The adults finally decided to step into the Russia investigation
Mar 30, 2017, 7:05 AM | Updated: 7:13 am
The Senate Intelligence Committee has now decided to take a higher profile in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. And unlike the House Intelligence Committee – the top Democrat and the top Republican are actually working together.
Related: If Russia doesn’t like Trump, we may see more leaked emails
Republican chairperson Senator Richard Burr said: “This investigations’ scope will go wherever the intelligence leads it.”
Democratic co-chair Mark Warner: “Echoing what the chairman has said — wherever it leads.”
And that includes determining once and for all if there was any Trump connection. CBS National Security correspondent Jeff Pegues reported that the Senate committee will examine whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Russians during the election. It will also investigate whether thousands of internet trolls hired by the Russians manipulated the news cycle in swing states.
There isn’t much question about those Russian trolls. The so-called Troll Factory in St. Petersburg was exposed several years ago, and according to reporters in Russia, is now being turned into a mainstream media company.
I spoke via Skype to Alexey Kovalev, a fact-checker for The Moscow Times.
“Look at it this way, we’ve already found out how ridiculously easy it is to manipulate social media during this election campaign,” Kovalev said. “So why not a lavishly financed media company?”
Kovalev says this troll factory is now doing things like running a Facebook page called Secured Borders, which looks like a conservative website and posts in support of pushing U.S. sanctuary cities, but actually runs out of the St. Petersburg Troll Factory.
They take us for a country of gullible suckers.
But Kovalev says if it’s any consolation: “You won’t believe how gullible we are. How many fake news from these so-called satirical websites in the states end up on national headlines in Russia — it’s ridiculous.”
We deserve each other.
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