 A gun rights group rallied today on the South steps of the Capitol. According to The Sacramento Bee this was designed to be one of 50 rallies held nationwide: "The nationwide gatherings were promoted through social media by a group called the National Constitutional Coalition of Patriotic Americans. The rallies, which organizers intended to be held at all 50 state capitol buildings, were dubbed 'Americans for America.'" An Internet search for the group identified a website belonging to the group, www.nccpa.com. A domain name search found that the group registered the domain in March 2018, in Toronto, Ontario. This seems unusual for a group of patriotic Americans. it is a pattern revealed before in groups that appear to be grassroots, but are in fact organized and financed from outside the country. The address of the domain registration company, Tucows, is 96 Farley Mowat Drive. This is a 20-minute drive from the offices of Rebel Media, an alt-right publication begun in 2013. Rebel Media is known for stunts promoting Donald Trump and attempting to discredit those opposed to his presidency. Below are some examples of the kinds of things Rebel Media does. Rebel Media personality Jack Posobiec held up a “Rape Melania” sign outside the White House in an attempt to discredit protesters. https://www.buzzfeed.com/amberjamieson/trumps-weird-day-in-tweets-includes-rting-a-man-who-made?utm_term=.jsl505dvl#.cvNoDoLpP Posobiec has since left Rebel Media. https://www.buzzfeed.com/janelytvynenko/jack-posobiec-out-at-the-rebel?utm_term=.cj0VaVQEX#.ybQ8b8omP Jack Posobiec and Laura Loomer rushed the stage at a performance of “Julius Caesar” in Central Park. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/06/17/pro-trump-protester-arrested-after-rushing-stage-at-controversial-julius-caesar-play-in-new-york/?utm_term=.d620fb5e1124 https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-domain-troll-behind-pro-trump-stunts Laura Loomer no longer works for Rebel Media. https://forward.com/fast-forward/383780/laura-loomer-quit-rebel-media-because-they-told-her-to-stop-tweeting-about/ Rebel Media did not necessarily organize or finance the rally at the California State Capitol Saturday. A credible news outlet might want to check the group out before presenting them as a grassroots movement, as The Sacramento Bee did here. http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article208924109.html#emlnl=Breaking_Newsletter  Photo: Hector Amezcua/Sacramento Bee
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Tuesday, April 10:
Mark Zuckerberg will appear before members of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/facebook-social-media-privacy-and-the-use-and-abuse-of-data www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/hearings?ID=E7C85E5C-BBA9-4AD9-861D-85B7340BBDFB Wednesday, April 10: Zuckerberg will appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee https://energycommerce.house.gov/news/press-release/ec-announces-facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-will-testify-april-11th/ Monday, April 9 Zuckerberg will be meeting individually with members of Congress, some of whom are on the committees. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-privacy-congress/zuckerberg-to-meet-with-u-s-lawmakers-monday-sources-idUSKBN1HG00H?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=twitter https://www.npr.org/2018/04/08/600616534/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-readies-to-testify-on-capitol-hill https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/08/opinions/zuckerberg-congress-testimony-questions-opinion-alaimo/index.html The Digital, Culture, Media, and Sports Committee of the House of Commons in British Parliament will be interviewing members of the Cambridge Analytica team who were involved in the Brexit campaigns in the U.K. Tuesday, April 17: Brittany Kaiser, director of program development at Cambridge Analytica Wednesday, April 18: Alexander Nix, former Cambridge Analytica chief executive (second appearance) Nix has been recalled to the committee due to inconsistencies in his earlier testimony. Tuesday, April 24: Aleksandr Kogan, Cambridge