On April 18, a federal grand jury indicted four Americans and three Russians with “a multi-year foreign malign influence campaign in the United States.” The Russian defendants allegedly “recruited, funded and directed U.S. political groups to act as unregistered illegal agents of the Russian government and sow discord and spread pro-Russian propaganda.”They also allegedly “participated in covertly funding and directing candidates for local office within the United States.” Russian national Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, founder and president of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR), under the direction of the FSB, allegedly “engaged in a years-long foreign malign influence campaign targeting the United States. As a part of the campaign, Ionov allegedly recruited members of political groups within the United States, including the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement (collectively, the APSP) in Florida, Black Hammer in Georgia and a political group in California (referred to in the superseding indictment as U.S. Political Group 3), to participate in the influence campaign and act as agents of Russia in the United States.” The four Americans are then named, including Omali Yeshitela, chairman and founder of the APSP.
“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights – freedoms Russia denies its own citizens – to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “The department will not hesitate to expose and prosecute those who sow discord and corrupt U.S. elections in service of hostile foreign interests, regardless of whether the culprits are U.S. citizens or foreign individuals abroad.”
If there’s any weaponization going on here, it’s the Justice Department attack on Americans exercising their freedom to dissent from the anti-Russian propaganda of the US government. “This fake and racist case flows from the Russiagate hysteria that convinced millions of Americans that Russia was paying dissident groups to destabilize the US political system,” Max Blumenthal wrote on Twitter. “The FBI was unable to find anything real, so it went after the African People’s Socialist Party.”
