Right-wing influencers were duped to work for covert Russian influence operation, US says
The accusations mark the third straight presidential election in which U.S. authorities have unveiled politically charged details about the Kremlin’s attempted interference in U.S. politics.
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Pool, a journalist-turned-YouTuber who first gained public attention for livestreaming the Occupy Wall Street protests, hosted Trump on his podcast earlier this year.
Johnson is an outspoken Trump supporter and internet personality who was fired from BuzzFeed after the company found evidence he’d plagiarized other works.
So these two were formally "journalists", and should know at least something about confirming sources and information before publishing, or in this case I guess making a video/podcast, about the topic given them by this company that wanted to just give them hundreds of thousands of dollars. And maybe look into why a company would pay you that kind of money out of nowhere if they were supplying all the talking points, and they just want you to say them into a camera? Maybe?
I think anyone with any background in media should see right through something like this, and has no leg to stand on when crying "we had no idea!". They saw a check and all morals/questions went out the window.
If what you say is true, they are guilty of crimes and should be prosecuted. I think the DOJ is unlikely to do this. What legitimate reason would the DOJ have to not prosecute these people?
Oh, maybe the fact that the US legal system has had a long policy of rightwing impunity, almost as much as it practices elite impunity?
No. My god, no. What sort of nonsense is that?
You’re taking the position of a catastrophic extreme in response to someone saying they should have been more circumspect about where their money came from.
They should have been more circumspect, though. There’s leagues between acknowledging that and saying that they should be prosecuted by the DOJ.
How is that extreme?
Prosecution isn’t execution, it is trying them for a crime that they may have committed. If they’re found guilty, even punishment could include things like seizing the money paid to them for those videos and putting watermark warnings on those videos explaining who funded them or taking them down entirely, not exclusively jail time.
It’s not extreme to seek their prosecution, it’s an extreme leap to jump from a post about how they should’ve known better (they really should have!) to “They should be prosecuted by the DOJ”.
I’m not sure they need to be prosecuted to have these funds seized, though. The government doesn’t even need to ask them for it I don’t think, depending on how the case proceeds. If the money is part of the case it is probably part of the verdict.
That still seems reasonable to me, though. If there’s evidence that they knew what they were doing, put it to a trial to determine culpability. If they’re not obviously in a position to have known better, I can see not prosecuting them, but prosecution is the normal next step when someone seemingly knowingly commits a crime. If it turns out that they really all got scammed, they’ll be found innocent.
I’m also not sure how it will proceed, but I think it’s much more fucked up if a non-party to a criminal case has assets seized. Given that there are currently sanctions against Russia, I could see it being seized separately by the DOJ and/or IRS, but I’d honestly much prefer that it go through a trial instead of just having the DOJ decide. At least then they can have a jury if they want and they can defend themselves. Civil forfeiture is fucked up
They're repeating verbatim the talking points of official propaganda outlets of a hostile power. That makes them undeclared foreign agents.
I see, that's a fair take 👍🏾