University and St. Petersburg State University academic who built the “thisisyourdigitallife” application Thursday, April 26: Mike Schroepfer, Facebook chief technology officer https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/06/cambridge-analytica-scandal-mps-committee-fake-news-inquiry-dcms-brittany-kaiser  Photo source: Dmitry Azarov/Kommersant, via Getty Images The Daily Caller published an op-ed authored by Oleg Deripaska on March 8, 2018, criticizing the Mueller special counsel investigation into past and current Russian interference into U.S. elections. Less than a month later, he and his companies have been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for being among “ those who benefit from the Putin regime and play a key role in advancing Russia’s malign activities.” Deripaska described the infrastructure of long-term professionals in the U.S. government, composed of experts in their fields who remain in their positions regardless of who is in the White House, as the “Deep State.” He described the Deep State as “shadow power exercised by a small number of individuals from media, business, government and the intelligence community, foisting provocative and cynically false manipulations on the public. Out of these manipulations, an agenda of these architects’ own design is born.” As a result of the sanctions imposed April 6,2018, Deripaska's companies EN+ Group and Rusal, listed on the London stock exchange, have lost significant stock value: 20 percent for En+ Group and 12 percent for Rusal. Deripaska has been unable to travel to the U.S. since 2005, when he was denied a visa due to his ties to organized crime and his role as a suspect in the murder of businessman Vadim Yafyasov. Oleg Deripaska is a longtime associate of Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s campaign chairman in the spring and summer of 2016. Deripaska hired Manafort in 2006, for $10 million per year, to provide positive public relations messaging for Vladimir Putin in the United States. This relationship continued for a number of years. Deripaska sued Manafort and his partner Rick Gates, who are both now under indictment on federal money laundering and conspiracy charges, in the Cayman Islands in 2015. Manafort continued to contact Deripaska through Konstantin Kilimnick, believed to be an officer of Russian security services. (John Schindler, security expert and former National Security Agency analyst, discussed Kilimnick here.) Deripaska’s private jet, with tail letters M-ALAY, visited the U.S. in August of 2016, shortly after the Republican National Committee declared Donald Trump the Republican nominee for president. According to independent reporter Scott Stedman and the Washington Post, Kilimnick and Manafort had dinner at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City on August 2. Deripaska’s jet landed in New Jersey, a short distance from the dinner, hours after the meeting concluded. The plane took off again the following evening and flew back to Moscow. It then ferried Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko to Deripaska’s private yacht in Norway for a meeting with Deripaska. Alexy Navalny, Russian political leader who was prevented from running in the recent presidential election, released a video with details about this secret meeting. An article from the Telegraph newspaper from 2012 describes some of the evidence of Deripaska’s ties to the global mob. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financial-crime/9387913/Oligarch-linked-to-politicians-ordered-murder-of-banker.html Deripaska sued the Associated Press over reporting asserting that Deripaska had hired Manafort for years. In December 2017 Deripaska dropped the libel suit. https://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/12/06/oleg-deripaska-libel-suit-associated-press-283767 An article from October 2017 in the Atlantic profiled Manafort and highlighted his connections to Deripaska.  Photo source: PHOTOSHOT
 Data from 50 million Facebook users ended up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica, the data firm that engineered Donald Trump’s social media campaign blitz.
