| The special counsel investigation into Russian election meddling turned over a new slate of indictments Friday, accusing 13 Russian nationals of conspiring to destabilize the United States by inflaming political tensions through fake online groups and fabricated protests. From my colleague Andrew Egger: The indictment alleges that the defendants, organized under the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, created a plethora of social media groups, organized around a political, religious, or geographical theme, to support and advance what they perceived to be radical factions in American politics. In the early stages of the presidential election, that meant creating content denigrating candidates such as Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio, and cheerleading for Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
“On or about February 10, 2016, defendants and their co-conspirators internally circulated an outline of themes for future content to be posted to Organization-controlled social media accounts,” the indictment reads. “Specialists were instructed to post content that focused on ‘politics in the USA’ and to ‘use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump—we support them).’”
In the later stages of the election, the indictment alleges, the Russians pivoted to a full-fledged effort to get Trump elected, using their fraudulent social media pages both to encourage and excite populations likely to support Trump and to keep populations likely to support Clinton away from the polls.
“On or about October 16, 2016, defendants and their co-conspirators used the Organization-controlled Instagram account “Woke Blacks” to post the following message: “[A] particular hype and hatred for Trump is misleading the people and forcing Blacks to vote Killary. We cannot resort to the lesser of two devils. Then we’d surely be better off without voting AT ALL,’” the indictment reads. In response to the indictments, President Trump and his allies have focused on the fact that the Russians began their destabilization campaign in 2014, arguing that this is conclusive proof that the Russians hadn’t been explicitly trying to get Trump elected.
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