{"id":2337685,"date":"2024-09-06T06:54:02","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T10:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dems-pushing-a-new-version-of-the-old-russia-collusion-hoax\/"},"modified":"2024-09-06T06:59:27","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T10:59:27","slug":"dems-pushing-a-new-version-of-the-old-russia-collusion-hoax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dems-pushing-a-new-version-of-the-old-russia-collusion-hoax\/","title":{"rendered":"Dems Pushing A New Version Of The Old Russia Collusion Hoax"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdems-pushing-a-new-version-of-the-old-russia-collusion-hoax%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2337685&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The Biden administration recently\u2063 announced that \u2063the Justice Department is taking action against alleged Kremlin-controlled websites\u200b and Russian state media employees, as part of a broader effort to combat Russian \u200dmisinformation ahead of the elections. Critics\u200d raise concerns \u2062about the timing of this \u200bannouncement, occurring just as voting begins in some states, suggesting it aims to portray \u200bformer\u2064 President Trump and his supporters as linked to a foreign adversary, thus undermining the integrity of their support. This has been characterized as a form\u200d of election meddling by the DOJ itself, which has a policy \u200bagainst such actions that could influence electoral outcomes.<\/p>\n<p>The piece\u200b critiques past instances when Democrats have accused Trump of colluding with Russia, including claims that \u200cwere \u2064sparked by \u2063the\u200d discredited Steele dossier and led \u2063to extensive investigations, \u200dsuch \u2063as the Mueller investigation, which ultimately found no\u2064 evidence of collusion. It also highlights how the\u2062 intelligence community reportedly interfered in the 2020 election by suppressing\u2062 information about\u200b Hunter Biden, which was dismissed as Russian disinformation despite its authenticity.<\/p>\n<p>The latest indictment involves two RT employees accused\u200b of conducting a &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-new-acting-attorney-general-jeff-rosen-recently-wrote-an-essay-on-foreign-influence-in-us-elections-this-tells-us-a-little-about-his-knowledge-of-whats-going-on-today\/\" title=\"The New Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen Recently Wrote an Essay on Foreign Influence in US Elections \u2013 This Tells Us A Little About His Knowledge of What\u2019s Going On Today\">malign influence operation<\/a>,&#8221; financing a Tennessee-based \u2063media company and influencing right-leaning commentators without disclosing their state-backed funding. The overall assertion of the\u2062 article is that these repeated allegations against Trump and\u200c associated figures \u2064reflect a strategy of political maneuvering by Democrats, deemed by critics as a more significant form of election interference than any alleged actions\u200b from Russia.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Biden administration&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/russia-justice-department-election-foreign-influence-4888f4bfc61e46173101060ad0321d2f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announcement this week<\/a>&nbsp;that the Justice Department is taking action against alleged Kremlin-run websites and Russian state media employees as part of an effort to&nbsp;&nbsp;crack down on Russian &ldquo;misinformation&rdquo; ahead of the election should raise red flags &mdash; huge, obvious red flags.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest red flag is the timing of the indictment and accompanying announcement, just as Americans in some states begin voting. The only possible reason for the DOJ to announce this now, and to frame it as a Russian election meddling scheme designed to boost former President Donald Trump, is to paint Trump and his supporters as agents of a hostile foreign power, or at the very least to imply that Trump&rsquo;s support is fake, paid for by Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, the timing of the indictment itself represents an egregious form of election meddling&nbsp;<em>by our own Justice Department<\/em>, whose own longstanding policy is not to file indictments that could potentially influence an election. Yet that&rsquo;s the entire purpose of the indictment announced this week.<\/p>\n<p>We&rsquo;ve seen this playbook before from Democrats. Hand-waving about &ldquo;Russian disinformation&rdquo; and &ldquo;election interference&rdquo; by the DOJ and the U.S. intelligence community is of course a well-worn election interference tactic &mdash; and arguably a far more potent than anything that&rsquo;s ever come from Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>First it was the outlandish claim in 2016 that Donald Trump was actually a secret Russian agent and that he colluded with Moscow to win the White House. An entire FBI investigation was based on the discredited and patently ridiculous Steele dossier. The initial election meddling allegation was based on nothing more than $100,000 or so in Facebook ads <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2017\/09\/28\/russia-facebook-narrative-overblown\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">purchased<\/a> by Russian entities with the aim of sowing division among the American electorate. And from that thin reed, an entire narrative emerged that Russia not only meddled in our election but that Trump colluded with Moscow in the effort.<\/p>\n<p>The entire U.S. intelligence community was mobilized first against Trump&rsquo;s campaign and then against his administration in what amounted to an Executive Branch rebellion against the duly elected president of the United States. For years, outlandish claims of Trump-Russia collusion hobbled the Trump White House before eventually fizzling out with the denouement of the Mueller investigation, which turned up <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2019\/03\/24\/breaking-news-barr-to-release-summary-of-mueller-report-1233771\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">zero evidence<\/a> of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.