A political activist who participated in an anti-Trump rally allegedly orchestrated by Russian operatives admits he was fooled by professional internet trolls accused of conducting interference operations against the United States.
“They tricked the FBI, the CIA, the Obama administration, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and, yeah, they were going to trick the activists and media who were running to cover the stories,” community organizer Andrew Fede told the Charlotte Observer.
“We were duped. We were all duped,” Mr. Fede said in an interview published Tuesday — his first since the post-election “Charlotte Against Trump” rally appeared in a sprawling criminal indictment unsealed last month by the Department of Justice’s special counsel investigating alleged Russian meddling.
Mr. Fede, a black activist who co-founded groups including Millennials for Hillary and Young Professionals and Leaders, was contacted prior to the 2016 “Charlotte Against Trump” rally by a Facebook account purportedly operated by a woman who identified herself as an activist with the group BlackMattersUS, The Observer reported.
In his indictment last month of 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies, special counsel Robert Mueller alleged that employees of the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency used social media and other means to meddle in U.S. affairs before and during the 2016 White House race.
BlackMatterUS isn’t mentioned by name in Mr. Mueller’s indictment, but previous reporting has linked that group to the so-called “troll farm” and its operations meant to sow discord in the U.S. political system.
Following President Trump’s election in November 2016, Internet Research Agency employees “used false U.S. personas to organize and coordinate U.S. political rallies in support of then president-elect Trump, while simultaneously using other false U.S. personas to organize and coordinate U.S. political rallies protesting the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” Mr. Mueller wrote in the indictment.
“Defendants and their co-conspirators organized a rally entitled ’Charlotte Against Trump’ in Charlotte, North Carolina, held on or about November 19, 2016,” the indictment said.
Less than 100 people attended the rally, according to the Observer. BlackMatterUS helped organize at least two other rallies in Charlotte, however, including an October event that featured Mr. Fede as a speaker, the newspaper reported.
“The Russians accomplished what they wanted to accomplish,” Mr. Fede said. “They took our freedoms — freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, a free press — and they used them against us.”
Another “Charlotte Against Trump” attendee, attorney Kimberly Owens, downplayed the affect of the Russian-led rally.
“Quite honestly, it was more a feel-good event than anything,” she told The Observer. “If it was organized as part of an effort to destabilize us, it was an abysmal failure.
“I don’t care who organizes as long as the message is consistent with my values,” she said.
Facebook previously said that the Internet Research Agency was responsible for content seen by upwards of 140 million account holders, including at least 129 event pages created for events such as “Charlotte Against Trump.” The group’s operations encompassed other platforms as well, including Twitter accounts that reached about 1.4 million users in the U.S. during the 2016 race, according to its own accounting.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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