DISINFO: Russiagate was just a series of lies aimed at delegitimising Trump
SUMMARY
Oliver Stone said that Trump was right to criticise the FBI and CIA after what happened with the Russian investigation because Russiagate was just a series of lies, peddled to the American people. The conclusions of the Mueller report were completely false and fabricated, a real political "witch hunt" aimed at delegitimising Trump
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Russiagate which denies Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
Robert Mueller's investigation concluded that Russia did interfere in the 2016 election. Mueller’s report maintains that “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities”. Nevertheless, it states that Russian interference activities did take place. The 448-page Mueller report issued in March 2019 (see here) contains copious detail about how Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, both by using social media to influence American voters with disinformation and by hacking into the Clinton campaign’s computers. A previous (2017) report prepared by the US Intelligence Community analysed the motivation and scope of the Kremlin's intentions for the US election and the Kremlin's use of cyber tools and media campaigns to influence US public opinion.
The report concluded that Moscow interfered in the US elections and that it had carried out this effort "in sweeping and systematic fashion". As concluded earlier by the US intelligence community and by Mueller’s own inquiry “the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts”. Read here for an overview of Russia's methods of electoral interference.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as allegations that neither the US Intelligence Committee report nor the Mueller report found any evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 US elections, that there is no proof that Russia tried to influence the Brexit referendum or about the role played by RT and Sputnik in these and other processes, that “absurd” accusations against Russia are an attempt to demonise it, or that the US and UK are indeed the ones who try to interfere in Europe.
For case studies on Russia's electoral interference see here.
Read similar cases claiming that Russiagate was a fraud orchestrated by the West that the Russiagate was a hoax invented by the American deep state, that the US President’s Russia affair is a factless conspiracy theory, that the Mueller Report never presented tangible evidence of Russian interference in the US elections.