I am Sidney Blumenthal. At least, that is what Vladimir Putinand, somehow, Donald Trumpseem to believe. And that should raise concerns not only about Moscows attempts to manipulate this election, but also how Trump came to push Russian disinformation to American voters.
An email from Blumenthala confidant of Hillary Clinton and a man, second only to George Soros at the center of conservative conspiracy theoriesturned up in the recent document dump by Wikileaks. At a time when American intelligence believes Russian hackers are trying to interfere with the presidential election, records have been fed recently to Wikileaks out of multiple organizations of the Democratic Party, raising concerns that the self-proclaimed whistleblowers group has become a tool of Putins government. But now that I have been brought into the whole messand transformed into Blumenthalthere is even more proof that this act of cyberwar is not only being orchestrated by the Russians, but that they are really, really dumb.
The evidence emerged thanks to the incompetence of Sputnik, the Russian online news and radio service established by the government controlled news agency, Rossiya Segodnya.
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At a rally in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, Trump spoke while holding a document in his hand. He told the assembled crowd that it was an email from Blumenthal, whom he called sleazy Sidney.
This just came out a little while ago, Trump said. I have to tell you this. And then he read the words from my article.
Hes now admitting they could have done something about Benghazi, Trump said, dropping the document to the floor. This just came out a little while ago.
The crowd booed and chanted, Lock her up!
This is not funny. It is terrifying. The Russians engage in a sloppy disinformation effort and, before the day is out, the Republican nominee for president is standing on a stage reciting the manufactured story as truth. How did this happen? Who in the Trump campaign was feeding him falsehoods straight from the Kremlin? (The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment).
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