An account that apparently belongs to George Papadopoulos shared a photograph with the text “#business” on October 25, 2017, just days before news broke that Papadopoulos pled guilty to the FBI for making false statements to the FBI regarding meetings connected to Russia and the Trump presidential campaign. For more information on Papadopoulos’s plea and…
On September 20, the Daily Beast published a report alleging that a series of flash mobs in support of Donald Trump were orchestrated by the so-called Russian “troll factory.” This same Russian operation has organized a number of projects over the years, from hordes of commenters leaving pro-Kremlin messages on news articles and blogs, to operating a…
On July 18, 2017, Scott S. Balber, the attorney representing the Agalarov family of Russian oligarchs amid an active United States investigation regarding the Russian influence campaign into the American elections, announced that he had privately named the 8th individual present at the June 2016 meeting between Trump campaign officials and Russian government proxies, which…
2 November 2017 Update: Since the publication of this post, it has become clear that the Twitter account @TEN_GOP was operated by the so-called “Russian troll factory” of St. Petersburg. This account was one of the most vocal amplifiers of the Blumenthal-Benghazi story that was later published (then redacted) on Sputnik. While the central thesis…
This week, Bellingcat conducted its first ever liveblog, in which Nathan Patin and I monitored the situation on the ground of Cleveland during the Republican National Convention from July 18-21. Sourcefabric provided us and First Draft News with the platform, allowing us to embed photographs, videos, and tweets throughout the week. Many members of the…