Jessica Rich was head of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection from 2013 to 2017. In 2011 she helped construct the consent decree against Facebook for violating users’ privacy without their knowledge or consent. The order from the FTC against Facebook required that Facebook obtain affirmative consent from users before it could override privacy settings. The order required that Facebook submit a plan for compliance with the order within 90 days, and described penalties for violating the order. The order does not expire until 2032. NPR reporter Ailsa Chang interviewed Rich Tuesday, and asked Rich what she thought upon hearing that Facebook had given detailed, private data on users to Cambridge Analytica in 2014. Rich: “Well, like many people, my reaction was are you kidding? The facts here of allowing third parties to have unfettered access to user data and not exercising the kind of care for Facebook users that they should were the exact same facts that drove us to take action against them in 2011 and that led to the order they're now under.” Chang: “And the penalties for violating that 2011 consent decree, they're huge. It's $40,000…” RICH: “Per violation.” CHANG: “So if you multiply that across 50 million users, we're talking about billions of dollars, potentially, that Facebook faces in fines. Why would a number like that, billions of dollars of potential fines, not serve as enough of a deterrent for a company like Facebook?” RICH: “I really can't answer that question. It must be lack of proper compliance procedures or literally a culture that is not one that really cares about its users.” Here’s the math: $40,000 multiplied by 50 million users equals $2 trillion. Facebook is potentially liable for a $2 trillion fine from the FTC. Tim Wu, a former senior official at the Federal Trade Commission, explained in an interview with Noel King of NPR’s Morning Edition, also on Tuesday, that Facebook’s continuing problems with violating the privacy of its users is fundamental to its business model. WU: “I think the problem lies here. It's actually a very fundamental one, which is Facebook is always in the position of serving two masters. If its actual purpose was just trying to connect friends and family, and it didn't have a secondary motive of trying to also prove to another set of people that it could gather as much data as possible and make it possible to manipulate or influence or persuade people, then it wouldn't be a problem. For example, if they were a nonprofit, it wouldn't be a problem. But they…” KING: “But they're not, right?” (Laughter). WU: “They're not. But, well, that's the problem. I think there's a sort of intrinsic problem with having for-profit entities with this business model in this position of so much public trust because they're always at the edge because their profitability depends on it.” King asked Wu if the FTC could seek damages if Facebook is found to have violated the order. WU: “Yes, they can. Every single violation is punishable by a $40,000 fine. So it could be billions [Editor’s note - actually, trillions] of dollars in damages if the FTC decides to police this very aggressively.” The All Things Considered interview with former Federal Trade Commission official Jessica Rich can be found here. https://www.npr.org/2018/03/27/597390569/ftc-investigating-whether-facebook-violated-consent-decree The March 27 Morning Edition interview with former FTC senior official Tim Wu can be found here. https://www.npr.org/2018/03/27/597221954/facebook-previously-failed-to-keep-privacy-promises-ex-ftc-adviser-says A link to the Federal Trade Commission documents from 2011 can be found here. https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/092-3184/facebook-inc A New York Times article from 2011 explains the original order against Facebook from the FTC. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/technology/facebook-agrees-to-ftc-settlement-on-privacy.html Cambridge Analytica: British Public Television Exposes Methods of Trump Campaign "Secret Sauce"3/24/2018  Carole Cadwalladr and Emma Graham-Harrison of the British newspaper The Guardian/Observer published an article last week with new information about Cambridge Analytica, the shadowy data firm that worked closely with the Trump campaign in 2016. Christopher Wylie, a data scientist formerly with the company, stated in an interview: “We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles. And built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons. That was the basis the entire company was built on.” In late 2015, Facebook found out that information from more than 50 million individuals, including private details and personality profiles, had been harvested without permission. The company did not alert users, and took limited steps to protect the data of users. The article with the Christopher Wylie interview can be found here. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election British public television station Channel 4 went undercover to glean information about how Cambridge Analytica, a company started in 2013 as an offshoot of SCL Group, uses data to influence elections throughout the world. The results of the investigation are shocking. Some of the revelations, by key members of the company: “We’re used to operating through different vehicles, in the shadows, and I look forward to building a very long-term and secretive relationship with you." Alexander Nix, CEO, to a reporter he thought was a Sri Lankan businessman working for a prospective political candidate. “We just put information into the bloodstream of the internet, and then, and then watch it grow, give it a little push every now and again… like a remote control. It has to happen without anyone thinking, ‘that’s propaganda’, because the moment you think ‘that’s propaganda,’ the next question is, ‘who’s put that out?’