MSNBC's Joe Scarborough called out the right-wing influencers who spent years downplaying Donald Trump's ties to Russia and then took cash from what turned out to be a Kremlin front operation.
The Justice Department charged two employees of the Russian state-run RT network in a scheme to secretly fund and direct social media videos that garnered millions of views – including posts by well-known influencers Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, David Rubin, and Lauren Southern – offering conservative viewpoints on transgender rights, "migrant gangs," online censorship and presidential politics, and the indictment states they often amplified Kremlin propaganda aimed to inflame domestic divisions.
"The thing that is so, well, obvious about this, not surprising, is we have all seen it for several years," said the "Morning Joe" host. "There are people who are deliberately, knowingly or unknowingly promoting Russian propaganda, propaganda that comes straight from the Kremlin. People whose TV shows have been pushed by the Kremlin to go on RT because they are spouting Russia propaganda points. There are people we've seen on Twitter for years, well-known people with followers, who are clearly, clearly pushing Russian propaganda points. Of course, one of the great ironies about this is, not really an irony, it's just cynicism and it is just, unfortunately, un-American."
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The indictment states that Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva funneled nearly $10 million to a Tennessee-based media company that contracted with conservative influencers who had big audiences, paying one of them – believed to be Johnson – $400,000 a month, plus a $100,000 signing bonus and additional performance bonuses, in exchange for just four videos a week.
"These are the same people that get out, a lot of them, that get out and talk about the 'Russian hoax,'" Scarborough said. "'Oh, it's the – Oh! There's no – come on, what are you talking about? There's no connection between, you know, this and Russia. Russia is not trying to – always apologizing for Russia, always apologizing for Putin. Always claiming that Vladimir Putin is not the bad guy, that Zelenskyy is actually the bad guy, like, the the historian who said Churchill is the bad guy in World War II, not Adolf Hitler."
"This has been going on for years – the kids call it gaslighting," Scarborough added. "Now, we found out at least a few of these who are just straight-on working for the Russian government, again, either knowingly or unknowingly."
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