On October 10, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump stood in front of a crowd of supporters in Pennsylvania and quoted Russian propaganda as truth. This is utter insanity.
Russian Propaganda Site Posts Benghazi Story
Wikileaks recently released the “Podesta emails,” and, almost immediately, a Russian propaganda service found a supposed link between Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, journalist and Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal, and Benghazi.
A Republican’s wet dream.
Or, it would have been, had it been true.
The big story here was that the Russian propaganda agency Sputnik had revealed that Blumenthal had supposedly said that the attack — often referred to as Benghazi — was preventable.
But Blumenthal never said that.
Sputnik, a “news” service fully-funded by the Kremlin (in other words, Russian propaganda), reported the story. When Newsweek‘s Kurt Eichenwald read it, though, he thought he’d seen those words before.
As Eichenwald writes:
“Those words sounded really, really familiar. Really familiar. Like, so familiar they struck me as something I wrote. Because they were something I wrote.
The Russians were quoting two sentences from a 10,000-word piece I wrote for Newsweek, which Blumenthal had emailed to Podesta.”
The Russians seized on two sentences written by Eichenwald and attributed them to Blumenthal. To the Russians, that meant it was:
“… Putting to rest the Democratic Party talking point that the investigation into Clinton’s management of the State Department at the time of the attack was nothing more than a partisan witch hunt.”
Except that it was 100 percent false.
Eichenwald gave the full context of his original article, then writes (emphasis mine):
“Of course, this might be seen as just an opportunity to laugh at the incompetence of the Russian hackers and government press—once they realized their error, Sputnik took the article down. But then things got even more bizarre.
This false story was reported only by the Russian-controlled agency (a reference appeared in a Turkish publication, but it was nothing but a link to the Sputnik article). So how did Donald Trump end up advancing the same falsehood put out by Putin’s mouthpiece?“
Republican Nominee Quotes Russian Propaganda At Rally
On Monday, Donald Trump held up a piece of paper in front of thousands of supporters and said it was an email from Blumenthal, whom he referred to as “Sleazy Sidney.” He proceeded to read EICHENWALD’S words to his followers, repeating over and over that they were Blumenthal’s words, and then said:
“In other words, he’s now admitting they could have done something about Benghazi. This just came out a little while ago.”
Trump then defiantly tossed the paper to the floor while his rabid followers started to chant “Lock her up!”
Let me reiterate that for you: The Republican presidential nominee quoted Russian propaganda to thousands of people as though it were fact.
Eichenwald writes:
“This is not funny. It is terrifying. The Russians engage in a sloppy disinformation effort and, before the day is out, the Republican nominee for president is standing on a stage reciting the manufactured story as truth. How did this happen? Who in the Trump campaign was feeding him falsehoods straight from the Kremlin?”
Eichenwald appeared on MSNBC today to discuss the situation, and said (the following is a transcription from a live broadcast at 12:31p.m. EDT):
“It wasn’t published anywhere else, and that use of the excerpt … I mean, this was a 75-page email, I printed it out. I wrote a 10,000-word story. The two sentences that were put into Sidney Blumenthal’s mouth were on page 19. Prior to that, there were 22 mentions of ‘this is an article from Newsweek.’ And so the likelihood that two people, two organizations — the Trump campaign and a Russian government media site that has been cited by U.S. intelligence as being part of the campaign to upend the American election — the probability that both of them made the exact same mistake with the exact same sentences, with the 75-page email, is pretty far-fetched …
I’m not saying that Trump is a spy for Russia or that he’s taking Putin’s words, but it really is quite disturbing that a candidate for President of the United States is standing up in front of a crowd and reciting Russian disinformation, Russian propaganda, as truth. And if he doesn’t know that it was Russian propaganda, and I actually don’t believe he did, there really needs to be an exploration of where IS he getting his information? Who gave him that? And how did it end up that he was reading Russian disinformation from the stage?”
What Is The Trump Campaign’s Response?
Silence. Newsweek contacted them for a statement, and they did not respond.
I will leave you with Eichenwald’s words, followed by Trump’s statement at the rally:
“This totalitarian regime, engaged in what are arguably war crimes in Syria to protect its government puppet, is working to upend a democracy to the benefit of an American candidate who uttered positive comments just Sunday about the Kremlin’s campaign on behalf of Bashar al-Assad. Trump’s arguments were an incomprehensible explication of the complex Syrian situation, which put him right on the side of the Iranians and Syrians, who are fighting to preserve the government that is the primary conduit of weapons used against Israel.
So no, Mr. Putin, I’m not Sidney Blumenthal. And now that you have been exposed once again, get the hell out of our election. And, Mr. Trump, you have some explaining to do.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y86z3k5s8XY&feature=youtu.be
Featured Image via screenshot from YouTube video
