The Russian "Hoax"
“(Political partisanship) opens the door to foreign influence and
corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself
through the channels of party passions. Thus, the policy and the will
of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”
– President George Washington, Farewell Address (1796) –
Our vulnerability to bad people manipulating us doesn’t stop at our border. America’s foreign adversaries have been persistent in their sabotage efforts – proving that gaslighting is not just a threat to our democracy but a national security issue as well.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, for example, didn’t cause our national division but, as any good KGB agent would, masterfully leveraged and deepened it by masterminding a stunningly successful influence campaign during the 2016 presidential election.
Two studies show how Russia exploited our social media data in 2016. The first, a study by the University of Oxford and Graphika – a company that analyzes complex online networks – describes Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) assault between 2012-2018 this way:
IRA activities were designed to polarize the U.S. public and interfere in elections by: campaigning for African American voters to boycott elections or follow the wrong voting procedures in 2016, and more recently for Mexican American and Hispanic voters to distrust U.S. institutions; encouraging extreme right-wing voters to be more confrontational; and spreading sensationalist, conspiratorial, and other forms of junk political news and misinformation to voters across the political spectrum.
The analysis found that between 2013 and 2018, the Russian Internet Research Agency’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter campaigns reached tens of millions of users in the United States; over 30 million users, between 2015 and 2017, shared the IRA’s Facebook and Instagram posts with their friends and family, liking, reacting to, and commenting on them along the way; peaks in advertising and organic activity often correspond to important dates in the U.S. political calendar, crises, and international events; IRA activities focused on the U.S. began on Twitter in 2013 but quickly evolved into a multi-platform strategy involving Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube among other platforms; and the most far reaching IRA activity is in organic posting, not advertisements.
They also warned these assaults were not going to stop any time soon:
Surprisingly, these campaigns did not stop once Russia’s IRA was caught interfering in the 2016 election. Engagement rates increased and covered a widening range of public policy issues, national security issues, and issues pertinent to younger voters.
The highest peak of IRA ad volume on Facebook is in April 2017 – the month of the Syrian missile strike, the use of the Mother of All Bombs on ISIS tunnels in eastern Afghanistan, and the release of the tax reform plan; IRA posts on Instagram and Facebook increased substantially after the election, with Instagram seeing the greatest increase in IRA activity; the IRA accounts actively engaged with disinformation and practices common to Russian ‘trolling.’
The second study, from New Knowledge (now Yonder) – a company that specializes in information integrity – explains the IRA’s efforts to target and divide Americans by race:
The most prolific IRA efforts on Facebook and Instagram specifically targeted black American communities and appear to have been focused on developing black audiences and recruiting black Americans as assets; the IRA created an expansive cross-platform media mirage targeting the black community, which shared and cross-promoted authentic black media to create an immersive influence ecosystem; the IRA exploited the trust of their Page audiences to develop human assets, at least some of whom were not aware of the role they played…This tactic was substantially more pronounced on black-targeted accounts; the degree of integration into authentic black community media was not replicated in the otherwise right-leaning or otherwise left-leaning content.
Election interference is a key part of Putin’s asymmetric-warfare strategy. Asymmetric warfare is essentially a conflict between two countries that have significantly uneven military capabilities, like the United States versus Russia. These hybrid warfare tactics are designed to significantly raise the risk and cost of retaliation and to keep potential adversaries guessing. This creates a kind of gray zone between war and peace – where things don’t escalate into overt military conflict, but where adversaries know the threat is always there.
It’s incredibly important we understand exactly how foreign actors interfered in our 2016, 2020 and 2024 elections so we can make certain we never let this happen again. It’s also incredibly important that we understand how our quest to find the truth about Russia’s 2016 interference was railroaded by gaslighting and partisan politics by the Republican party. Even though Russia’s transgressions in 2016 are undeniable, a disturbingly large group of Americans still think the whole thing was a “hoax” because Donald Trump and his parrots still insist that it was.