...So we have to be very subtle.” Mark Turnbull, managing director of Cambridge Analytica Political Global. Since the exposé aired last week, Alexander Nix has been suspended by the company. However, a few days ago Nix set up a new data company with Rebekah Mercer called Emerdata, which is described in this article from Business Insider. The chief security officer of Facebook, Alex Stamos, has also announced that he is leaving. The Cambridge Analytica expose from Channel 4 can be seen here. https://www.channel4.com/news/exposed-undercover-secrets-of-donald-trump-data-firm-cambridge-analytica An interview with Theresa Hong, a key insider from the Trump campaign data operation who says she wrote Trump's Facebook posts, was interviewed last year by the BBC. She brags about the role Cambridge Analytica played in the campaign. That interview can be seen here. http://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-40852227/the-digital-guru-who-helped-donald-trump-to-the-presidency  Additional UPDATE: More articles related to this topic: https://www.recode.net/2018/3/17/17133668/facebook-cambridge-analytica-trump-new-york-times-observer https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-trump-campaign.html UPDATE: An article in The Guardian, dated March 18, 2018, provides more information. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election?CMP=share_btn_fb  Facebook has announced that it is suspending Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) and their political data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica. According to a statement from Paul Grewal, vice president and deputy general counsel, Dr. Aleksandr Kogan, a Cambridge University psychology professor, lied to Facebook and violated their policies by passing personal data of Facebook users to SCL/Cambridge Analytica and to Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies. According to Grewal’s statement, Kogan requested and gained access to information from people after they chose to download his app, which offered a personality prediction. Approximately 270,000 people downloaded the app, which gave Kogan access to personal information about the users and their friends. Grewal states that Kogan violated policies by passing the information to third parties, he had violated Facebook rules. When they found out about the violation, they removed the app and demanded certifications that the data had been destroyed. He states that several days ago, they discovered that not all data was deleted. There is likely more to the story. In January 2017, Motherboard published an article written by two Swiss journalists. Their research revealed that Aleksander Kogan, who has changed his name to Alex Spectre and moved to Singapore, had obtained the data tool used by SCL/Cambridge Analytica from the creators of the tool without their permission. Michael Kosinski and David Stillwell, both doctoral students at Cambridge University, developed a Facebook application that used the Big Five personality traits (openness to new experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, or OCEAN) to develop a personality profile that predicted behavior. “ … In early 2014, Kosinski was approached by a young assistant professor in the psychology department called Aleksandr Kogan. He said he was inquiring on behalf of a company that was interested in Kosinski's method, and wanted to access the MyPersonality database. Kogan wasn't at liberty to reveal for what purpose; he was bound to secrecy. “At first, Kosinski and his team considered this offer, as it would mean a great deal of money for the institute, but then he hesitated. Finally, Kosinski remembers, Kogan revealed the name of the company: SCL, or Strategic Communication Laboratories ... “Kosinski knew nothing about all this, but he had a bad feeling. ‘The whole thing started to stink,’ he recalls. On further investigation, he discovered that Aleksandr Kogan had secretly registered a company doing business with SCL. According to a December 2015 report in The Guardian and to internal company documents given to Das Magazin, it emerges that SCL learned about Kosinski's method from Kogan.” Kosinski broke off contact with Kogan and informed the university. He suspected that Kogan’s company had developed a tool using Kosinski’s model in order to sell it to SCL. The Motherboard article can be found here. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mg9vvn/how-our-likes-helped-trump-win Cambridge Analytica was heavily involved in the Brexit campaign in Great Britain, and in Donald Trump’s campaign for president. In a BBC interview, Theresa Hong, Digital Content Director for the Trump campaign, bragged about how instrumental Cambridge Analytica was in the digital push for the presidency. The company ran operations out of the Trump campaign offices in San Antonio, Texas. The interview can be found linked in this article from Palmer Report. http://www.palmerreport.com/politics/facebook-employees-trump-office/4784/ The statement from Facebook can be read here. https://newsroom.fb.com/news/h/suspending-cambridge-analytica/  Photos: Top - Aleksander Kogan, Cambridge University; Bottom - Alex Spectre, Facebook, February 2017
