats to America than the Democratic Party. The Russians have infiltrated the Republican Party, the NRA, white evangelicals and white nationalist in attempt to sow division in America, and the Republican Party have welcome them with open arms. If the Republican Party cannot protect itself from being infiltrated by the Russians, how can they protect us from the Russian or other enemies?

Trump, the Republican Party, Fox News and right-wing media are using lies, alternative facts, propaganda and in some cases Russian propaganda against the American people to win elections to stay in power, in the process they are helping Putin and the Russian while destroying our institutions, our democracy and the trust of the American people in our institutions. Anyone who uses using lies, alternative facts and propaganda is a threat to our democracy.

Trump openly shows his support of Putin and Russia over America every time he supports Putin over America, our soldiers, our intelligent agencies and our allies. Add to that the fact that Fox News host Tucker Carlson admitted he 'roots for Russia against the west tells you all you need to know these people are not real Americans they are traitors. Make no mistake about it anyone who uses Russian propaganda against us, roots for or supports our enemies over our country is our enemies and are traitors to America.

When you have a sitting president, Republican senators, Republican congressional representatives, Fox News and right-wing using Russian propaganda and talking points to attack democrats and protect Trump you have to wonder how deep Russia has infiltrated the Republican Party and the right-wing establishment. If the place where you get your news uses alternative facts or Russian propaganda, you should find a news source for your news.

No one in America would have thought the day would come that Americans would need to worry about the Republican Party being infiltrated by a hostile foreign power well that day has come and every American should worry about how deep the Russians have infiltrated the Republican Party. The Republican Party may cast the Democratic Party as a threat but the real threat to America is the Republican Party. If Americans wants to save our democracy and our institutions, we need to vote out Trump and his enablers, and anyone who uses alternative facts and Russian propaganda to sow division and chaos in our country if we do not vote these traitors, we will lose our democracy.

Learn more about how the Russians have infiltrated the Republican Party and the right-wing to sow division and chaos in an attempt to destroy our democracy.

Story by Richard Hall and Andrew Feinberg

In the summer of 2015, three Syrian girls who had narrowly survived an airstrike some weeks earlier stood before Tulsi Gabbard with horrific burns all over their bodies.

Gabbard, then a US congresswoman on a visit to the Syria-Turkey border as part of her duties for the foreign affairs committee, had a question for them.

“How do you know it was Bashar al Assad or Russia that bombed you, and not Isis?’” she asked, according to Mouaz Moustafa, a Syrian activist who was translating her conversation with the girls.

It was a revealing insight into Gabbard’s conspiratorial views of the conflict, and it shocked Moustafa to silence. He knew, as even the young children did, that Isis did not have jets to launch airstrikes. It was such an absurd question that he chose not to translate it because he didn’t want to upset the girls, the eldest of whom was 12.

“From that point on, I’m sorry to say I was inaccurate in my translations of anything she said,” Moustafa told The Independent. “It was more like: How do I get these girls away from this devil?”

Before Gabbard left the Democratic Party, ingratiated herself with Donald Trump and secured his nomination to become director of National Intelligence, she was known as a prolific peddler of Russian propaganda.

Yale University History Professor Timothy Snyder joins MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart to discuss why pro-Putin propaganda is so prevalent in the Republican Party.
Story by Jon Passantino and Sean Lyngaas, CNN

Where did the money go?

The right-wing social media stars who were allegedly paid millions of dollars in a nefarious Russian influence operation to shape public opinion around the 2024 US presidential election are remaining mum.

Last week, the Justice Department alleged that Russian state media producers funneled nearly $10 million to an unnamed Tennessee-based company, later determined by CNN to be Tenet Media, to create and amplify content that often featured narratives and themes supported by the Kremlin. Tenet Media boasts a slate of high-profile right-wing, pro-Trump commentators including Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson and several others.

While the indictment doesn’t directly name or accuse the influencers of wrongdoing, or state that they knew at the time that the money was part of a Russian influence operation, it alleged two employees of RT, the Russian state media propaganda outlet, paid nearly $10 million to hire the “talent” and create social media videos promoting its agenda. All of the figures have said they did not know the funds originated with the Kremlin and had no idea they were being employed for the purpose of amplifying pro-Russia narratives. The influencers all say they are “victims,” and that the FBI has contacted them for voluntary interviews.
Story by Sally Reed

Disinformation and controversy swirled as U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene proposed an amendment to crucial aid for Ukraine that critics say aligns suspiciously with Russian talking points.

MTG Proposes Controversial Ukraine Amendment
Marjorie Taylor Greene stunned observers by proposing an amendment to strip funding from Ukraine unless the country lifts restrictions on the Hungarian minority's language rights.

The controversial amendment specifically cites the Hungarian population in Transcarpathia, a region in western Ukraine.

Criticism of Ukraine's Education Law
Hungarians make up 12.1% of Transcarpathia's population and have criticized Ukraine's 2017 education law requiring Ukrainian as the language of instruction in state schools.

Greene's amendment echoes the complaints of Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has sought to expand his influence over ethnic Hungarians living outside Hungary's borders.
Story by David Badash

A sitting Republican Congressman is harshly criticizing far-right House Republicans over their apparent support of Russia.

“I guess their reasoning is they want Russia to win so badly that they want to oust the Speaker over it. I mean that’s a strange position to take,” U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a three-term Texas Republican rated a hard-core conservative told CNN’s Manu Raju, in video posted Thursday. “I think they want to be in the minority too. I think that’s an obvious reality.”