<\/p>\n<p>But Democrats and the deep state didn&rsquo;t give up. Desperate to pry Trump out of office in 2020, the FBI and the intelligence community interfered in our elections yet again. First, they prepped social media companies like Facebook and Twitter that any negative stories about Hunter Biden in the runup to the election should be considered Russian disinformation or obtained via illegal hacking. When the New York Post broke the news of Hunter Biden laptop in October 2020, the big social media companies did as they had been told and throttled the story.<\/p>\n<p>Not only that, but <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/06\/27\/former-intel-officials-who-signed-infamous-hunter-biden-laptop-letter-remain-defiant\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">dozens<\/a> of &ldquo;former&rdquo; intelligence officials (coordinated and cajoled by none other than the current secretary of state, Anthony Blinken) issued an open letter claiming the Hunter Biden story had &ldquo;all the hallmarks&rdquo; of a Kremlin disinformation operation &mdash; even though the CIA and FBI knew at the time, and had known for over a year, that the laptop and its contents were authentic.<\/p>\n<p>Now they&rsquo;re back with a warmed-over version of the same tired tactic. Call it the Russia collusion hoax 3.0. According to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/d9\/2024-09\/u.s._v._kalashnikov_and_afanasyeva_indictment_0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the DOJ indictment<\/a>, the so-called &ldquo;malign influence operation&rdquo; involved two Russian nationals who worked for RT, formerly known as Russia Today, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/chinese-government-erasing-western-retailers-online-stores-locations-for-voicing-human-rights-concerns\/\" title=\"Chinese Government Erasing Western Retailers\u2019 Online Stores, Locations For Voicing Human Rights Concerns\">state-run media outlet<\/a>. These RT employees allegedly ran a series of &ldquo;covert projects&rdquo; that included funneling $10 million to a Tennessee-based company called Tenet Media, which was founded in 2022 by founded by Liam Donovan and his wife, Lauren Chen.<\/p>\n<p>Chen is a right-wing Turning Points USA provocateur of sorts who made videos for The Blaze (which has since cut ties with her) and proffered what were meant to be edgy conservative takes on social media. The scheme they allegedly ran was to fund other right-wing(ish) commentators like Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, and Benny Johnson without disclosing that their company was &ldquo;funded and directed&rdquo; by RT. Rubin, Pool, and Johnson all released statements Wednesday insisting they were deceived by Tenet and are victims of this Russia propaganda plot.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, it appears that the scheme wasn&rsquo;t all that successful. According to the indictment, the RT employees running the scheme grew frustrated that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/minneapolis-dems-buying-influence-online-to-shape-public-opinion-ahead-of-trial-of-officer-accused-in-floyd-death\/\" title=\"Minneapolis Dems buying influence online to shape public opinion ahead of trial of officer accused in Floyd death\">social media influencers<\/a> they had paid through Tenet weren&rsquo;t sharing Tenet&rsquo;s videos or promoting the company enough.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/bennyjohnson\/status\/1831443521603301497\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">According to Johnson<\/a>, the contract his lawyers negotiated last year with Tenet was &ldquo;a standard, arms-length deal, which was later terminated.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>But the details of the indictment aren&rsquo;t the big takeaway from this story. The big takeaway is the timing of all this. Biden&rsquo;s DOJ is once again promoting a false narrative of Russian election meddling designed to help Trump, and doing so in the runup to the November election. They want to portray Trump support online as fake, funded and directed by foreign enemies in Moscow, and thereby paint Trump as a Putin lackey &mdash; yet again.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Sorry, but we&rsquo;ve seen this movie before. Yes, Moscow might have hatched a half-baked scheme to fund right<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/kid-rock-defends-trumps-music-choice-at-rallies-following-left-wing-social-media-backlash\/\" title=\"Kid Rock stands by Trump&#039;s choice of music at rallies amidst criticism from left-wing social media\">-wing social media influencers<\/a> without their knowledge, just as Moscow spent $100,000 on Facebook ads in 2016 to sow division. None of it has ever amounted to much, and compared to what our own federal agencies have done, it doesn&rsquo;t even rate.<\/p>\n<p>The plain truth is that by announcing this indictment now, inserting it into the news cycle, and knowing the corporate media will do its part to portray online Trump support as inauthentic, funded by Russia, Biden&rsquo;s DOJ is meddling in the election in a far more serious way than Tenet or RT or anyone in Moscow could ever hope to do.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. He is the author of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Pagan-America-Decline-Christianity-Dark\/dp\/1684514444\/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Pagan+America&amp;qid=1695306441&amp;sr=8-1\"><i>Pagan America: the Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come<\/i><\/a>. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Biden administration&#8217;s recent announcement regarding the Justice Department&#8217;s actions against purported Kremlin-operated websites and Russian state media personnel, aimed at combating Russian &#8220;misinformation&#8221; before the election, should be cause for concern\u2014significant and clear concern. The most glaring issue is the timing of this indictment and its announcement, coinciding with the start of voting in several states. The only plausible explanation for the DOJ to make this announcement now, framing it as a scheme by Russia to interfere in elections to benefit former President Donald Trump, is to portray Trump and his supporters as agents of a foreign adversary or at least suggest that Trump&#8217;s backing is insincere and funded by Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>In essence, the timing of this indictment represents a blatant form of election interference by our own Justice Department, which has a long-standing policy against filing indictments that could influence an election. Yet that seems to be precisely what this week&#8217;s indictment aims to achieve.<\/p>\n<p>This tactic from Democrats isn&#8217;t new; we&#8217;ve seen similar strategies before. The narrative surrounding &#8220;Russian disinformation&#8221; and &#8220;election interference&#8221; from both the DOJ and U.S. intelligence agencies has become a familiar method of influencing elections\u2014arguably more effective than anything originating from Moscow itself. <\/p>\n<p>Initially, there was an outrageous claim in 2016 suggesting that Donald Trump was secretly working with Russia to secure his presidency\u2014a theory based on the discredited Steele dossier which led to an extensive FBI investigation. This allegation stemmed from minimal evidence: around $100,000 spent on Facebook ads by Russian entities intended to create division among American voters. From such flimsy foundations arose an entire narrative asserting not only that Russia interfered in our elections but also that Trump colluded with them.<\/p>\n<p>The entire U.S. intelligence community mobilized against Trump&#8217;s campaign first and then his administration in what amounted to rebellion within the Executive Branch against a legitimately elected president. For years, baseless claims about Trump-Russia collusion hampered his presidency until they ultimately fizzled out following Mueller&#8217;s investigation which found no evidence supporting such collusion.<\/p>\n<p>However, Democrats didn&#8217;t relent; desperate efforts continued into 2020 aimed at removing Trump from office through further electoral interference by FBI and intelligence officials once again. They warned social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter not to trust any negative stories about Hunter Biden leading up to the election as potential Russian disinformation or products of illegal hacking efforts. When news broke about Hunter Biden\u2019s laptop in October 2020 via The New York Post, major social media companies acted accordingly by suppressing it.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, numerous \u201cformer\u201d intelligence officials (coordinated by current Secretary of State Anthony Blinken) issued an open letter claiming signs pointing towards Kremlin involvement regarding Hunter Biden\u2019s story\u2014even though both CIA and FBI had known for over a year prior that its contents were genuine.<\/p>\n<p>Now we see another iteration of these tactics emerging\u2014the so-called Russia collusion hoax 3.0\u2014with recent DOJ indictments alleging involvement from two Russians associated with RT (formerly known as Russia Today), who supposedly orchestrated covert projects including funneling $10 million into Tenet Media\u2014a Tennessee-based company founded recently by Liam Donovan and Lauren Chen (a right-wing provocateur). <\/p>\n<p>These RT employees allegedly funded various right-leaning commentators without revealing their financial ties back home; however those involved have since claimed they were misled into participating unwittingly within this supposed propaganda scheme.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately though\u2014the specifics outlined within these indictments are less significant than their timing amidst upcoming elections where Biden\u2019s DOJ appears intent on perpetuating false narratives surrounding Russian meddling designed specifically around aiding Trump while simultaneously undermining online support for him as being illegitimate or foreign-funded\u2014all while painting him once again as aligned with Putin\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve witnessed similar scenarios unfold previously: yes\u2014Moscow may have attempted some half-hearted schemes involving funding conservative influencers without their knowledge akin perhaps even just spending $100k on divisive Facebook ads back during 2016\u2014but none ever amounted much compared alongside actions taken directly through federal agencies themselves throughout these past few years\u2019 worths\u2019 worths\u2019 worths\u2019 worths&#8217; worths&#8217; worths&#8217; worths&#8217; events unfolding across America today! <\/p>\n<p>By announcing such indictments now\u2014and inserting them strategically into public discourse knowing full well corporate media will amplify claims portraying online support behind Donald trump being somehow unauthentic\u2014it becomes evident how much deeper our own government might actually meddle far beyond anything anyone else could hope accomplish!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":518,"featured_media":2337686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/RT.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[6926,3933,8857,32603,4280],"class_list":["post-2337685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-collusion","tag-dems","tag-hoax","tag-political-news","tag-russia"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/RT.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2337685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2337685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2337685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2337686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2337685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2337685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2337685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}