DISINFO: Sanctions against Russian state media RT are unjustified
SUMMARY
The United States are justifying new sanctions imposed on RT by alleged interference in the 2024 American presidential election. Obviously it is not plausible, it is a repetition of 2015-2016 at the time of the last American elections, when Russia was accused of interference. This turned out to be completely false. One is seeing a rise in accusations against Russia and RT, which are totally fabricated in order to influence American voters in favour of Kamala Harris, as was the case in 2015 with Hillary Clinton. This is a repeat of a well-known scenario.
RT is banned in the US so it is a complete contradiction. The idea is to disseminate this kind of information to voters in order to influence the vote.
RESPONSE
Pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about sanctions against RT and meddling in the US electoral process.
The argument that the accusations against RT are absurd because sanctions against it already exist, preventing the organisation from meddling in the US electoral process, is itself absurd. While there are broadcasting restrictions on the channel in the US, Americans can still access RT content online.
Moreover, the indictment by the US Department of Justice, published on 4 September 2024, refers to a completely different operation unrelated to broadcasting in the US: RT employees were involved in a subcontracting scheme, anonymously paying nearly $10 million to US influencers.
The trope applied to the 2016 US presidential election has been debunked multiple times. The Mueller report for instance concurred that "[t]he Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion" (p. 1).
Finally, Margarita Simonyan the editor-in-chief of the Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT, recognised in an interview broadcast by the channel in September 2024 - see here for French (blocked in some locations) that they operated clandestinely “We started to walk along guerrilla paths. I mentioned this, I didn’t give details, of course, (…) They close the entrance for us, we go to the window, they close the window, we go to the vent, they close the vent, we go to the chimney, let's see what other holes are left in the US”.
Read our articles: The Kremlin’s weapons of deception: 7 things you need to know about RT and Sputnik and Kremlin disinformation targets US elections and 10 Methods of Foreign Electoral Interference or related cases such as: Accusations of Russian election meddling are absurd, or No evidence of Russian meddling in Western elections, or No evidence of Russian meddling in Western elections, or No proof of Russian meddling in the elections anywhere.