Democratic operatives, backed by a liberal billionaire and facilitated by a former Obama official, created thousands of fake Russian accounts to give an impression the Russian government was supporting Alabama Republican Roy Moore in last year’s election against now-Sen. Doug Jones.
The secret project, which had a budget of just $100,000 and was carried out on Facebook and Twitter, was revealed after the New York Times obtained an internal report detailing the efforts.
“We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the internal report said. It also took credit for “radicalizing Democrats with a Russian bot scandal” after experimenting “with many of the tactics now understood to have influenced the 2016 elections.”
Jones said Thursday he is “outraged” over the report and wants a federal investigation over the project.
“I’d like to see the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department look at this to see if there were any laws being violated and, if there were, prosecute those responsible,” he said. “These authorities need to use this example right now to start setting the course for the future to let people know that this is not acceptable in the United States of America.”- READ MORE