Congressman Crenshaw was referring to the movement led by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), now joined by U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), over the Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s decision to finally put legislation on the floor to provide funding to Ukraine to support that sovereign nation in its fight against Russia.

“I’m still trying to process all the b*llsh*t,” Crenshaw added.

Crenshaw on Thursday also commented on Speaker Johnson’s remarks, stating he will hold the Ukraine funding vote regardless of attempts to oust him over it.
Story by Aaron Blake

During the first impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump in 2019, former Trump national security aide Fiona Hill made an extraordinary plea. Seated in front of congressional Republicans, she implored them not to spread Russian propaganda.

“In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests,” she told them. She was referring to comments they had made during her earlier deposition breathing life into a baseless, Trump-backed suggestion that Ukraine, rather than Russia, interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.

“These fictions are harmful even if they’re deployed for purely domestic political purposes,” she added.

Republicans on the committee blanched at the suggestion that they had served as conduits for Russian misinformation, but Hill refused to back down.
Story by Matthew Chapman

On Thursday, following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's historic address to the U.S. Congress, conservative writer Nick Catoggio tore into the wing of the Republican Party that has increasingly embraced Russia and Vladimir Putin rather than the cause of fighting for the preservation of global democracy, in a scorching article for The Dispatch.

"If you're a post-liberal populist, particularly of the Very Online variety, watching Putin go belly-up in Ukraine has dashed all sorts of political illusions," wrote Catoggio. "Your faith that strongmen are the best, most competent instrument for achieving political prerogatives is shaken. Your belief that woke Western militaries are no match on the battlefield for fascist machismo looks silly. Your hope of a great authoritarian victory over Ukraine that might inspire Americans to embrace nationalism and reject the global liberal order has disappeared along with 100,000 or so Russian soldiers."
Opinion by Julia Davis

The midterm elections in the United States were a hot topic in Moscow. Convinced that the “red wave” was coming, Russian propagandists rushed to take credit for the anticipated landslide victory that would ensure Republican majority in Congress and Senate. The midterm elections in the United States were a hot topic in Moscow. Convinced that the “red wave” was coming, Russian propagandists rushed to take credit for the anticipated landslide victory that would ensure Republican majority in Congress and Senate.

This plan to discredit the U.S. elections and convince the Republicans that the mighty Kremlin hand covertly helped push them to victory had backfired. On Wednesday, state TV propagandists were scratching their heads about the wave that turned out to be but a trickle. During the broadcast of 60 Minutes, host Olga Skabeeva asked an expert: “How are our guys in America?” Political scientist Vladimir Kornilov clarified with a chuckle: “Our Republicans.”
By Darragh Roche

Video of the late Senator John McCain (R-AZ) saying that Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) was working for Russian President Vladimir Putin has garnered renewed attention online after Paul single-handedly blocked a vote on a new aid package to Ukraine on Thursday. A C-SPAN video of McCain's remarks in 2017 was shared to Twitter on Thursday by patient advocate Peter Morley, Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko and other social media users. "So I repeat again - the senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin," the late senator said in the short video. In the clip, McCain was discussing NATO membership for the Balkan nation of Montenegro. Paul had blocked a vote to ratify a treaty that would have allowed Montenegro to join the U.S.-led military alliance by refusing to agree to unanimous consent. During those remarks on the Senate floor in 2017, McCain said that Paul "has no argument to be made. He has no justification for his objection to having a small nation be part of NATO, that is under assault from the Russians."
Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and former FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi discuss the need to battle Russian disinformation within the United States.
Their thoughts on Russia and Ukraine, in their own words
Only 5 percent of Republicans support Russia over Ukraine, but the MAGA wing of the GOP has continually sided with Putin and against Ukraine. Current and former elected officials, candidates for office, and media figures who are popular with the MAGA base have a history of pro-Russia comments. Now, they have decided that they should disparage Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelenskyy despite Russia’s invasion. Some of them have walked back their comments once they saw Putin’s war machine target innocent people, but many still see Russia as an ally. We’ve collected their quotes below to make sure they can never forget where they stood.
by Albert Hunt

Russia’s unprovoked war upon Ukraine is causing a political schizophrenia for many Republicans. They assail President Biden as too weak in taking on Russia, but don’t want to offend their own party’s leader, Donald Trump, a fan of Vladimir Putin. Most of all, they don’t want this crisis to interfere with their plans to take back control of Congress in the midterm elections. Rattling Trump’s cage isn’t in that playbook. You can see their contortions in plain view — and by a little monitoring of their preferred venue, Fox News. During the State of the Union — always a political Kabuki dance — Republicans applauded the Ukrainians during that part of the president’s speech, but didn’t look happy about it: House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) seemed busy checking messages on his phone; Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) looked even stiffer than usual, and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) appeared to smirk.
In Republicans’ own words.
By David Leonhardt

Donald Trump turned Vladimir Putin into a popular figure among a significant segment of Republican voters. As a candidate, president and ex-president, Trump has repeatedly praised Putin, calling him “strong,” “savvy” and “genius.” Trump has also echoed Putin’s ideology, by harshly criticizing NATO. Taking their cue from Trump, some Republican voters began to view Putin more favorably. A YouGov poll in January found that Republicans viewed Putin more favorably than they viewed President Biden, Kamala Harris or Nancy Pelosi. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has changed the situation, damaging his popularity in the U.S., even among Republicans. If anything, many Republican voters say they wish the Biden administration would take more aggressive action to help Ukraine, according to the Pew Research Center. Yet Trump’s effect on Putin’s popularity has not entirely disappeared: There is still a meaningful faction of Republican elites who feel an affinity for the Russian president. Today’s newsletter looks at this faction. Representative Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican and frequent Trump critic, describes it as “the Putin wing of the G.O.P.” It both admires him as a strong leader and likes his right-wing nationalism, including his opposition to NATO, Western liberalism and L.G.B.T. rights.
by Emily Brooks

