Russian Disinformation Works Because Donald Trump ‘Parrots The Same Lines,’ Cyber Expert Testifies

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The charge from Watts, a former FBI Special Agent who tracks Russian influence operations, came in response to a question from Republican Sen. James Lankford (Okla.), who asked why Russian President Vladimir Putin believed he could get away with interfering in last year’s U.S. elections.

“They parrot the same lines,” Watts responded, referring to Trump and Moscow. “[Trump] denies the intel from the United States about Russia. He claimed that the election could be rigged. That was the No. 1 theme pushed by RT, Sputnik news,” Watts continued. “He’s made claims of voter fraud, that President Obama is not a citizen, that … Congressman Cruz is not a citizen.”

In some instances, Trump and his campaign team propagated fake stories they appear to have learned about directly from Russian state media. Last year, then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort accused the U.S. media of failing to cover a terrorist attack against the NATO air base in Incirlik, Turkey. There was no such attack ― but RT, Sputnik and pro-Russian Twitter accounts pushed a series of stories suggesting Incirlik was under threat.

According to Watts, pro-Russian Twitter accounts noticed Trump’s loose relationship with facts and sought to capitalize on it. They “tweet at President Trump during high volumes when they know he’s online and they push conspiracy theories,” Watts testified.

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Senate intelligence committee leaders have received reports that Russia hired at least 1,000 trolls to spread fake news stories to hurt Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton during the presidential election.

Warner said in the latest case, the paid trolls apparently focused on swing states in an attempt to influence votes there — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — where people were “reading during the waning days of the election that “‘Clinton is sick,’ or ‘Clinton is taking money from whoever for some source’ … fake news.”

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The Russian government used "thousands" of internet trolls and bots to spread fake news, in addition to hacking into political campaigns leading up to the 2016 U.S. election, according to one lawmaker.

Disinformation spread on social media was designed to raise doubts about the U.S. election and the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, said Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat.

"This Russian propaganda on steroids was designed to poison the national conversation in America," Warner said Thursday during a Senate hearing on Russian election hacking. The Russian government used "thousands of paid internet trolls" and bots to spread disinformation on social media.
Warner addressed repeated suggestions by Trump that Russian interference in the election is "fake news."

"This is not innuendo or false allegations," Warner said. "This is not fake news, this is actually what happened to us."
The purpose of the recent Russian disinformation campaign is to stir up unrest in Western democracies, to shake their citizens' faith in their governments and traditional media,

@mrmhead Said

Most of this fake news, gullible population and controversy could have been negated if they would have just followed up on My Idea