The nitty gritty details documented in the Mueller Report should worry anyone, concerned about ‘free and open’ elections. Mueller found that Midwest “battleground states” were explicitly targeted by the Russian Intelligence, “with a little help from their friends” — with critical data.
A Michigan reference in the long-anticipated Mueller report might shed some light on the targeting of the state by Russian entities seeking to influence the 2016 presidential election in favor of then-candidate Donald Trump.
[...]
In the report released Thursday, Mueller wrote that Paul Manafort had shared polling data from the Trump campaign with Konstantin Kilimnik, a business associate with ties to Russian intelligence.
[...]
Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were competitive swing states in 2016 that Trump narrowly won. They were also where Russia’s Internet Research Agency concentrated its efforts on social media and digital ads.
The content from the IRA and other Russian entities, some containing anti-Muslim messages, were intended to sow discord and disproportionately targeted Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016, among other states.
[...]
Trump campaign members and surrogates promoted dozens of tweets, posts and other content created by the Internet Research Agency — one of the three Russian entities named in a 2018 indictment that included charges against 13 Russian nationals, according to the report.
On Nov. 7, one day before the 2016 election, Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a Detroit-related message from an IRA-controlled Twitter account.
Here are some findings from the Mueller Report, about the Trump’s Campaign’s active sharing of their “Midwest strategy” with their Russian contact (known to US Intelligence as “The GRU Guy”) ...
[page 148]
Second, Manafort briefed Kilimnik on the state of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's plan to win the election. [930] That briefing encompassed the Campaign's messaging and its internal polling data. According to Gates, it also included discussion of "battleground" states, which Manafort identified as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. [931]
{emphasis added}
Another Mueller finding, indicating that this sharing Campaign Targeting Data was not a spurious one-time, accidental act … [pg 129]
Manafort had connections to Russia through his prior work for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and later through his work for a pro-Russian regime in Ukraine. Manafort stayed in touch with these contacts during the campaign period through Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime Manafort employee who previously ran Manafort's office in Kiev and who the FBI assesses to have ties to Russian intelligence. Manafort instructed Rick Gates, his deputy on the Campaign and a longtime employee, [839] to provide Kilimnik with updates on the Trump Campaign-including internal polling data, although Manafort claims not to recall that specific instruction. Manafort expected Kilimnik to share that information with others in Ukraine and with Deripaska. Gates periodically sent such polling data to Kilimnik during the campaign. [834]
{emphasis added}
The Guardian describes Konstantin Kilimnik, Manfort’s Russian contact this way:
Kilimnik, 48, trained at a university connected to Russia’s military intelligence agency, formerly known as the GRU, which allegedly spearheaded the Kremlin’s effort to disrupt the US election in 2016. The US has concluded that the Russian operation was ordered by President Vladimir Putin to help Trump’s campaign.
Mueller has also previously said that Rick Gates, Manafort’s deputy on the Trump campaign, described Kilimnik as “a former Russian intelligence officer with the GRU”, which Kilimnik denies.
The Detroit News examines in another article how the Russian-spy front-group, the Internet Research Agency, did impact Michigan with its micro-targeted social-media sock-puppetry, which among other things — spewed anti-Muslim hatred:
Trump narrowly won Michigan last November by 10,703 votes. [...] Twelve counties that backed Obama in 2012 switched to Trump in 2016, including Macomb, Monroe, Saginaw, Bay and Eaton counties.
Trump also won Wisconsin by less than 1 percentage point, or more than 22,700 votes.
Some of the ads were targeted at reaching voters who might have been susceptible to anti-Muslim messaging, suggesting Muslims were a threat to the American way of life, sources told CNN.
“We have to continue to aggressively investigate this. We know the Russians were involved in elections in our country, and that is simply unacceptable,” U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, said Wednesday.
“This is a very serious issue that goes to the core of our democracy, and we need to get to the bottom of it.”
Facebook said Monday it had provided the House and Senate intelligence committees and the Senate Judiciary Committee with 3,000 ads linked to a Russian ad agency. The social media giant had already provided the ads to special counsel Robert Mueller.
Facebook’s Vice President for Global Public Policy Joel Kaplan has said the 3,000 ads, purchased by a Russian entity known as the Internet Research Agency, ran between 2015 and 2017 and that “many appear to amplify racial and social divisions.”
[...]
These thousands of targeted attacks led by Russian Intelligence, most likely helped flip at least 12 Michigan Counties. They attacked the very social fabric of America, by stoking fear, division, and racial strife. While posing as actual fellow Americans.
These targeted attacks, which were facilitated by and brain-stormed with, Trump’s Campaign Manager and his Deputy — “goes to the core of our democracy, and we need to get to the bottom of it.”
Without the Trump Internal Polling data, and the ‘Hot-button’ Ad-topics provided by Manafort and Gates, to their Russian contact Kilimnik — would the Russian Cyber-warfare effort been as nearly successful as it ultimately was?
Russia’s goal is to promote chaos and division, and a deep distrust in American’s Institutions. Donald J Trump is just their “useful idiot” — who is helping them to get there much faster than Putin would have ever dreamed.
Trump’s on-going toadie behavior towards his crypt-keeper Vladimir, at the expense of his own U.S. Intelligence assessments, should be treasonous enough, to kick him out of Office alone.
The Mueller Report just provides “the Recipe” to make that democracy-protecting essential event, happen all the quicker.
— — —
Just add sugar and water, stir briskly. Serve when, enough of the country has been chilled, to their core.
—