Latest Developments and Revelations on Russian Interference in American Politics and Elections

I had posted last week about the latest Russian Federation interference in American politics and elections, including once again in favor of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy. Since then, there have been additional developments and revelations in Russia’s broader “active measures” campaign that provide more insight about how Russia conducts its campaign, about which I provide additional conservative analysis in this post. Leftists Who Spread Russian Propaganda Convicted of Conspiring to Act as Unregistered Russian Agents: Four left-wing activists for Blacks, including the founder of the African People’s Socialist Party, were convicted in federal court in Florida of conspiring to act as unregistered Russian agents. I had posted about their charges. The Floridians knowingly accepted money from the Russian Federation government to spread pro-Russian and anti-American views from 2015-2022, including about the Russian aggression against Ukraine, and even local election interference. Two Russian intelligence officers were indicted, but remain at large and were not tried in abstentia. Russia interferes in American politics to promote views favorable to itself, divide Americans, undermine their belief in their ideals, undermine their belief in the truth and in elections, and to support candidates favorable to it or oppose candidates unfavorable to it. It engages in these “active measures” both overtly through propaganda and disinformation from Russian state-controlled media and covertly through posing as media outlets or journalists, impersonating Americans on the Internet, or working through witting or unwitting Americans on the far left or the isolationist far right. Russian State-Controlled Media Outlet Acts as an Intelligence Agency: The United States imposed sanctions on the parent companies of a particular Russian state-controlled media outlet that not only openly publicizes Russian propaganda to destabilize countries and influence elections around the world, but acts as a covert cyber intelligence entity, instead of only as a media outlet. It even conducts fundraising for materiel for Russian troops in Ukraine. Russia uses a web of front companies to hide the media outlet as the source behind other outlets, not only to get around bans of the company by Western European States, but also to conceal its Russian source in America and around the globe. The U.S. did not ban Russian state-controlled media outlets, but required they register as foreign media outlets. Russian tactics are typically creating fake news outlets or hiring professional journalists and feeding them with content to promote, or even bribing journalists to promote Russian propaganda and disinformation. For example, I had posted earlier this month about a Trumpist right-wing media outlet in America through which the Russians spent $10 million to promote disinformation and propaganda, which led to criminal charges against Russians. The Trumpist “conservative” journalists claim they did not realize that the source of the funding of the content they were promoting was the Russian Federation, even though it matched Russian propaganda, perhaps because Trumpists and Russians share beliefs and amplify each other. It is shocking to many true conservatives that Trumpists and other isolationists or “America First” nationalists, agree with or even admire Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin, an ex-Soviet intelligence officer who intends to restore the Soviet Union, or at least deny or minimize or acquiesce to his interference in American politics that undermines American independence, sovereignty and self-determination. That they participate in a hostile foreign power’s “active measures” campaign by promoting his views in the same way that leftists like the ones convicted in Florida do because they share similar views, proves they are neither the patriots, nor the conservatives they pretend to be. It should cause them to reconsider their views and to prove their American loyalty by completely rejecting Putin and his interference in American politics and elections.