The Justice Department is again accusing Russia of attempting to interfere with U.S. elections.
“This Russiagate story will not die,” investigative journalist Matt Taibbi said on “The Story,” Thursday.
“This story just won’t go away. It reminds me of the ‘Friday the 13th’ movies. No matter how many times they killed Jason, he keeps leaping out of Crystal Lake in each sequel. And this is the same thing.”
REPUBLICANS ‘SKEPTICAL’ OF DOJ MOVE TO BLOCK RUSSIAN ELECTION INTERFERENCE
The Biden administration on Wednesday accused Russia of trying to influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election by targeting American voters through state-run media and other online platforms as part of a campaign referred to as “doppelganger.”
“There is a criminal case here. It remains to be seen exactly how much meat there is on the bone in the actual case,” Taibbi said.
“What Merrick Garland said in the press conference is not the same as what all those commentators you showed said. He said that what this content was supporting was consistent with Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions. That’s not the same as saying that they were trying to promote Donald Trump. And when you get down into the nitty-gritty of this story, it’s very confusing, actually, as to what really happened and who was supporting whom.”
The DOJ on Wednesday announced it is seizing 32 websites it says were linked to the Russian government and used to spread disinformation. The Justice, State and Treasury departments also indicted a pair of employees at Russian state-controlled outlet RT.
The indictment claimed that RT, in a $10 million scheme, had duped US-based influencers into sharing content “deemed favorable to the Russian government” through a Tennessee-based company believed to be Tenet Media.
The DOJ accused RT of “conspiring to commit money laundering and to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act.”
“We’ve seen so many iterations of this same theme, and every time it turns out to be less than meets the eye or a hoax like I discovered with the Hamilton 68 site in the Twitter files or the Steele dossier,” Taibbi said, referring back to allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
RT was asked about the allegations and previously told Fox News Digital, “We certainly have a reaction. Actually, we had several, but we couldn’t decide on one (we even thought of running an office poll), so here they are.”
“2016 called and it wants its clichés back,” was among them, as were: “Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT’s interference in the U.S. elections,” “We gotta earn our Kremlin paycheck somehow,” and “Somewhere Secretary Clinton is sad that it’s not because of her.”
Asked by Fox News’ David Spunt how Garland would assure the American people of the seriousness of the situation, the attorney general said: “I’m sure [RT’s response] was much funnier in the original Russia, but for us it’s not funny.”
“This is deadly serious, and we are going to treat it accordingly,” Garland said.
Spunt asked Wray what he would say to other U.S. adversaries who try to interfere in U.S. elections.
“Knock it off,” Wray said. “As long as adversaries keep trying to influence and interfere in our society, and our democratic processes, they’re going to keep running into the FBI.”
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Given the parallels to the 2016 election, many Republicans are skeptical of the DOJ’s move to block Russian interference.
“The utility of this story as a propaganda vehicle is entirely…aimed at Donald Trump squarely,” Talibbi said, echoing concerns of top lawmakers and experts.
“This story would not be in the news. You wouldn’t have every network covering it. You wouldn’t have Joe Scarborough doing rants about it if it didn’t have a Donald Trump angle to it. And this has been true since the very first time they unveiled the story way back in 2016.”
Fox News’ Morgan Phillips, Greg Norman, Bradford Betz and David Spunt contributed to this report.