The Russia watchRussia’s new “useful idiots”; RT’s journalistic ethics; FBI & spying, and more
· Russia’s new “useful idiots”?
· FBI used informant to investigate Russia ties to campaign, not to spy, as Trump claims
· It’s time to get the FBI out of the spy business
· Britain opens new probes into impartiality of RT broadcasts
· What’s important in the Senate Judiciary Committee transcripts
· Getting to the bottom of the Trump Tower meeting
· Contempt of Congress, contempt by Congress
· Election hacking puts focus on paperless voting machines
· Alarm at Kaspersky software discounts for British forces
Russia’s new “useful idiots”? (Bradley Jardine, Coda)
There are echoes of Soviet times in the way Russia has been courting far-right activists in the West. A new book looks at how and why it does it.
FBI used informant to investigate Russia ties to campaign, not to spy, as Trump claims (Adam Goldman, Mark Mazzetti, and Matthew Rosenberg, New York Times)
President Trump accused the F.B.I. on Friday, without evidence, of sending a spy to secretly infiltrate his 2016 campaign “for political purposes” even before the bureau had any inkling of the “phony Russia hoax.” In fact, F.B.I. agents sent an informant to talk to two campaign advisers only after they received evidence that the pair had suspicious contacts linked to Russia during the campaign.
Britain opens new probes into impartiality of RT broadcasts (RFE/RL)
Britain’s media regulator says it has opened three new investigations into broadcasts made by the state-sponsored news channel RT in April and May. “We have opened three further investigations into the due impartiality of news and current-affairs programs broadcast on RT,” an Ofcom spokesperson said in a statement on May 21.
