‘Something’s in play here’: Ex-Trump NatSec official on DOJ Russian disinfo indictment

05.09.2024 19:55

Raw Story

Former Trump DHS cybersecurity director Chris Krebs says Wednesday's massive bombshell DOJ indictment alleging Kremlin funds have been supporting a right-wing pro-MAGA U.S. media outlet to influence the 2024 election is merely the first part of what he expects to be an even larger scandal.

"I've been talking about this for years. It's disinformation, it's propaganda, and it's all about power and influence and money. Take your pick of those three. Something's in play here. And if the Russians are going to drop 10 million into a single outlet for a few million dollars or a few million views, I've got to expect they've got 100 million plus more that is distributed somewhere else. So this is the first shoe to drop," said Krebs on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Thursday (video below).

Calling the indictment itself "a fascinating read," Krebs compared it to spy novels.

"I mean, it is this almost Ludlum-like, Tom Clancy-like story of foreign security services and foreign interests manipulating the U.S. political discourse."

Krebs explained that instead of Russia just relying on social media, what "we've seen is this evolution now where they diversified their platforms, and now they're using podcasters, they're using YouTube, they're using fake news sites. Remember, there is a second part of this that talks about Doppelganger, which is a disinfo-for-hire organization that has these pink-slime fake websites that look a lot like Washington Post, CNN and others, and they boost fake news, AI generated content, videos, images. It is a very, very complex scheme that DOJ the intelligence community are working hard to unravel."

"I was over the moon with these documents yesterday that we can expose them and start tearing down this infrastructure," Krebs rejoiced.

"So we know that they are fully engaged and attempting to manipulate U.S. political discourse. They're going after influential members of the elite. And you know, look, whether you want to call the podcasters or YouTubers, 'the elite,' it doesn't matter they have reach. They have the ability to reach out and touch minds."

Krebs suggested none of this is by accident.

"There are very complex strategies behind the scenes. We are seeing the tip of the iceberg, and there will be more," Krebs warned.

Donald Trump fired Chris Krebs as the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) after he produced a report stating the 2020 election was the most secure in the nation's history, contrary to Trump's false "Big Lie" allegations of election fraud and election rigging.

Watch the video below or at this link.