A handful of House Republicans have been voting against bills aimed at holding Russia accountable for its invasion of Ukraine, giving Democrats an avenue to accuse the GOP of harboring a faction that is sympathetic to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Six Republicans on Wednesday opposed a bill directing the government to collect evidence “related to war crimes and other atrocities committed during the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.” Every other member of the House present voted “yes.” The six Republicans who voted “no” were Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Warren Davidson (Ohio), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Scott Perry (Pa.). The bill was considered days after images of civilians dead in the streets of towns and suburbs surrounding Kyiv emerged as Russian troops left those areas and the Ukrainian military moved in.
At a Washington Marriott, the nationalist wing of the Republican Party wrestles with what Putin’s war means for their movement.
By Jacob Heilbrunn

J.D. Vance was on the warpath. “Using American power to do the dirty work of Europe is a pretty bad idea,” he told a crowd on Thursday, warning against the U.S. getting more involved in Ukraine. “We don’t have that many non-insane people in Washington. I need you to be some of them.” Vance wasn’t speaking at a campaign stop in Ohio, where he is running for the U.S. Senate, but at the Marriott Marquis hotel in downtown Washington. The audience consisted of over one hundred mostly younger conservatives, and he was sounding the alarm about not just foreign intervention, but about other conservatives — the worrisome resurgence of the Republican establishment.
By Jonathan Chait

Sixty-three House Republicans voted earlier this week against a resolution expressing support for NATO. That might sound extreme, but a subsequent vote last night exposed a smaller and even more hard-core faction: Six Republicans voted against a bill simply calling on the president to document evidence of Russian war crimes. This bill does not commit the United States to war with Russia over its war crimes. It does not propose any retaliatory sanctions. It merely requires a report. That even this modest step goes too far reveals the full extent of the far right’s functional support for Russian atrocities. Before the war, Russia commanded widespread admiration on the American right. Donald Trump repeatedly praised Vladimir Putin as a “strong” leader, social conservatives praised his advocacy of Christian values, and even traditional Republican hawks like Ted Cruz expressed envy for the manly appearance of the Russian army in contrast to the “woke, emasculated” U.S. military.
By Joanna Robin in Washington DC

On the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, conservative media commentator Tucker Carlson used his nightly Fox News platform to ask why the Democratic establishment was being hostile towards Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Since the day that Donald Trump became president, Democrats in Washington have told you it’s your patriotic duty to hate Vladimir Putin," Carlson said. "Anything less than hatred for Putin is treason." He mused that hating Putin had become "the central purpose of America’s foreign policy", which, he argued, could force the United States into a conflict in Eastern Europe — something no one from either side of politics has called for. Mr Carlson insisted his audience ask themselves: "Why do I hate Putin so much? Has Putin ever called me a racist?" more...
Republicans are the anti-American party

While most U.S. officials have expressed support for allies in Kyiv, Madison Cawthorn said Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a “thug” leading an “evil” government.
By Steve Benen

As the crisis in Ukraine continues, most elected officials in the United States have expressed support for their allies in Kyiv. There are however, some notable exceptions. WRAL in North Carolina reported this morning on Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who told a group of supporters this past weekend that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a “thug” leading an “evil” government. more...
Is Tucker Carlson for or against America? Why Tucker Carlson always side with Russia against America?

Peter Suciu

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) took to Twitter late Tuesday to joke that he was going to start a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to send Fox News Channel's Tucker Carlson to Russia. "Thinking about starting a @gofundme to send @TuckerCarlson to Russia. RT if we should send him," Rep. Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) tweeted. Swalwell was hardly the only person on social media to respond to Carlson's Tuesday night broadcast, in which the host suggested that Russia's build-up of forces on its border with Ukraine was a defensive move. Carlson said that Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin "just wants to keep his western borders secure." more...
“Who’s the potential counterbalance against China, which is the actual threat? Why would we take Ukraine’s side, why aren’t we on Russia’s side?” Carlson exclaimed on Wednesday.
Justin Baragona

Fox News host Tucker Carlson grilled a GOP congressman on Wednesday night for urging American military support to Ukraine amid increased Russian aggression. And at one point, Carlson wondered “why we would take Ukraine’s side and not Russia’s side” in the conflict. In recent days, Russia has greatly increased its military presence at the Ukraine border, raising alarms in Washington and Kyiv over the troop buildup. The White House has told Moscow reigniting the conflict with the U.S. ally would be a “serious mistake,” and Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) has further called on the Biden administration “to immediately provide support to the Ukrainians to help de-escalate this dangerous situation.” more...
By Jan Wolfe

WASHINGTON, Sept 20 (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors on Monday unsealed criminal charges against two longtime Republican Party operatives, accusing them of illegally funneling a foreign campaign contribution to former President Donald Trump in 2016.

According to an indictment unsealed in federal court in the District of Columbia, Jesse Benton and Doug Wead "conspired to illegally funnel thousands of dollars of foreign money from a Russian foreign national into an election for the Office of President of the United States of America." more...
By Jack Stubbs

LONDON (Reuters) - The Russian group accused of meddling in the 2016 U.S. election has posed as an independent news outlet to target right-wing social media users ahead of this year’s vote, two people familiar with an FBI probe into the activity told Reuters. The latest operation centred around a pseudo media organisation called the Newsroom for American and European Based Citizens (NAEBC), which was run by people associated with the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, the sources said.