Because the Trump campaign was included in the Robert Mueller special counsel investigation that examined Russian interference in the 2016 election – together with the discredited Steele Dossier, which wasn’t the impetus for the Russian investigation but gave Trump an excuse to trash the entire thing – the fact that Russia interfered in the 2016 election got all tangled up with whether Russia interfered to help Donald Trump win. This was insulting to Donald – who wanted EVERYONE to know that HE won all by HIMSELF – so the deadly combination of his gaslighting and big mouth went into overdrive:
“Uranium is a big subject. If the mainstream media would cover the uranium scandal and that Russia has 20 percent of uranium for whatever reason – and a lot of people understand what those reasons may be – I think that’s your Russia story. That’s your real Russia story. Not a story where they talk about collusion, and there was none. It was a hoax.” (in the Oval Office on October 19, 2017)
“Why isn’t the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech money to Bill, the Hillary Russian “reset,” praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company. Trump Russia story is a hoax. #MAGA!” (Tweet on March 28, 2017)
“The Russia story is a total hoax. There has been absolutely nothing coming out of that.” (to the New York Times on April 5, 2017)
“The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?” (Tweet on May 8, 2017)
“Stock Market hit another all-time high yesterday – despite the Russian hoax story! Also, jobs numbers are starting to look very good!” (Tweet on July 15, 2017)
“They can continue their obsession with the Russian hoax, or they can serve the interests of the American people.” (at a rally in West Virginia on August 3, 2017)
“Russia. I call it the Russian hoax, one of the great hoaxes.” (at a rally in Alabama on September 22, 2017)
“The Russia hoax continues, now it’s ads on Facebook. What about the totally biased and dishonest Media coverage in favor of Crooked Hillary?” (Tweet on September 22, 2017)
This tangled narrative continued right through the 2020 and 2024 elections. In December 2024, almost two months after he won a second term as president, Donald was still at it: “Russia, Russia, Russia,’ ‘Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine,’ all the different hoaxes.”
When asked by TIME magazine about foreign officials having concerns about sharing intelligence with his choice for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, given her suspected support of Russia and Syria, Trump responded, “I think she's a great American… I’ve watched her for years, and she has nothing to do with Russia… this is another, you know, a mini-Russia, Russia, Russia scam.”
But let’s be clear. The fact that Russia interfered in the 2016 election is a completely separate conversation from whether Russia interfered to help Donald Trump win. It’s entirely beside the point whose Russia’s interference helped or didn’t help. Acknowledging that Russia interfered in our 2016 presidential election in no way undermines Donald Trump’s victory. He won, fair and square.
The only relevant point here is that a foreign leader significantly interfered in American democracy, and the President of the United States should have publicly held him accountable for it harshly and immediately.
That didn’t happen, to say the least. At a news conference during the 2018 Russia–United States summit in Helsinki, Finland – with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin standing behind podiums right beside one another – an American reporter asked Donald Trump if, regarding 2016 election interference, he believed U.S. intelligence agencies or Putin. Donald Trump replied, “President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
Say whaaaaaatttt?????
This is bad. Even though the Mueller Report – finally released to the public in April 2019 with tons of solid evidence – made clear the Russian government “interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion,” news of the investigation and its findings were fairly limited in scope and audience, both domestically and internationally. Even severe U.S. sanctions imposed on Russian entities and individuals for their role in 2016 election interference got little airtime. (read Part I of the Mueller report here and Part II here)
On the other hand, the President of the United States standing on a stage in another country with the head Russian, siding with him over U.S. intelligence agencies? That’s a viral video clip shown on repeat in every country around the world – including our own – forever, and a huge long-term blow to our national security apparatus.
Look, we're not naïve. We understand the United States also does this asymmetric warfare stuff. That’s just the nature of the world we live in today. But that in no way means we should just sit back and let other nation states attack us with no consequence. Whose side are you on, Donald?
Here is the truth: There is zero doubt that Vladimir Putin significantly intervened in the 2016 American election, threatening our democratic institutions and one of our most sacred constitutional rights. There is zero doubt that Vladimir Putin purposefully and meticulously perpetrated these malicious acts with the intention of harming our democracy and polarizing the American public by sowing seeds of discord among us. There is zero doubt that this IS NOT A HOAX. In the words of retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and Trump’s National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, the evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election is “incontrovertible.”