 A memo written by the Democratic minority of the House Intelligence Committee, released Saturday with the approval of the FBI and Department of Justice, disputes the narrative put forth in the memo released February 2 by the supposedly-recused Republican chairman of the committee, Representative Devin Nunes. The rebuttal memo primarily deals with the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant and two extensions that the Department of Justice obtained on Carter Page, foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign. The Nunes memo asserted that the FBI and Department of Justice improperly obtained the FISA warrant by using information contained in the report of a British citizen working for an American company hired by individuals politically aligned with Hillary Clinton. Page was already known to investigators before he joined the Trump campaign, due to several instances of Russian operatives attempting to recruit Page to spy for the Russian government. An important passage in the rebuttal memo explains that by September 2016, “... the FBI had already opened sub-inquiries into [redacted] individuals linked to the Trump campaign: [redacted] and former campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page. As Committee testimony bears out, the FBI would have continued its investigation, including against [redacted] individuals, even if it had never received information from Steele, never applied for a FISA warrant against Page, or if the FISC had rejected the application.” Footnote 7 in the memo reveals what is likely the list of Trump campaign officials who were, as of September 2016, under investigation by the FBI. mo makes clear that five members of the Trump campaign were under investigation by the FBI for being probable agents of the Russian government:
“FBI Dir just informed me, ‘The FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.’ Case reopened” The Comey letter was released on Twitter 19 minutes later by Fox News analyst Brit Hume.
“It has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisers, and the Russian government — a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity. The public has a right to know this information.”
Clearly, there was evidence in October 2016 that the Trump campaign needed to be investigated, and was in fact under investigation.
I have some questions: Why did the FBI tell the American people about the Clinton investigation, but not about the investigation into high-level Trump campaign officials? Why did the FBI find Clinton emails, which turned out to be copies of emails the FBI had already seen, end up on Anthony Weiner’s laptop? Why did Jason Chaffetz announce on Twitter that the investigation into Clinton was reopened? Where did Brit Hume get the letter to Congressional members? The minority memo from the House Intelligence Committee can be read here. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4387022/Democrats-memo-rebutting-Republican-claims-of.pdf The letter sent to Congressional committee heads announcing the reopening of the Clinton investigation can be seen here.  The New York Times article from October 31, 2016 can be found here. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/fbi-russia-election-donald-trump.html The Mother Jones article from the same day can be found here. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump/ The announcement of the FBI closing the Clinton investigation July 5, 2016 can be found here. https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system Note: Thanks to former CIA officer Ned Price for pointing out the information contained in Footnote 7.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team on Friday released an indictment alleging that 13 Russians and three Russian organizations participated in a conspiracy to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
This list contains a combination of points from articles in The Hill and BBC. Links to the articles can be found below. 1. This was a broad, well-organized effort. Beginning as early as 2014, the defendants began to track and study U.S. social media sites related to politics and social issues. They used false personas to contact U.S. persons, and to pay them using accounts created through identity theft to conceal the origin of the payments. They controlled hundreds of social media accounts created under false pretenses. (One account impersonated the Tennessee GOP on Twitter.) 2. Defendants allegedly communicated with Trump campaign members. The indictment states that these campaign members were unwitting participants in the conspiracy. 3. Suppressing votes for Clinton was an important part of the operation. The indictment asserts that the aim of the conspiracy was to promote presidential candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, and to disparage Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz. 4. Defendants took steps to cover their tracks. Multiple false personas, fake accounts, and shell companies were created to conceal the origin of money and information. The creation of these accounts involved identity theft, mail fraud, and wire fraud. 5. The indictment describes serious crimes - visa fraud, identity theft, wire fraud, bank fraud. In addition to Friday’s indictment, an indictment against an American citizen, Richard Pinedo, was unsealed Friday. Pinedo has pleaded guilty to selling personal information stolen from U.S. persons to the defendants. 