U.S. prosecutors say the agency played a key role in Russian efforts to sway the 2016 election in favour of President Donald Trump, and Facebook and Twitter exposed a fake left-wing media outlet in September which they said was run by people connected to the organisation. NAEBC and its activity, which have not been previously reported, now show that Russian attempts to influence U.S. voters ahead of the 2020 election have targeted both sides of the political divide.

The website predominantly focused on U.S. politics and current events, republishing articles from conservative media and paying real Americans to write about politically-sensitive issues. A network of accounts posing as editors and journalists then promoted the articles on social media sites favoured by right-wing users. more...
A nearly 1,000-page report confirmed the special counsel’s findings at a moment when President Trump’s allies have sought to undermine that inquiry.
By Mark Mazzetti

WASHINGTON — A sprawling report released Tuesday by a Republican-controlled Senate panel that spent three years investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election laid out an extensive web of contacts between Trump campaign advisers and Kremlin officials and other Russians, including at least one intelligence officer and others tied to the country’s spy services.

The report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, totaling nearly 1,000 pages, drew to a close one of the highest-profile congressional investigations in recent memory and could be the last word from an official government inquiry about the expansive Russian campaign to sabotage the 2016 election.

It provided a bipartisan Senate imprimatur for an extraordinary set of facts: The Russian government disrupted an American election to help Mr. Trump become president, Russian intelligence services viewed members of the Trump campaign as easily manipulated, and some of Mr. Trump’s advisers were eager for the help from an American adversary. more...
The 11 Hour
U.S. intelligence officials say that it was Russia who hacked the DNC in the 2016 elections, but some Republicans are still using a favorite talking point of the Kremlin to suggest it could have been Ukraine. Philip Rucker reacts.
Deadline White House
The Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes on the lengths congressional Republicans are going to in order to protect Donald Trump
John Kennedy and Roger Wicker’s comments are a taste of what’s to come during a Senate trial.
By Aaron Rupar

The consensus conclusion of the US intelligence community is that the Russian government was responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s campaign during the 2016 election. This finding was affirmed by a bipartisan Senate investigation and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who in painstaking detail laid out how Russian intelligence officers helped Trump not only through hacks, but also with the ensuing WikiLeaks anti-Clinton propaganda campaign featuring the emails stolen during those hacks.

Nonetheless, nearly three years after the US intelligence community first announced this consensus conclusion, Republicans senators are publicly trying to gaslight people about what happened in 2016 by insisting that purported — but in reality nonexistent — Ukrainian election interference is just as concerning as what Russia did. Their aim appears to be twofold: justifying the conspiracy theories Trump tried to leverage the Ukrainian government into investigating (and that are at the heart of the House’s impeachment inquiry), and drawing into question whether Trump actually benefitted from foreign interference. “I’m saying that Ms. Hill is entitled to her opinion”

That Republican senators are choosing this moment to push unfounded Ukrainian interference conspiracy theories is particularly galling in light of Russia expert and former National Security Council official Fiona Hill’s testimony before impeachment investigators last Thursday. Hill used her opening statement to attack Republicans for indulging in unfounded conspiracy theories. She described the Ukrainian interference notion as “a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves,” adding, “I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternative narrative that the Ukrainian government is a US adversary, and that Ukraine — not Russia — attacked us in 2016.”
By Jenni Fink

Former Director of the United States Office of Government Ethics Walter Shaub said that Fox News host Tucker Carlson's rooting for Russia in the Ukraine conflict shows a shift in contrasting opinions in America. "This clip is just one more exhibit supporting the case that it's no longer left vs. right but democracy vs. authoritarianism," Shaub tweeted on Tuesday. "I think many still underestimate the threat to the republic."

On Monday night, Carlson had Richard Goodstein, who served as an adviser to both President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on his show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, to discuss impeachment. During the segment, Carlson said he supported Russia and asked Goodstein why people should have to root for Ukraine.

"Those of us that are watching think preserving democracy is important," Goodstein said. "Russia is trying to undo our democracy. They're jealous of us." Goodstein also pointed to a comment former Vice President Dick Cheney made at The Economic Times' Global Business Summit in 2017.

Cheney said there was no question that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government tried to interfere with America's "basic fundamental democratic process." The Russians' interference in the 2016 election, Cheney said, would be considered an "act of war" in some quarters.

Carlson pushed back against the threat level Goodstein assigned to Russia, asking him if he thought Russia was a greater threat to the United States than China. The former Clinton adviser characterized the two countries as threats in different ways. While China was a threat to America economically, our democracy, according to Goodstein, hinges on Ukraine being able to stop the Russians' impositions against Western Europe.
Washington Post

Over the past month, House Republicans and Fox News personalities have echoed each other’s talking points, decrying the impeachment inquiry as a “Soviet-style” process. Video Read more: https://wapo.st/2CfobnF.
Casey Michel

The group and its origins sound innocuous enough. But the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) — a right-wing group founded 36 years ago — has deepened connections between America’s religious right and Russians even as the latter have been sanctioned by the United States, according to a ThinkProgress investigation.

By networking with Russians, the HSLDA — now America’s largest right-wing homeschooling association — has provided the Kremlin with a new avenue of influence over some of the most conservative organizations in the United States. And while investigations by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, intelligence organizations, and congressional committees have focused on Russia’s efforts to influence U.S. elections, Russian ties to groups like the HSLDA demonstrate the Kremlin’s broader attempts to hold sway over American policies.

