The McClatchy Washington Bureau news service reports that federal investigators are examining whether alt-right and far-right news sites, such as Breitbart and Infowars, aided the Russians in helping Donald Trump as a candidate for president. The news sites advanced news stories — many of them fictional and false — clearly favoring Donald Trump in his bid for the White House. The Russians used "bots" a software application that runs automated tasks, to be timed strategically targeted at social media to blitz those "fictional" and "false" news stories.
Kremlin-backed RT News and Sputnik News also were beneficiaries of these "bots" that promoted Donald Trump and slammed Democrat Hillary Clinton, said the McClatchy report. The FBI is investigating whether the news sites "cooperated" with the Russians or took actions to assist. However, the story points out that their cooperation was not necessary to amplify advancing their message on facebook and twitter in particular. The Russians also used what is known as "trolls," computer operatives numbering in the thousands, who pretended to be Trump supporters.
FBI investigating news sites
The investigation is not expected to end up in indictments or criminal charges but is meant to "reconstruct the nature of the Kremlin's "cyber attack" and determine ways to prevent another." The news story about the news sites cooperating directly or indirectly comes on the backdrop of Monday's hearing before the House Intelligence Committee in which FBI Director James Comey essentially said that President Trump's infamous Saturday morning tweets charging former President Obama with "wiretapping" candidate Trump.
Breitbart and Infowars under investigation for ties to Russia: report https://t.co/EVokfwL7RE pic.twitter.com/AdMcBWFqIk
— Raw Story (@RawStory) March 21, 2017
FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Mike Rogers said on Monday that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election. They also believed the Russians favored Trump and were opposed to Hillary Clinton.
In his testimony, Comey confirmed the FBI is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. With respect to the President's tweets, said Mr. Comey, were just not factual. It is those tweets that directly led to these hearings.
James Comey's testimony created a treacherous political moment for President Trump https://t.co/81ULcFmBrr
— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 21, 2017
The agencies charged in January of this year that the tens of thousands of emails from DNC staff, the Clinton campaign including Chairman John Podesta and many other Democrats.
