(THREAD) Right now—this week—there's a global information war raging over the Trump-Russia scandal. It's a real-world Battle of the Five Armies, as there are five combatants. The problem? Several don't know they're fighting. I hope you'll read on for more information—and RETWEET. 
1/ The five combatants:
1⃣ Trumpists (including civilians and the administration)
2⃣ Foreign Actors (including trolls and bots)
3⃣ Media (including domestic and international journalists)
4⃣ Progressives (including columnists and social media users)
5⃣ Apoliticals (bystanders)
1⃣ Trumpists (including civilians and the administration)
2⃣ Foreign Actors (including trolls and bots)
3⃣ Media (including domestic and international journalists)
4⃣ Progressives (including columnists and social media users)
5⃣ Apoliticals (bystanders)
2/ The reason this is happening now:
1⃣ Congress released a trove of Trump-Russia transcripts.
2⃣ Trump needs to change the narrative from COVID-19.
3⃣ The Mueller report's one-year anniversary arrived.
4⃣ Trump needs to clear the way for new pre-election anti-Biden "scandals."
1⃣ Congress released a trove of Trump-Russia transcripts.
2⃣ Trump needs to change the narrative from COVID-19.
3⃣ The Mueller report's one-year anniversary arrived.
4⃣ Trump needs to clear the way for new pre-election anti-Biden "scandals."
3/ This is an "information war" because it involves Trumpists (1⃣) attempting to rewrite history with the aim of convincing apolitical Americans (5⃣) that the Trump-Russia scandal was a "hoax." As ever, the Trumpists are aided by media apathy (3⃣) and foreign actors (2⃣).
4/ I'm among those frustrated progressive social media users (4⃣) who get their information about the Trump-Russia scandal from major media. The problem? At a certain point, U.S. media decided the Trump-Russia scandal wasn't bankable, so it's not even defending its own reporting.
5/ The Mueller report is packed with evidence Trump and his team colluded criminally and non-criminally with Russians pre-election—but no one read the Mueller report. Progressives on social media widely share U.S. reporting on the subject—but those same outlets have abandoned it.
6/ The result is that Trumpists and foreign actors on social media—trolls and bots—are waging a global disinformation campaign, seeking to convince hundreds of millions of us that we didn't hear any of the evidence we thought we did. And they're winning because media won't speak.
7/ The one exception to media's silence about its own accurate and confirmed reporting is that right-wing media has joined the Trumpists and foreign actors in lying about the evidence uncovered across several Trump-Russia investigations. Here's propaganda from the NEW YORK POST:
8/ The truth: there has never, in the history of the US, been more evidence of political malfeasance—dramatic, far-flung, harrowing, consistent in its particulars and themes, desperately hidden by those it inculpates—than exists as to Trump, his operatives, and foreign collusion.
9/ But in an information war, such evidence will be discredited if:
1⃣ It's not consistently recited by the media that first reported it.
2⃣ Progressives on social media—bored of the issue—allow disinformation to stand.
3⃣ Apolitical Americans believe what they read the most of.
1⃣ It's not consistently recited by the media that first reported it.
2⃣ Progressives on social media—bored of the issue—allow disinformation to stand.
3⃣ Apolitical Americans believe what they read the most of.
10/ I can't publish the content of my books PROOF OF COLLUSION and PROOF OF CONSPIRACY here—as combined, they total 1,000+ pages and 7,500+ citations—but I'll offer some highlights (all sourced by major media) that *detonate* the disinformation Trump and his minions are pushing.
11/ As I offer these few highlights, keep in mind (1) I already said the evidence in this case is historically dramatic, so don't be surprised when these facts (all sourced by major media) sound fantastical, and (2) these are just two highlights of hundreds in my—and other—books.
12/ Mike Flynn, Trump's top NatSec adviser pre-election—and his NSA after—spent 2015 and 2016 in clandestine meetings/contacts with Kremlin agents, including Putin, selling Trump's pro-Russia policies. And he kept doing so after he knew Russia was attacking America to aid Trump.
13/ Michael Cohen—Trump's longtime pal, lawyer and fixer—spent 2015 and 2016 negotiating the largest-ever real estate deal of Trump's life with Kremlin agents, doing so by (along with other Trump agents like Felix Sater) explicitly linking the deal to Trump's pro-Russia policies.
14/ Trump's eldest sons—Don (by birth) and Jared (by marriage)—hid from the public literally *dozens* of secret contacts with Kremlin agents, including a meeting in Trump's own home in June 2016 during which they solicited *and received* illegal election assistance from Russians.
15/ Longtime Trump acquaintance and 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort secretly met with Kremlin agents several times pre-election, during which he offered items of value—including proprietary campaign data—to Putin allies, even after he *knew* the Kremlin was attacking America.
16/ The first man selected for Trump's National Security Advisory Committee, self-described "Kremlin adviser" Carter Page, traveled to Moscow mid-campaign to met with Kremlin officials—meetings he quickly told the campaign about and consistently lied to the American public about.
17/ The Trump campaign's top Russia adviser was a man Putin calls a "friend"—Dimitri Simes. Simes not only secretly advised the campaign, but arranged Trump-Russia contacts and Trump's roll-out of his Russia policy, which Simes *helped write*. Simes now works in Moscow for Putin.
18/ Every person involved in the writing of Trump's Russia policy had at some point or another acted as an agent of a Russian government entity: Manafort, Simes, Richard Burt (pictured), George Papadopoulos, and others. Trump's Russia policy was literally *Kremlin work product*.
19/ As early as March 2016, Trump knew that the second man hired to his National Security Advisory Committee, George Papadopoulos, was working as an agent of the Russian government to create a secret backchannel between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. And Trump encouraged it.
20/ Alongside Michael Flynn, Trump learned *beyond any doubt* on August 17, 2016 that the Kremlin was attacking America to try to aid him. Here thereafter spent *months* aiding and abetting the effort by gleefully spreading stolen intel published by Kremlin cutout Julian Assange.
21/ Trump's close pal and adviser Roger Stone—among others working in tandem with Trump's campaign—spent 2016 simultaneously in contact with Russian hackers (both actual and self-described) and Trump and his top brass. Trump demanded direct access to intel the Kremlin had stolen.
22/ Trump *directly and unambiguously* solicited illegal election aid from the Kremlin on live TV, which assistance was immediately received—as the Kremlin began the hacking efforts Trump had requested within hours of Trump underscoring publicly how valuable they would be to him.
23/ Trump advisers, including Jeff Sessions and Jared Kushner and half the members of Trump's National Security Advisory Committee, lied *repeatedly*—indeed, over 100 times, in federal testimony and federal filings—about their pre- and post-election meetings with Kremlin agents.
24/ All this is only the *very tip* of an iceberg. Not only have I left out dozens of Trump-Russia collusion figures, but haven't touched on the fact that Trump-Russia collusion unfolded alongside related—indeed *intricately linked*—collusion with Israel, Saudi Arabia and others.
25/ Media needs to *get off its ass* and defend its reporting—as that reporting is *literally* the battlefield of a five-army global information war being fought *right now*. Progressives on social media shouldn't have to carry the load defending years of accurate reporting. /end