Other ties between sanctioned Russians and the American far-right are well documented. From Christian fundamentalists to white supremacists to secession movements to fascists in the so-called “alt-right,” the links are as diffuse as they are damning. Not only have these networks brought Russian agents into close contact with higher-ups in the Republican party, but they’ve presented some of the primary threads of the Kremlin’s efforts at upending and unwinding American democracy. more...
Outing “the whistleblower” is the most egregious, but certainly not the only, example of Kremlin-funded media cheerleading the fight against impeachment. They love “their” Trump.
By Julia Davis

Standing beside an approving Donald Trump at a rally in Kentucky on Monday night, Republican Sen. Rand Paul demanded the media unmask the whistleblower whose report about the president’s alleged abuse of power dealing with Ukraine sparked impeachment proceedings.American news organizations resisted the pressure, but—in a 2019 re-play of “Russia, if you’re listening”—Kremlin-controlled state media promptly jumped on it.

Shortly after Sen. Paul tweeted out an article that speculated in considerable detail about the identity of the whistleblower—with a photograph, a name, and details about the purported political history of a CIA professional—Russian state media followed suit. As if on cue, the Kremlin-controlled heavy hitters—TASS, RT, Rossiya-1—disseminated the same information. But unlike Rand Paul, one of the Russian state media outlets didn’t seem to find the source—Real Clear Investigations—to be particularly impressive, and claimed falsely that the material was published originally by The Washington Post.

This was the most egregious, but certainly not the only example of Kremlin-funded media cheerleading for Trump’s fight against impeachment as proceedings against him unfold with growing speed. As a chorus of talking heads on Fox News have picked up on Trump’s talking points, which is predictable—they’ve also been echoed across the pond, albeit with a tinge of irony. “Have you lost your minds that you want to remove our Donald Ivanovych?” asked Vladimir Soloviev, the host of the television show Evening with Vladimir Soloviev.

“When they say that Trump is weakening the United States—yes, he is. And that’s why we love him.”
— Karen Shakhnazarov, CEO of Mosfilm Studio and a prominent fixture on Russian state television

Russian experts, government officials, and prominent talking heads often deride the American president for his Twitter clangor, haphazard approach to foreign policy, clownish lack of decorum, and unfiltered stream of verbalized consciousness. But all the reasons they believe Trump “isn’t a very good president” for America are precisely their reasons for thinking he is so great for Russia.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a Russian client whose regime teetered on the brink of collapse only to be saved definitively by Trump’s chaotic approach to the Middle East, recently said that “President Trump is the best type of president for a foe.” The Russians heartily agree. The Trump presidency has been wildly successful for Russia, which is eagerly stepping into every vacuum created by the retreat of the United States on the world stage. Full Story
Sen. Chris Murphy called out the GOP for using Moscow’s conspiracy theories to defend President Donald Trump.
By Ed Mazza

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called out the Republican Party for advancing Russian conspiracy theories as it continues to defend President Donald Trump during the impeachment inquiry. “Call me old fashioned, but I think it’s a little unsavory the Republican Party is becoming the most important global asset of Russian intel,” Murphy tweeted on Sunday. “I get it, Russia’s bonkers ‘Ukraine did it, not Russia’ story is all the GOP has to defend their guy, but really?”

Murphy’s tweet came hours after one of his Senate colleagues essentially repeated a debunked Russian talking point on “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “I think both Russia and Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said. “I think it’s been well-documented.” He also claimed that Ukraine’s former president, Petro Poroshenko, had been actively working for Hillary Clinton.

As host Chuck Todd pointed out, the U.S. intelligence community has implicated only Russia for 2016 election interference and recently warned senators that Moscow was trying to frame Ukraine for it. “You realize the only person selling this argument outside the United States is ... Vladimir Putin?” Todd said. “You’ve done exactly what the Russian operation is trying to get American politicians to do. Are you at all concerned that you’ve been duped?” more...
Russians went looking for allies on the American left for decades. Then they found Trump and the Republicans
Lucian K. Truscott IV

The Russians wasted decades infiltrating the left attempting to gain purchase in American political life. There was the Communist Party USA, of course. Established in 1919, the CPUSA grew through the 1930s and boasted a membership of about 100,000 at the beginning of World War II. A hundred thousand! Whoop-de-doo!

Then there were the spinoff lefty parties like the Socialist Workers Party, the Progressive Labor Party, the Workers World Party, the Socialist Labor Party, the Progressive Labor Party — we could go on listing one splinter group after another with “socialist” or “labor” or “workers” in its title. They were tiny groups with memberships that were sometimes less than 100, and they would all deny being infiltrated by the Russkies, naturally. So would the “New Left” groups that came later, like SDS and The Weathermen. Nobody wanted to admit they were under Russian influence. Everything they were doing, from opposing the war in Vietnam to civil rights to fighting for free speech, was being done for completely pure reasons. more...
By Rachel Frazin

A new report by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee alleges that the National Rifle Association (NRA) "became a foreign asset" for Russia ahead of the 2016 election. The document published Friday says that the NRA and its officers, board members and donors "engaged in a years-long effort to facilitate the U.S.-based activities of Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin," despite being aware of the two Russian nationals' ties to the Kremlin. "The scope of the NRA’s support for these Russian activities raises concerns about whether the activity in which the NRA, its officers and board members engaged were in furtherance of the organization’s exempt purpose," it said.  

