We know already by the various reports dropped post United States Elections 2016. Plus the Mueller Report and others have verified over the years how the Russians used Social Media and how they weaponized it, as an advantage for the President. This was all an advantage for President Trump and his closest associates, whatever the Russians did and what disinformation, what sort of peddling of fake-news and so on.
Which in the Social Media report from the U.S. Senate Intelligence released today. Has some quotes worth mentioning still. It is just a little more flesh on the bone. But still not the whole chicken. They are not releasing everything and some things are still seen as secret. They are still redacted and therefore, some information are kept secret.
However, what is said is saying a little and shows a pattern, that is known already.
“The Committee found that the Russian government tasked and supported the IRA’ s interference in the 2016 U.S. election. This finding is consistent with the Committee’s understanding of the relationship between IRA owner Yevgeniy Prigozhin and the Kremlin, the aim and scope of the interference by the IRA, and the correlation between the IRA’s actions and electoral interference by the Russian government in other contexts and by other means. Despite Moscow’s denials, the direction and financial involvement of Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin, as well as his close ties to high-level Russian government officials including President Vladimir Putin, point to significant Kremlin support, authorization, and direction of the IRA’ s operations and goals”.
“The IRA built a wide-ranging information operation designed to complement these other Russian influence activities directed toward interfering with and undermining U.S. democracy in 2016. The expanse and depth of this effort would only be understood in the aftermath of that campaign”
“At the direction of the Kremlin, the IRA sought to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election by harming Hillary Clinton’s chances of success and supporting Donald. Trump”
“Evidence of an overarching pro-Trump and anti-Clinton bias leading up to Election Day 2016 is also found in information obtained by Special Counsel’s Office. For instance, IRA employees were directed to focus on U.S. politics and to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump-we support”them)”.
These three quotes from the report was the vital ones from me. They say what their mission was, why did what they did and how. It is a deliberate act of the IRA on directions and orders from Kremlin to do this, to favour Trump and his candidacy. Nothing else can be taken from this. That is what the Russians did in 2016. They used social media and various of media techniques to spread their message. This can only been seen as an direct interference in favour of one candidate.
To think otherwise is naive and Kremlin won with their strategy and got their man in office. Certainly, the world see that and has seen that with the results afterwards. As the President is very Moscow friendly. That has been seen with time.
What is clear that they dropped this now, while the impeachment process is under way. Certainly, to deflect from the Trump-Ukraine scandal. Peace.
MinBane 