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FBI’s Russian-influence probe includes a look at far-right news sites
McClatchy DC Bureau ^

Posted on 03/20/2017 8:23:45 PM PDT by TigerClaws

Federal investigators are examining whether far-right news sites played any role last year in a Russian cyber operation that dramatically widened the reach of news stories — some fictional — that favored Donald Trump’s presidential bid, two people familiar with the inquiry say.

Operatives for Russia appear to have strategically timed the computer commands, known as “bots,” to blitz social media with links to the pro-Trump stories at times when the billionaire businessman was on the defensive in his race against Democrat Hillary Clinton, these sources said. Russian President Vladimir Putin is accused by the FBI of ordering a campaign intended to influence the U.S. election. Mikhail Klimentyev AP

The bots’ end products were largely millions of Twitter and Facebook posts carrying links to stories on conservative internet sites such as Breitbart News and InfoWars, as well as on the Kremlin-backed RT News and Sputnik News, the sources said. Some of the stories were false or mixed fact and fiction, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the bot attacks are part of an FBI-led investigation into a multifaceted Russian operation to influence last year’s elections.

(Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: breitbart; fakenews; infowars; rightnews; socialmedia
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To: Texas Fossil

No, Putin loathed Hillary because she and Obozo tried to remove Assad with Al Qaeda and ISIS elements for 6 years.


I’m not buying that. The Democratic Party has decimated our military and presided over the near collapse of NATO. Why wouldn’t Putin want more of that? He certainly can’t be excited about Trump’s 350 ship US Navy.


21 posted on 03/20/2017 9:02:06 PM PDT by lodi90
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To: lodi90

You can buy whatever you want.

I have my opinions I have acquired over the past 8 years about Obozo and his minions.

I’m not at all worried about Trump. Nor about Rex Tillerson or General Mattis.

And I don’t think any of the 3 fear Putin. Yes Putin is a good chess player.

But Trump is too.


22 posted on 03/20/2017 9:09:18 PM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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To: nhwingut

Typically, the FBI investigates you if there are laws broken. What laws has congress ever written....out of millions of lines of text....to govern ‘bots’? I don’t think there is a single one. What laws exist to govern news in general? I don’t know of a single line of text over news.

It seems to be the most highly created investigation ever...going to a dead-end before you even start it.


23 posted on 03/20/2017 9:14:15 PM PDT by pepsionice
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To: TigerClaws

This whole Russian thing is a total snore.


24 posted on 03/20/2017 9:25:34 PM PDT by Slyfox (Where's Reagan when we need him? Look in the mirror - the spirit of The Gipper lives within you.)
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To: TigerClaws

What they are really mad at was that Russia decided to do their own lobbying rather than pay US lobbyists to do their spinning for them.


25 posted on 03/20/2017 9:26:57 PM PDT by piasa
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To: TigerClaws

Search is your friend


26 posted on 03/20/2017 9:50:23 PM PDT by Nifster (I see puppy dogs in the clouds)
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To: All

“Okay, right wing bots, listen up, this is Vlad ... I want you to spread this false news — there is global warming and you should pay extra taxes to end it.”

“Erm what?”

“Oh sorry, opened the wrong file. My bad.”


27 posted on 03/20/2017 10:52:41 PM PDT by Peter ODonnell (Listen for my radio call-in program on channel A in your brain, yes caller ... I'm listening)
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To: TigerClaws

**** Moderator — pull the thread. Already posted. ****


Why...1st time I’ve seen it.


28 posted on 03/20/2017 10:56:16 PM PDT by Valk Rider
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To: TigerClaws

Well said! They can’t understand how Trump won after there was coordinated effort on social media to squash pro-Trump information.

So, now they have to figure out how any of it got through? They have truly lost their minds.


29 posted on 03/20/2017 11:17:06 PM PDT by HollyB
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To: TigerClaws

McClatchy is not to be trusted. Always on the Left, now a conspiracy news service. Gee, they and Alex Jones have a lot in common.

This article is also an insult to the tens of millions of American citizens who made up their own minds that Obama was a traitorous SOB, Hillary was a crook, Benghazi incompetent and greedy sell-out to the Russians (uranium ore mine deal), and that the Democrats were the closest thing to a new Communist Party in recent American politics.

Bots, Trots, Trolls, Polls = Bullshit on a stick.

If the CIA and FBI were so great, they would have picked up on this “charge” of Russian interference years ago, say in 2008 with Obama’s original campaign and his communist advisors and supporters (Dr. Quentin Young, Bill Ayers, the Palmers, or even his older CP/Marxist contacts from the 60’s (Frank Marshall Davis, David Simon Canter, perhaps Don Rose and Saul Alinksy).

Soviet-directed propaganda was aimed at Barry Goldwater in his 1964 presidential nomination race, portraying him as a crazy nuclear-gun slinging cowboy who would start WW III.

The Soviets/Communists have ALWAYS interference in the elections of other nations, esp. Greece, Italy, France (the Communist Party of France was a KGB asset, period), Portugal, England (the Labor Party was full of Soviet assets, as was the Miners Union and the CND (funded by Moscow and its peace fronts).

W. German premier Willi Brandt’s personal secretary was a KGB/Stasi agent named Guillaume.

Members of our Senate Select Committee on Intelligence or one of a similar name had East German (American) agents on it. A Hanoi propagandist worked for two U.S. representatives and Sen. John F. Kerry before being exposed (several times). A topCuban sympathizer worked for Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and members of the CPUSA worked for Rep. George Crockett Jr and possibly old Mr. Red himself, Rep. John Conyers. Rep. Ron Dellums’ aide Carliotta Scott was his illegal conduit to Marxist dictator Maurice Bishop (she was also his lover according to captured letters found during the 1983 Grenada operation). The wife of the Cuban DGI leader on Grenada, Gail Reed, was an American communist prominent in the DGI/KGB-created/often trained Venceremos Brigade.

And Ted Kennedy had several contacts with KGB/CPUSA operations/fronts such as the “Congressional Conference on Cuba”, the 1983 letters to the Soviets via former dumbo Senator John Tunney (D-CA), and was on a Soviet “influence” list sent by the FBI to John Dean (It is reproduced en toto at www.keywiki.org, search for Ted Kennedy. It should be there with all the names of Soviet targets on that one listing.

If the Russian “interfered” in this past election, you have to ask “why” and in whose “favor”. It certainly wouldn’t have been Don Trump. While Hillary was a fool and an incompetent leader, she could have been the Russian’s “Fool and Incompetent” leader if elected.

She was ambitious, greedy, and blind to reality so she would have been the perfect Soviet/Russian dupe. The KGBSVB would run rings around her without her ever knowing it.

That is what needs to be looked into.


30 posted on 03/21/2017 12:25:12 AM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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