Russian bots are busy at work promoting the GOP’s latest attempt to discredit the investigation looking into whether Trump colluded with the Russian government to sway the 2016 election.
According the website Hamilton 68, which tracks the Twitter activity of propaganda accounts and bots linked to Russia, the hashtag #ReleaseTheMemo was tweeted 3,916 times on Friday, compared to just 23 times the day before. At the time of this writing, it had been shared 1,233 times on Saturday.
It’s currently the top trend among the Russian-linked accounts monitored by Hamilton 68 — #SchumerShutdown and #Obamagate come in at numbers two and three respectively.
The memo referred to in the hashtag is the document written by Republican staffers, in which they claim to have evidence that the FBI has abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in their efforts to investigate the Trump campaign’s connections to Russian interference efforts.
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Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) has led the Republican frenzy — Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) described it as “worse than Watergate” in a tweet — around the memo. Donald Trump Jr. tweeted about it over 30 times by Friday.
Americans deserve to know the contents of the memo. Democrats & deep state govt officials are doing everything they can to protect those within the government who used their positions of influence to target those they disagree with politically. RELEASE THE MEMO! #ReleaseTheMemo
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 19, 2018
But if there really is anything of value in this memo, Trump has the authority to easily declassify it if he wants to. The narrative that Republicans are currently trying to push of Democrats not being transparent enough really holds no water.
The is the latest attempt to convince the public that special counsel Robert Mueller and the FBI are running a biased, corrupt witch hunt against Trump. With several of Trump’s former staffers either pleading guilty to the charges made against them or preparing to be grilled by investigators — Trump’s now-disowned confidant Steve Bannon will soon be questioned by prosecutors — the administration and Republicans are getting more and more panicky.