Last year, Butina pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of the Russian government. Torshin is a Russian banker and former politician.  The report cited a series of emails between NRA officials and and interviews conducted during the 18-month investigation. One 2015 email seen by NRA executives said "Many powerful figures in the Kremlin are counting on Torshin to prove his American connections–a last minute important member cancellation could affect his political future." The Senate Democrats also found that over a years-long period, "NRA officers and board members directed organization resources toward facilitating the activities of Butina and Torshin in the United States." The report also raised questions about an NRA delegation's travel to Moscow in December 2015.  "The NRA initially reimbursed some trip expenses," it said. "In 2018, after Senator Wyden first asked the NRA about its relationship to Torshin, the organization sought reimbursement ... to get trip expense payments 'off the NRA’s books.' " Democrats said that the report shows wrongdoing by the gun rights organization. Full Story
When the U.S.S.R. collapsed, Washington bet on the global spread of democratic capitalist values—and lost. For two years, in the early 1990s, Richard Palmer served as the CIA station chief in the United States’ Moscow embassy. The events unfolding around him—the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the rise of Russia—were so chaotic, so traumatic and exhilarating, that they mostly eluded clearheaded analysis. But from all the intelligence that washed over his desk, Palmer acquired a crystalline understanding of the deeper narrative of those times.

Much of the rest of the world wanted to shout for joy about the trajectory of history, and how it pointed in the direction of free markets and liberal democracy. Palmer’s account of events in Russia, however, was pure bummer. In the fall of 1999, he testified before a congressional committee to disabuse members of Congress of their optimism and to warn them of what was to come. American officialdom, Palmer believed, had badly misjudged Russia. Washington had placed its faith in the new regime’s elites; it took them at their word when they professed their commitment to democratic capitalism. But Palmer had seen up close how the world’s growing interconnectedness—and global finance in particular—could be deployed for ill. During the Cold War, the KGB had developed an expert understanding of the banking byways of the West, and spymasters had become adept at dispensing cash to agents abroad.

That proficiency facilitated the amassing of new fortunes. In the dying days of the U.S.S.R., Palmer had watched as his old adversaries in Soviet intelligence shoveled billions from the state treasury into private accounts across Europe and the U.S. It was one of history’s greatest heists. Washington told itself a comforting story that minimized the importance of this outbreak of kleptomania: These were criminal outliers and rogue profiteers rushing to exploit the weakness of the new state. This narrative infuriated Palmer. He wanted to shake Congress into recognizing that the thieves were the very elites who presided over every corner of the system. “For the U.S. to be like Russia is today,” he explained to the House committee, “it would be necessary to have massive corruption by the majority of the members at Congress as well as by the Departments of Justice and Treasury, and agents of the FBI, CIA, DIA, IRS, Marshal Service, Border Patrol; state and local police officers; the Federal Reserve Bank; Supreme Court justices …” In his testimony, Palmer even mentioned Russia’s newly installed and little-known prime minister (whom he mistakenly referred to as Boris Putin), accusing him of “helping to loot Russia.” Full Story
A Justice Department filing details a Russian influence scheme possibly related to the Trump-Russia scandal.
By David Corn

With so much attention justifiably focused on Robert Mueller’s report this past week, not as much notice was paid to a parallel matter regarding another Russian effort to influence policy and politics in the United States: the pending sentencing of confessed Russian agent Maria Butina. But a document filed in that case provides context for understanding the Trump-Russia scandal, and it reads a bit like a spy thriller. In preparation for a sentencing hearing for Butina scheduled for this coming Friday, the Justice Department submitted a memo requesting that Butina, who faces a maximum sentence of five years and a $250,000 fine, be imprisoned for 18 months.

This document depicts Butina running a covert operation to obtain influence for Russia in the United States—with a key target being the National Rifle Association. In contrast, the Mueller report did not explain the counterintelligence aspects of the Trump-Russia scandal. That is, the report did not cover whether the curious series of interactions between the Trump camp and Russians during the campaign were part of a Moscow scheme to penetrate Trump’s circle to develop access and influence. (The report did state that the “Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion” and noted that Trump denied the attack was underway while seeking to benefit from it.) Counterintelligence investigations—different from criminal inquiries—rarely become public and often depend on top-secret material that the US intelligence community hates to reveal. Yet it was a counterintelligence concern that first triggered the FBI investigation of contacts between Trump associates and Russians in the summer of 2016. US intelligence wanted to know if Putin’s regime was attempting to get its hooks into Trump or people within his orbit.

Though this matter was left unaddressed by the Mueller report, the Justice Department filing in the Butina case details how Butina, the thirtysomething Russian native who described herself as a gun rights advocate, had used the NRA and the Republican Party in an effort to obtain clandestine influence for Moscow within US politics. And that submission included a statement from a former top FBI counterintelligence expert who noted that Butina’s activities had “tremendous intelligence value” for the Russian government and the potential for “harm to the integrity of the United States’ political processes and internal government dealings, as well as to US foreign policy interests and national security.” The Justice Department memo is essentially a primer on how an influence operation is conducted.

