Trump Claims Media Doesn’t Want to Report That Russian Troll Farm Began in 2014 (They Have)
President Donald Trump was busy on Twitter early Saturday afternoon, firing off a series of tweets about Friday’s bombshell news that 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities were indicted for interfering in the 2016 presidential election. The charges targeted the Internet Research Agency, an infamous Russian troll farm that began operations in 2014 to interrupt the election.
In one of his tweets today, Trump complained that the “Fake News Media” doesn’t want to report that the “Russian group was formed in 2014.”
Funny how the Fake News Media doesn’t want to say that the Russian group was formed in 2014, long before my run for President. Maybe they knew I was going to run even though I didn’t know!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018
As you can further see in the tweet above, the president noted that the troll farm started up well before he announced he was running for the White House. This is something he’s tweeted about before, seemingly using this as proof that the Russians weren’t attempting to help his campaign while trying to damage Hillary Clinton’s.
Regarding the president’s comments that the media doesn’t seem willing to say that the meddling operation began in 2014, that would appear to be incorrect. For instance, this CNN article on the indictments details when the Internet Research Agency started. Same with this NPR piece and this New York Times article and countless other reports and news segments.
On the issue of whether he had hinted about running for president in 2014, let’s let the president’s words speak for themselves:
2014? pic.twitter.com/6wxZDAaoTK
— Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) February 17, 2018
UPDATE 3:20 PM ET: The president wasn’t done as he jumped on a tweetstorm by Facebook Ads VP Rob Goldman to apparently claim vindication:
The Fake News Media never fails. Hard to ignore this fact from the Vice President of Facebook Ads, Rob Goldman! https://t.co/XGC7ynZwYJ
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018
“I have seen all of the Russian ads and I can say very definitively that swaying the election was *NOT* the main goal.”
Rob Goldman
Vice President of Facebook Ads https://t.co/A5ft7cGJkE— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018
[image via Getty Images]
—
