DISINFO: US senators and Macron accused Sputnik and RT of election interference with no evidence
DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS
  • Outlet: Sputnik Germany (archived)*
  • Date of publication: July 10, 2020
  • Outlet language(s): German
  • Reported in: Issue 205
  • Countries / regions discussed: France, US
Tags:
election meddling Russia Today (RT) Emmanuel Macron Sputnik

DISINFO: US senators and Macron accused Sputnik and RT of election interference with no evidence

SUMMARY

A number of Western politicians, including US senators and deputies and French President Emmanuel Macron, accused Sputnik and RT of interfering in the elections in the United States and France, but provided no evidence.

RESPONSE

Recurring disinformation narrative claiming that there is no proof of Russian interference in the elections in Western countries and the US: see examples here and here. There is evidence linking Russian state actors to interference in electoral processes. Interference in the French elections included personal attacks and mocking of the then presidential candidate, Emmanuel Macron. Apart from biased reporting in the pro-Kremlin media, there was a made up story about Macron's offshore accounts (the so-called MacronGate) and an actual hack-and-leak operation. According to the Insider and Mediapart, the hacking was purported by the same GRU unit responsible for the hacking of the Democrats' servers in the US. For more information, see EUvsDisinfo analysis “Tackling disinformation à la Française". The fact of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election was underlined by the US intelligence community in January 2017. These findings were confirmed by the US Special Counsel investigation which found that "[t]he Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in a sweeping and systematic fashion" (p. 1). See additional debunking of the "no interference" narrative here. Read more about election meddling in France and elsewhere here.

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Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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