Except it is SO F*CKING VALIDATING to see the words “CONSPIRACY...AGAINST THE US” on an INDICTMENT against Russians for HACKING into US electoral infrastructure.
The purpose of the #AuditTheVote movement was three-fold. We wanted:
1. A full audit of election results in key states; 2. To create a grassroots movement to provide cover for people in power to TAKE ACTION; and 3. To keep public and political focus on RUSSIAN interference.
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YOUR actions made the #AuditTheVote movement was successful.
1. Disturbing irregularities within state electoral mechanisms in began to be explored. 2. The DOJ had to SHUT DOWN its switchboard because of overwhelming call volume. 3. Obama ordered the IC to investigate.
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For #AuditTheVote, Sarah had to maintain clear boundaries between her journalism and the activism in which @AndreaChalupa were involved, which is why I didn't mention her initially.
The #AuditTheVote movement was ALWAYS a NON-partisan movement.
We wanted to SAVE OUR DEMOCRACY. Period.
You can see from our launch thread that we appealed to BOTH Democratic and Republican leaders: twitter.com/i/moments/7993…
Everything necessary to provide a foundation to call for an investigation into both Russia's and Trump's actions was IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN even BEFORE 11/9/2016.
What was lacking was COURAGE and POLITICAL WILL.
#AuditTheVote forced government officials to exert POLITICAL WILL.
A special shout out to @MJB_SF who joined the #AuditTheVote movement early on and created a Moment to help push it forward:
Trump has the U.S. bully pulpit now and is doing a better job sowing domestic and international division than Putin could have ever hoped for.
There are more mechanisms in place that would result in retaliation for direct interference.
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No matter what the results are on November 6th, I would anticipate there will be a POST-election psy ops effort to try to cast doubt on the outcome and integrity of the electoral process.
Again: I would anticipate that no matter the results. It’s low-hanging fruit for Putin.
Trump campaign aide Rick Gates sought proposals for social media manipulation (including creation of fake online personas) and opposition intelligence gathering from Psy Group, an Israeli intel firm
(Those of you who’ve followed me a long time know I have speculated in the past about Israeli versus/in addition to Russian involvement in the social media psy-ops during the 2016 election. Remember all those hashtag “MAGA” troll/bot accounts that had hashtag “StandWithIsrael”?)
@RadioFreeTom Similar to Trump admin stripping immigrant children from parents: the message is “we can and will target anyone.”
@JKhashoggi didn’t identify as a “dissident,” was supportive of the monarchy, and only sought reform.
MBS apparently believes Trump and Bibi will turn a blind eye.
@RadioFreeTom@JKhashoggi (And MBS is likely correct he will do this with impunity. The context, of course, is the recent imprisonment of numerous female human rights advocates and charging them with serious crimes, seeking the death penalty for at least one - all without meaningful U.S. response.)
If news re @JKhashoggi proves true, his assassination is an dramatic expansion of Saudi Arabia’s already Draconian war on dissent.
If MBS gets away w doing this w impunity (meaning Trump/Bibi turn a blind eye), some others in the region will follow suit. middleeasteye.net/news/turkish-p…