6. There were real people paid by the defendants to organize rallies, build props, and wear costumes at multiple events in multiple states. At least one person was paid to build a cage for use at a rally, and another was paid to dress up as Hillary Clinton in a prison uniform and stand in the cage. 7. This operation did not end on election day. After the election, persona accounts continued on social media to sow discord among U.S. persons regarding the election and presidency of Donald Trump. There is credible evidence that Russia-controlled personas were involved, this past weekend, in promoting discord among Americans regarding gun violence, in the wake of the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. Rod Rosenstein, deputy director of the FBI, presented the indictment in a press conference Friday. The press conference can be seen here. https://www.c-span.org/video/?441317-1/deputy-attorney-general-rod-rosenstein-announces-indictment-russian-nationals The Hill article can be found here. http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/374305-five-things-to-know-about-the-russian-indictments MSNBC contributor Matt Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman, told Mike Allen of Axios: "Friday’s indictment established the legal architecture for possible future charges. Once you’ve established there was a conspiracy, you can charge anyone who was aware of the conspiracy and took an overt action to further it." The Axios article can be found here. https://www.axios.com/mueller-investigation-russia-facebook-future-7ab6695e-0012-4af5-99a3-d55c665b7796.html The BBC article can be found here. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43093260 The indictment can be found here. https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download The Strange Case of #NeverHillary: Why Did Michael Flynn Push Russian Propaganda at the RNC?2/19/2018 OPINION  The Republican National Convention, held July 18 to 21, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio, was a spectacle. On display was over-the-top partisan behavior that was shocking in its brazenness and intensity. One thing stood out for me as I watched in horror 19 months ago: Michael Flynn, retired U.S. Army general criticized Hillary Clinton, suggested that she should resign from the campaign, accused her of unspecified crimes, and whipped the crowd into a frenzy chanting, “Lock Her Up.” That was all stunning to observe; the part that stood out for me, however, was this line: “I use hashtag Never Hillary,” Flynn, 58 years old at the time, said. Why would Trump supporters want to know what hashtag Flynn used? Why was Flynn using a hashtag? What did this mean? I know a lot more now than I knew at the time about how social media can be used to push propaganda. The indictment released Friday in the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the presidential campaign may provide an answer to the questions that have haunted me since that disturbing day in 2016. On page 20 of the indictment, a table provides information about political advertising bought by the defendants, Russian nationals, who used “fictitious U.S. personas created and used by the ORGANIZATION on social media.” (from page 19) An advertisement was purchased June 30, 2016, with this content: "#NeverHillary #HillaryforPrison #Hillary4Prison #HillaryforPrison2016 #Trump2016 #Trump #Trump4President” An ad was purchased by at least one persona account created in Saint Petersburg, and three weeks later Michael Flynn pushed the hashtag out at the Republican National Convention. Why might he have done this? At the time I heard him say it, I wondered how many Trump supporters were following Flynn on Twitter or Facebook. Maybe, I thought, the Trump campaign and the GOP had harnessed the power of social media and turned angry white voters in the Midwest and coal country into tech-savvy influencers. Somehow, that did not seem reasonable to me. (That is the story Brad Parscale and Jared Kushner, self-styled data geniuses of the Trump campaign, told to numerous reporters in the months after their team's surprise win.) There is another reason to signal the use of a hashtag from the podium of a worldwide-televised event. When Flynn announced that hashtag, he may have been signalling cells of paid troll warriors, in Russia, the U.S., and other places, to head to that hashtag to connect with newly created propaganda - memes, ads, and talking points - to push in the coming days and weeks. I did a search to see what kind of content was attached to this hashtag when Flynn promoted it at the RNC. Any content that has since been deleted would not show up in an advanced search, but the content I did find was very interesting. I cannot definitively say that all the content was created by paid professionals working on the Russian operation, but it looks like much of it may have been. It is important to note that the memes created were designed to appeal to potential voters who did not want to vote Clinton. The Russian information war was “primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.” (from page 17 of the indictment). Alternatives to Clinton - Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, and Gary Johnson -were pushed hard in July of 2016, using hashtags #BernieorBust, #DemExit, and #NeverTrump. The #GameofThrones hashtag is used, possibly to bring in people who were fans of the television show who might not otherwise be interested. One post uses the hashtag #Milo in combination with #NeverHillary. Another post links to Prison Planet, sending interested content-pushers to wingnut conspiracists Alex Jones, Paul Joseph Watson, and InfoWars. This would help the paid trolls, Russian and American, find the content Flynn (or those directing him) wanted them to push. Did Michael Flynn knowingly push a hashtag created under fraudulent circumstances in a U.S. election, which would be a violation of federal election law? I don’t know, but I would bet that the special counsel’s team does. Flynn referring to the Russian-created hashtag occurs 56 seconds into this video from the Republican National Convention. