Thread by @kurteichenwald

1. Before the year is out....the evidentiary link between Wikileaks, Russian hackers, Kremlin disinformation outlet, and Donald Trump.

In 2016, I received a phone call from someone in the intelligence world telling me to keep an eye on Sputnik that day. I did not know what....

2...it was. I was told it was a primary propaganda site operated by Russia to spew disinformation to affect global democracies, including the United States.

At this point, I am going to crush events into sequence of what happened, not what I learned when....

3...sometime before I received the call, Wikileaks had obtained John Podesta's emails and pushed them out. One of those emails was then manipulated to make it appear as something it was not. Words from an article I wrote were placed in the mouth of a Hillary Clinton ally....

4...making it look as if even her confidantes were secretly blaming her for Benghazi. It was a fraud.

That fraudulent document was pushed onto twitter by @TEN_GOP, which posed as the Tennessee Republican Party. It was not. It was a Russian front. Mueller has since....

5...identified @ten_GOP as an account operated by Russian hackers. (It is part of indictment, see attached article.) The actual Tennessee Republican Party is a different account. I was told, in confidence by the intel guy, that the bogus document was first pushed out....

(forgot to attach article) tennessean.com/story/news/201…

6...now, this tweet from @TEN_GOP, the fake russian controlled account, was one of billions that day. It was traded among a group of different Russian accounts. In comes Sputnik, a Russian controlled "news" agency identified as a disinformation platform... independent.co.uk/news/world/eur…

7...the writer of the Sputnik article has said that he obtained the bogus email from @TEN_GOP, a twitter account that Sputnik writers were following for some reason. The manipulated email was then used as the basis of a news article in Sputnik alleging that a Clinton confidante..

8...held her accountable for Benghazi. Since I knew the email was bogus - and that the words they were quoting out of context were mine, not the confidantes - I began to write a story.

Now, there is Sputnik (a Russian disinformation site), @TEN_GOP (part of the illegal....

9...Russian hacking effort), and the original Reddit account that pushed the document out onto the internet for the first time.

As I was typing my story, Trump was at a rally. This bogus document had been on the internet for a couple of hours. The Russian twitter accounts....

10...were pushing it around, apparently trying to make it go viral. Sputnik wrote about it.

And then, Trump read the bogus email out loud to his rally. Again, an email manipulated by Russians, pushed out by Russia, printed by Russia, into Trump's mouth. In a couple of hours....

11...this one piece of information got from a Russian hacker to Trump.

I contacted my original source and got a few things clarified. At that moment, I understood the magnitude of what was going on involving @TEN_GOP, although I agreed not to disclose the account name....

12....I wrote the story, Newsweek printed it. And a firestorm was set off. A number of other journalists - who apparently made no attempt to contact any intelligence sources - considered it absurd that anyone would think Trump campaign had any connection to Russia. Skepticism...

13...based on personal belief, and not reporting, transformed rapidly into a coordinated defensive attack. The New York Observer, owned by Trump's son-in-law, went after me, as did a number of other groups close to Wikileaks or Trump. In fact, according to one article....

14...about this, a number of the journalists attacking the story and me were in direct communication with each other by email, coordinating their efforts. (This attached piece is from the Daily Caller Foundation, which, whatever you think of DC, was the only publication to....)

15...do actual reporting on this matter.) Soon after, Sputnik launched an absurd attack on me, accusing me of offering bribes, lying, etc.

This ONLY ran in Sputnik. And almost immediately after it was published, the Trump Campaign emailed the link to the story to reporters....

16...covering the campaign and others. Read that again: A Russian propaganda outlet attacked an American reporter, and the Trump campaign almost immediately started pimping the story to reporters. Daily Caller Foundation is one of those that disclosed it received....

17...the email from Trump campaign. (See attached.)

18...so, here is where we stand.

Wikileaks obtains hacked Podesta emails.
Russian propagandists manipulate one email to make it say what it does not.
Russian reddit account pushes it onto internet.
Twitter account Mueller says in Russian scheme (@TEN_GOP) starts tweeting email..

19....Sputnik disinformation news service picks up bogus email from @TEN_GOP and writes bogus article.
Within an hour or so, Trump is reading the bogus email at a rally.
I write story exposing.
A group of journalists coordinate an attack on me by email....

12....Sputnik launches an attack on me accusing me of irrational crimes and lies.
Trump campaign immediately emails link to article from a Russian disinformation site to reporters, along with accusations against me.
The New York Observer, owned by Trump's son in law Kushner....

13...picks up the Sputnik attacks and goes after me.

Reporters couldn't see it back then. The importance of this - a back and forth link between Russian hackers, disinformation outlets and Trump campaign - seemed to unbelievable to be considered as true. But with the....

14..revelation by Mueller that @TEN_GOP was part of Russian scheme, someone must ask Trump - where did he get the bogus email? From @TEN_GOP, from Sputnik, or from some third party? And why his campaign pushing stories from a Russian disinformation site to attack the story?

Done

ADDENDUM: Whenever I write about these kinds of issues, my feed is swarmed by Russian trolls. So, enjoy watching them appear.