Noting that Butina was an agent of Alexander Torshin, a former Russian senator and a governor of Russia’s Central Bank who was a longtime ally of Vladimir Putin (and who has been accused of having ties to the Russian mob—an allegation he has denied), the submission says that Butina looked for “key information about Americans who were in a position to influence United States politics and took steps to establish an unofficial line of communication between Russia and these Americans.” And, it asserts, her activities were “part of Russia’s broader scheme to acquire information and establish relationships and communication channels that can be exploited to the Russian Federation’s benefit.” Note the reference to “Russia’s broader scheme”—which could possibly include the contacts detailed in the Mueller report. Butina was something other than the usual secret agent, according to the filing: Full Story
Trump’s Russian ties and Russian strategy converged in 2016 as Russia and the Trump campaign colluded to land him in the Oval Office.
It is now apparent that there was no bright line separating the two campaigns to elect Donald Trump. Throughout his presidential campaign, members of Trump’s inner circle had secret conversations and meetings with numerous Kremlin-linked individuals, which they repeatedly lied about or failed to disclose. Though much about these contacts remains unknown, what is known provides strong evidence that the Kremlin and the Trump campaign were in continual communication.

A pro-Russia candidate: From the day he entered the race, June 16, 2015, Trump staked out a pro-Russia platform. Trump told Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly that his experiences with Russians in Moscow led him to believe that “you can get along with those people and get along with them well.” Over the course of the next month, Trump made similar on-air comments to Fox News’s Sean Hannity and in a speech at the City Club of Chicago. On July 11, he made his first direct reference to repealing sanctions when responding to a question from Maria Butina, a graduate student who the U.S. Department of Justice later identified as an alleged Russian agent. Butina also allegedly infiltrated the National Rifle Association and other conservative groups on behalf of the Russian government. (Butina has pleaded not guilty to the charges and, as of this writing, is in jail awaiting trial.)

In a question-and-answer session with Trump in Las Vegas, Butina asked whether sanctions were part of his “foreign politics.” Trump replied, “I know Putin and I’ll tell you what, we get along with Putin. . . . I don’t think you’d need the sanctions.” Trump went on to praise Russian President Vladimir Putin dozens of times during the primaries, frequently pairing his praise with suggestions that, if elected, he would consider lifting sanctions on Russia. These remarks stood out because they directly contradicted decades of Republican sentiment. Since the end of World War II, the Republican Party had actively staked out a hawkish position on Russia. The party’s previous presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, famously described Russia as America’s “number one geopolitical foe.” Trump’s Republican opponents frequently attacked not only Putin but also Obama, whom they saw as having enabled Putin’s increased stature through Obama’s nonconfrontational foreign policy.

Trump, on the other hand, repeatedly called for even greater deference to Putin and Russia, saying at a debate in November 2015 that he hoped to work with Russia to “knock the hell out of ISIS.” What also makes Trump’s stance on Russia notable is that it was one of the few issues on which he remained consistent, despite there being no clear political rationale for doing so. During his campaign, Trump was both famously heterodox (for example, he repeatedly attacked free-trade agreements, long a linchpin of Republican economic policy) and famously difficult to pin down on any one position (for example, he promised he would both repeal the Affordable Care Act and protect Medicaid and Medicare, and frequently outright denied his own previous statements and policy positions). Even Trump’s noted affinity for autocratic leaders failed to account for his stance; for example, though he has praised Chinese President Xi Jinping for his authoritarian ways, Trump has also repeatedly criticized—as well as directly antagonized—China on economic issues. As a result, his continual praise for Putin and Russia drew significant attention, even before reporting after the election revealed the extent of Russian interference and the dozens of contacts and meetings between Trump’s campaign and Kremlin-linked officials. Full Story
By Tim Mak

The National Rifle Association acted as a "foreign asset" for Russia in the period leading up to the 2016 election, according to a new investigation unveiled Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. Drawing on contemporaneous emails and private interviews, an 18-month probe by the Senate Finance Committee's Democratic staff found that the NRA underwrote political access for Russian nationals Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin more than previously known — even though the two had declared their ties to the Kremlin. The report, available here, also describes how closely the gun rights group was involved with organizing a 2015 visit by some of its leaders to Moscow.

Then-NRA vice president Pete Brownell, who would later become NRA president, was enticed to visit Russia with the promise of personal business opportunities — and the NRA covered a portion of the trip's costs. The conclusions of the Senate investigation could have legal implications for the NRA, Wyden says. Tax-exempt organizations are barred from using funds for the personal benefit of its officials or for actions significantly outside their stated missions. The revelations in the Senate report raise questions about whether the NRA could face civil penalties or lose its tax-exempt status. Attorneys general in the state of New York and the District of Columbia are conducting separate probes into alleged wrongdoing at the gun rights organization. These probes have a broader scope than the Senate report, which focuses on Russia. Full Story
A meticulous analysis of online activity during the 2016 campaign makes a powerful case that targeted cyberattacks by hackers and trolls were decisive.
By Jane Mayer

Donald Trump has adopted many contradictory positions since taking office, but he has been unwavering on one point: that Russia played no role in putting him in the Oval Office. Trump dismisses the idea that Russian interference affected the outcome of the 2016 election, calling it a “made-up story,” “ridiculous,” and “a hoax.” He finds the subject so threatening to his legitimacy that—according to “The Perfect Weapon,” a recent book on cyber sabotage by David Sanger, of the Times—aides say he refuses even to discuss it.

In public, Trump has characterized all efforts to investigate the foreign attacks on American democracy during the campaign as a “witch hunt”; in March, he insisted that “the Russians had no impact on our votes whatsoever.” Few people, including Trump’s opponents, have publicly challenged the widespread belief that no obtainable evidence can prove that Russian interference changed any votes. Democrats, for the most part, have avoided attributing Hillary Clinton’s defeat directly to Russian machinations. They have more readily blamed James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, for reversing Clinton’s thin lead in the final days of the campaign by reopening a criminal investigation into her mishandling of classified e-mails.

