Pro-Trump site The Gateway Pundit ran with Russian propaganda mentioned in Mueller indictment

Gateway Pundit and another hyperpartisan website, TruthFeed, also helped the propaganda spread on Facebook

Written by Alex Kaplan

Published

The Justice Department announced the indictment of several Russians for interfering in the 2016 elections, which included examples of Russian propaganda accounts. One of the examples they included had been picked up and amplified by pro-Trump site Gateway Pundit and by another hyperpartisan website, TruthFeed.

On February 16, the Justice Department and special counsel Robert Mueller issued an indictment against 13 Russian nationals, along with the Russian entity the Internet Research Agency (IRA), charging them with defrauding the United States and interfering in the 2016 presidential election campaign. The indictment notes, according to CNN, “The defendants allegedly posed as US persons, created false US personas, and operated social media pages and groups designed to attract US audiences.”

In particular, the indictment says that “defendants and their co-conspirators also began to promote allegations of voter fraud by the Democratic Party through” those “fictitious” accounts. According to the indictment, one of those Twitter accounts, @TEN_GOP, had tweeted on November 2, 2016: “#VoterFraud by counting tens of thousands of ineligible mail in Hillary votes being reported in Broward County, Florida.” That same day, The Gateway Pundit, a far-right, pro-Trump blog known for repeatedly pushing misinformation, published an article that prominently featured that tweet and hyped its allegation.

Thanks to The Gateway Pundit’s article, @TEN_GOP’s tweet was indirectly shared on multiple conservative and pro-Trump Facebook groups (including at least one supposedly based in Florida), along with a Facebook page of a South Carolina talk radio station.

Besides The Gateway Pundit, TruthFeed, another well-known hyperpartisan actor that pushes misinformation, framed an article around that same tweet, which was in turn also shared on social media.

This is not the only instance in which The Gateway Pundit cited an IRA-linked account. The site also regularly cited another Russian account post-2016 election to support and defend President Donald Trump and criticize Democrats.