Michael Flynn Followed Russian Troll Accounts, Pushed Their Messages in Days Before Election
Trump’s notoriously Kremlin-friendly national security adviser amplified Russian messages right when they mattered most—in the days leading up to Nov. 8, 2016.
Former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn followed five Twitter accounts based out of the Russian-backed “troll factory” in St. Petersburg—and pushed their messages at least three times in the month before the 2016 election.
Over 2,750 troll accounts based out of the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency were made public by House investigators on Wednesday. The accounts, some of which had previously been identified by The Daily Beast as Russian-generated, were pulled from Twitter due to their ties to the troll factory over the past three months.
The Daily Beast had previously discovered Flynn, Donald Trump Jr., Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, and Trump campaign digital director Brad Parscale retweeted Ten_GOP several times in the month before the election.
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Flynn followed the accounts Jenn_Abrams, LauraBaeley, Pamela_Moore13, SouthLoneStar, and Ten_GOP. Baeley, Abrams and Moore falsely claimed they were female American Trump supporters. SouthLoneStar claimed it was an account by a “Proud Texan and American Patriot” who featured “Islam is against Western culture” in its Twitter bio.
Just three days before the 2016 election, Flynn posted that a Ten_GOP tweet “must be retweeted frequently,” tagging Trump campaign social media director Dan Scavino, his son Mike Flynn Jr., and far-right agitator Mike Cernovich.
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The Ten_GOP tweets were two of just 25 tweets by Trump’s future national security adviser in the two days before the election.
When Flynn quote-tweeted Pamela_Moore13 in October, it was one of his three total tweets from that day.
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Flynn’s son, Michael Flynn Jr., was an even more ardent consumer of Russian troll content, retweeting the propaganda accounts 47 times in all, according to data in the Polititweet archive. Ten_GOP, an account he retweeted 37 times, benefited the most, with five retweets defending General Flynn, one purporting to debunk Russian election interference, and another pushing misinformation about a Twin Falls, Idaho assault case that Russia was then using to inflame anti-refugee sentiment in the US. The troll account Pamela_Moore13 got eight retweets, and Jenn_Abrams and rightnpr (“Right and Proud”) each enjoyed a single retweet from the junior Flynn, who also favored the Russian account USA_Gunslinger (“Gunslinger Girl” from “Wisconsin”) with a personal reply on election day.
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The elder Flynn also tweeted about the Pizzagate, which falsely claims that Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman John Podesta were running a pedophile ring out of the basement of a pizza shop that has no basement, in the days before the election.
“U decide – NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w Children, etc…MUST READ!” he tweeted, linking to an entirely fabricated news article on a website called TruePundit six days before polls opened.
He later deleted the tweet.
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Michael Flynn Followed Russian Troll Accounts, Pushed Their Messages in Days Before Election https://t.co/rZYoWsz5c9 via @thedailybeast
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) November 2, 2017
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