FBI Investigating Russia’s Sputnik For Running ‘Influence Campaign’ To Help Trump Win
A new report suggests that the Russian state news agency is running an undisclosed intelligence unit.
Yahoo News’ Michael Isikoff and Hunter Walker on Monday reported that FBI investigators could be building a case that Sputnik was part of an “influence campaign” to help Donald Trump win the presidency.
According to the report, the FBI is now investigating whether the Russian government funded news agency Sputnik has been operating as a propaganda arm for the Kremlin.
Operating a propaganda unit for the Russian government would be a violation of the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
And former Sputnik Washington Correspondent Andrew Feinberg, who was fired from the news agency in May, turned over a trove of emails to Yahoo News and the FBI.
According to Feinberg, he was interviewed by the FBI for more than two hours on September 1.
“They wanted to know where did my orders come from and if I ever got any direction from Moscow,” Feinberg explained to Yahoo News.
“They were interested in examples of how I was steered towards covering certain issues.”
Former FBI counter intelligence agent Asha Randgappa told Yahoo News “This is incredibly significant. This tells me they have good information and intelligence that these organizations have been acting on behalf of the Kremlin and that there’s a direct line between them and the [Russian influence operations] that are a significant threat to our democracy.”
Read the full Yahoo News report here.
