UH OH

Alabama Attorney General ‘Exploring’ Disinformation Campaign Against Roy Moore

After group allegedly tried to smear candidate by falsely tying him to Russian bots.

Alabama’s attorney general announced Thursday that his office is reviewing an alleged disinformation campaign against former U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore—who lost his bid to Democrat Doug Jones in a startling special election last December. “The information is concerning,” Attorney General Steve Marshall told The Washington Post. “The impact it had on the election is something that’s significant for us to explore, and we’ll go from there.” Marshall said his office would be exploring the matter, but stopped short of saying a formal investigation had been launched. The campaign, called Project Birmingham, used some of the same tactics employed by Russian trolls during the 2016 presidential election and went so far as to plant fake evidence that Russian bots were backing Moore’s candidacy, the Post reports. The disinformation effort also included a Facebook page, set up by the chief executive of the social-media firm New Knowledge, that reportedly attempted to sway Republicans away from the GOP candidate. That Facebook page was suspended this month. Marshall’s investigation has been supported by Jones, who said that “illegal influence operations are a serious threat to our democracy, regardless of where these activities originate or who they seek to support.”

opinion

RUSSIAN TO JUDGMENT

Democrats Employed Russian-Style Dirty Tricks

Liz Mair