WASHINGTON _ Before Russian propaganda and fake news targeted Hillary Clinton, it went after Republicans opponents of Donald Trump, including Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Lindsey Graham, as well as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, according to a cybersecurity expert who testified before the Senate Thursday.
Clint Watts, of George Washington University's Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, said during a break in a rare Senate Intelligence Committee public hearing that the one constant of the Russian campaign was "pumping up Trump."
Watts was one of six experts brought before the committee Thursday to help define the history, scope and methods of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., introduced the testimony as a way to help Americans "establish a foundational understanding" of Russian activities in the 2016 election.
While the hearing traced Russian, or Soviet, intent to interfere in U.S. politics, to weaken Europe and to disrupt NATO back to the days before World War II, its focus was on what was called the "brazenness" of the recent election meddling, and the expectations for similar attacks in coming elections both in the United States and Europe.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., laid out the attack in his opening comments. The Russians hacked into Democrat emails, then used the information they obtained as weapons to attack Clinton. As they did this, they spread fake news, often targeted to individuals on social media, to drown out legitimate coverage and "to diminish and undermine our trust in the American media by blurring our faith in what is true, and what is not."
"This Russian 'propaganda on steroids' was designed to poison the national conversation in America," Warner said. He said that Russian meddling included an intense effort to reduce turnout among likely Clinton voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
While the experts said that data from social media outlets might be able to prove or disprove that theory, the research has not yet taken place. Still, the experts agreed that at the root of that poisoning was an attempt by Russia to swing the American election, and failing that, to hurt Clinton's credibility.
"Sure, the Russians put out some negative information on Trump as well, but it was 90 percent positive," Watts said when asked to expand on his testimony.
During his testimony, Watts had said the Russians had targeted Rubio, who is a member of the committee. Afterward, he said Bush and Graham also were targeted in the same way.
He said he could not recall the specific stories that were aimed at the Republicans, but that Russia efforts were a combination of "pumping up Trump while tamping down the others."
The experts focused on a couple of specific examples, including the fake news report of a terror attack on the Incirlik U.S. air base in Turkey that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort raised during an August interview on CNN. When asked about another topic, Manafort had tried to change the tone of the discussion by suggesting much more was going on, saying, "You had the NATO base in Turkey being under attack by terrorists."
The experts noted that Trump later made a reference to the fake news at a campaign rally. Yet, Watts said, the news had been disproven a week earlier. There had been no attack, though there had been a small, nonviolent protest at the air base.
When asked if he thought Trump knew he was quoting Russian propaganda when he talked about Incirlik, he responded "no," but he had a caveat.
"What I don't understand is the synchronization," Watts said, who said he'd been the target of Russian cyberattacks in the past. "I don't understand how his campaign manager _ after we had outed the Incirlik incident as fake, after the news had reported it as a fake campaign _ one week later cites it on CNN. I don't understand how he calls that a terror attack. I don't understand how that ends up on stage."