Many have also expressed frustration with Clinton’s weak performance as a candidate, and with her campaign’s tactical errors. Instead of investigating whether Russia tipped the electoral scales on its own, they’ve focussed on the possibility that Trump colluded with Russia, and that this, along with other crimes, might be exposed by the probe being conducted by the special counsel, Robert Mueller. The U.S. intelligence community, for its part, is prohibited from investigating domestic political affairs. James Clapper, the former director of National Intelligence, told me, “We try not to spy on Americans. It’s not in our charter.” He emphasized that, although he and other intelligence officials produced—and shared with Trump—a postelection report confirming an extensive cyberattack by Russia, the assessment did not attempt to gauge how this foreign meddling had affected American voters.

Speaking for himself, however, he told me that “it stretches credulity to think the Russians didn’t turn the election.” Ordinarily, Congress would aggressively examine an electoral controversy of this magnitude, but the official investigations in the House and the Senate, led by Republicans, have been too stymied by partisanship to address the ultimate question of whether Trump’s victory was legitimate. Although the Senate hearings are still under way, the Intelligence Committee chairman, Richard Burr, a Republican, has already declared, “What we cannot do, however, is calculate the impact that foreign meddling and social media had on this election.” Full Story
by Nancy LeTourneau

One of the biggest stories of the week had to do with a Russian, but not directly related to the Mueller investigation. Maria Butina, a 30-year-old Russian national, admitted Thursday in federal court that she made contacts with the NRA and top Republican officials in an attempt to secretly influence US politics at Russia’s behest. Butina, who is a gun rights activist, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to act as a foreign agent as part of a cooperation agreement with prosecutors. She admitted to acting under the direction of a Russian official, Alexander Torshin, another prominent gun rights supporter and a fixture in Russian politics.

In other words, Butina was a Russian agent whose job was to infiltrate the NRA in particular and gun rights groups in general. Given what we know about how things work in Russia, it might be that Torshin was her handler, but ultimately Butina would have been working at the behest of Vladimir Putin. If that is correct, it is important to keep in mind that Russia’s president is no supporter of gun rights when it comes to his own people. So Butina’s work was more aimed at infiltrating a conservative political audience than anything having to do with their agenda. With that in mind, it is worth remembering that gun rights groups aren’t the only conservative political audience Putin courted. Back in 2017, Casey Michel documented how Russia became the global leader of the Christian right.

It all started when Putin mended fences with the Russian Orthodox Church and then started inserting things like this into his public pronouncements. “We can see how many of the Euro-Atlantic countries are actually rejecting their roots, including the Christian values that constitute the basis of Western civilization,” he said at a conference in 2013. “They are denying moral principles and all traditional identities: national, cultural, religious, and even sexual … They are implementing policies that equate large families with same-sex partnerships, belief in God with the belief in Satan.” By succumbing to secularism, he noted on another occasion, the West was trending toward “chaotic darkness” and a “return to a primitive state.”

White evangelicals like Franklin Graham ate it up—especially when it was paired with Putin’s crack-down on gays and lesbians in 2013. The other group Putin courted was white nationalists. For example, he sent a Russian emissary to a meeting of American and European white nationalists in Hungary in 2014 and hosted a meeting of white nationalists in St. Petersburg in 2015. More in keeping with the kind of activity in which Russia engaged during the presidential election, it turns out that an online leader of secessionist movements in the U.S. was operating from his apartment in Yekaterinburg—about 1,000 miles from Moscow. What we see with all of this is that since about a year after he was re-elected as president of Russia, Putin hasn’t simply been recruiting Donald Trump as an asset, he has been courting the three groups that now make up the base of the Republican Party: gun rights groups, white evangelicals, and white nationalists. You might ask what Putin would get out of that. Full Story
By Ken Dilanian, Julia Ainsley and Carol E. Lee

WASHINGTON — In the weeks after he became the Republican nominee on July 19, 2016, Donald Trump was warned that foreign adversaries, including Russia, would probably try to spy on and infiltrate his campaign, according to multiple government officials familiar with the matter. The warning came in the form of a high-level counterintelligence briefing by senior FBI officials, the officials said. A similar briefing was given to Hillary Clinton, they added. They said the briefings, which are commonly provided to presidential nominees, were designed to educate the candidates and their top aides about potential threats from foreign spies. The candidates were urged to alert the FBI about any suspicious overtures to their campaigns, the officials said.

The Clinton campaign didn't respond to a request for comment. The briefings were led by counterintelligence specialists from the FBI, the sources said. They were timed to occur around the period when the candidates began receiving classified intelligence, the officials said, which put them at greater risk for being targeted by foreign spies. Trump's first intelligence briefing as Republican nominee was Aug. 17, 2016, sources told NBC News at the time. Trump was "briefed and warned" at the session about potential espionage threats from Russia, two former law enforcement officials familiar with the sessions told NBC News. A source close to the White House said their position is that Trump was unaware of the contacts between his campaign and Russians.

"That the Republican and Democrat nominee for president received a standardized briefing on counterintelligence is hardly a news story," said Raj Shah, a White House spokesman. "That NBC News hears about the contents of this classified conversation due to an inappropriate leak is a news story." It's unclear whether the warning about Russia was passed on to other campaign officials. Still, the revelation that the Trump campaign was warned about spying threats from Russia and other adversaries, which has not been previously reported, casts a new light on the Trump campaign's dealings with Russians in the months before the November election. Full Story
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