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx94428MYcc A link to the 37-page indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies (with numerous shell companies created to hide fraudulent personas and ad buys) can be found here. https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download An article in USA Today from August 2016 highlighted some of the issues involved when retired military leaders speak out politically. In the article former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, a four-star Army general, explains that running for office, like Dwight Eisenhower did after a military career, is different from advocating for a particular side in a political contest: "'If they choose to run themselves, they become accountable to voters,' he wrote in Defense One, a website that focuses on defense and national security trends. 'In simply advocating — or giving speeches — they are not.'" Not accountable to American voters, but perhaps accountable to his handlers in the Kremlin? The USA Today article can be found here. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/08/04/retired-generals-partisan-politics/88009492/ Michael Flynn pleaded guilty on December 1, 2017 to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials. A detailed timeline of his actions related to his plea can be found here. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/12/01/michael-flynns-guilty-plea-a-comprehensive-timeline/?utm_term=.f172c076717b A selection of available content from Twitter using the hashtag #NeverHillary during the period of the Republican National Convention is included below.   Note the nonstandard plural spelling - "commys" instead of "commies" - that may be a sign of foreign-created content. Also, this may be an early use of the word "libtard." which was popular among harassing trolls during and after the campaign.  This meme accuses Clinton of wanting to build a wall. This may be an example of a paid content creator who got the messages mixed up.   #FreeMilo - perhaps mixing up Julian Assange, currently hiding out in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid charges, with Milo Yiannopoulos, alt-right provocateur?  Criticism of Clinton's hair has been a theme of critics since the 1990s.  The anti-fracking message is designed to appeal to left-leaning voters and encourage them to vote against Clinton. They would never be swayed to vote for Trump, but convincing people to vote for Sanders, Johnson, or Stein, or to simply stay home, became a very common theme by November.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images  Top intelligence officials in the U.S. testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee today at the annual hearing on worldwide threats. They unanimously expressed confidence in the Intelligence Community report from January 2017. That report stated the following: “We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.” Today, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned that the Russian government considers their interference in the 2016 election to have been well worth the trouble, and that Americans should expect interference in the 2018 elections as well. In his Statement for the Record, Director Coats stated: “Influence operations, especially through cyber means, will remain a significant threat to US interests as they are low-cost, relatively low-risk, and deniable ways to retaliate against adversaries, to shape foreign perceptions, and to influence populations. Russia probably will be the most capable and aggressive source of this threat in 2018, although many countries and some nonstate actors are exploring ways to use influence operations, both domestically and abroad. “We assess that the Russian intelligence services will continue their efforts to disseminate false information via Russian state-controlled media and covert online personas about US activities to encourage anti-US political views. Moscow seeks to create wedges that reduce trust and confidence in democratic processes, degrade democratization efforts, weaken US partnerships with European allies, undermine Western sanctions, encourage anti-US political views, and counter efforts to bring Ukraine and other former Soviet states into European institutions.
The hearing included CIA Director Mike Pompeo, FBI Director Christopher Wray, National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers, Defense Intelligence Agency head Lieutenant General Robert Ashley, and head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Robert Cardillo. An article from National Public Radio summarized the hearing. A link to the recording of the hearing can be found below. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-worldwide-threats-hearing-1 The opening Statement for the Record of Director Coats can be read below. |
Truth is a real thing.
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