Politics

Schiff, Feinstein blame Russian bots for #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag, demand investigation

It seems desperate Democrats are seeing Russians behind every blade of grass.  Now they’re blaming Russian “bots” for the viral #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag being used by a number of people to demand that Congress make public a four-page memo said to expose a scandal described as being “worse than Watergate.”

According to The Hill and others, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., sent a letter to Facebook and Twitter demanding they investigate the situation and “provide a public report to Congress and the American public by January 26” on the matter.

Both social media sites — well known for their censorship of non-PC accounts and content — acknowledged receipt of the letter.

“Twitter is committed to addressing malicious activity on our platform, and we take any assertions of such activity very seriously. We look forward to working closely with Senator Feinstein and Congressman Schiff to address their questions,” said a Twitter spokesperson.

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ABC News tweeted the letter sent to the social media companies:

According to The Hill:

Schiff and Feinstein in their letter cited data by the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy, which found that Russian bots on Twitter were advocating for legislators to make the memo public.

A source familiar with Twitter’s analytics said “the hashtags appear to be organically trending,” and seem to not be the result of a Russian led influence campaign.

The senators expressed concern that attempts by Russian actors to influence the release of the memo “are intended to influence congressional action and undermine Special Counsel [Robert] Mueller’s investigation,” of the possible Trump campaign ties to Russia.

“It is critically important that the Special Counsel’s investigation be allowed to proceed without interference from inside or outside the United States,” the California lawmakers wrote. “That is why we seek your assistance in our efforts to counter Russia’s continuing efforts to manipulate public opinion and undermine American democracy and the rule of law.”

As a result, many said they personally contacted Schiff’s offices to let him know they’re real people, not “bots.”

https://twitter.com/Shelia_Kay/status/955843097174429697

https://twitter.com/Microsingular/status/955838402909306881

Of course — they really don’t care what Americans think…

https://twitter.com/Gayla/status/955948925529227264

https://twitter.com/spankdatboy/status/955857792518279168

https://twitter.com/karafarrah/status/955858915757035520

Mark Dice also weighed in:

https://twitter.com/MarkDice/status/955933003024224256

As are many others concerned about the memo and its implications.

Schiff’s latest move comes on the heels of a statement in which he essentially said Americans simply can’t understand what’s in the memo.

“It is essentially a set of talking points that the Republican Intel staff drafted. Based on the highly classified materials which most of the Republican members were forced to acknowledge,” he told CNN, according to a transcript posted to Grabien. “They’ve not even read. So they don’t know how distorted these talking points are. But as part of the narrative they want to push out. Interestingly enough, they’ve made common cause once again with Russian bots because Russian bots are pushing their narrative out there. It’s in a redux of the campaign. We have Assange and Wikileaks and Russian trolls and bots saying, you know, hash tag whatever the GOP narrative is. That ought to tell you a lot about what’s driving this.”

“Why not allow people to look at it and let Americans make the decision for themselves about whether it’s useful information or not?” Schiff was asked.

“Well, because the American people unfortunately don’t have the underlying materials and therefore they can’t see how distorted and misleading this document is. The Republicans are not saying make the underlying materials available to the public. They just want to make this spin available to the public. I think that spin, which is a fulsome attack on the FBI, is just designed to attack the FBI and Bob Mueller to circle the wagons for the White House. And that’s a terrible disservice to the people, hard working people at the Bureau, but more than that, it’s a disservice to the country,” he added.

It would seem that both Feinstein and Schiff are in full desperation mode as the entire Trump-Russia conspiracy is falling apart, exposing what appears to be a highly corrupt cabal deeply embedded in Washington.

Worse yet, this could be used as an excuse by both Facebook and Twitter to further censor those whose political opinions fall to the right of Josef Stalin…

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Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad
Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad – Source: Author (used with permission)

Joe Newby

A 10-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, Joe ran for a city council position in Riverside, Calif., in 1991 and managed successful campaigns for the Idaho state legislature. Co-author of "Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad," Joe wrote for Examiner.com from 2010 until it closed in 2016 and his work has been published at Newsbusters, Spokane Faith and Values and other sites. He now runs the Conservative Firing Line.

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