Trump spied on journalists reporting on the Russia plot

The troll farm that littered US politics with hoaxes during the 2016 presidential election campaign and polarised the debate is once again resurfacing. In the early months of Donald Trump's term in office (2017-2021), the Justice Department secretly obtained wiretaps and attempted to access the emails of journalists from The Washington Post who reported on Russia's role in the 2016 election.

The US Justice Department sent a letter to reporters Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller, as well as former reporter Adam Entous, telling them it had received their personal and work landline phone records between July 15, 2017, and July 31, 2017, " The Washington Post reports.

Meanwhile, the Justice Ministry has claimed to have followed "established procedures" regarding this request, the newspaper said, citing a ministry spokesman. The letters to journalists did not specify why these records were seized. The newspaper was "deeply disturbed by this use of government power to gain access to journalists' communications," said editor-in-chief Cameron Barr.

The Kremlin's alleged interference in the 2016 election process, which in 2016 gave Trump victory against all odds, was a shadow that followed him throughout his term in office. Investigated by the FBI, congressional committees and a special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, the plot originated with the theft of Democratic Party emails distributed by WikiLeaks before the 2016 election with the alleged aim of favouring Trump, and the alleged collusion of the Republican's entourage with the cyberattack.

Russia's campaign to influence the presidential election on social media focused on targeting African-American users as part of its tactics to favour the vote for former US Republican president Donald Trump. Some of the conclusions reached in a report prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee, a draft of which The New York Times has had access to, concluded that posts from fake Russian accounts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube generated more than 300 million interactions from US internet users between 2015 and 2017.

Specifically, the researchers analysed more than 10 million Twitter posts from thousands of fake Russian accounts, more than 116,000 posts on Instagram and 61,000 on Facebook as well as more than 1,000 YouTube videos. The photo platform was found to be the main tool used in the campaign.

Reports revealed a consistent pattern of seeking to divide Americans, particularly along racial lines, while praising Trump (with posts linking the Republican to Jesus) and hurting Democrat Hillary Clinton (linked to images of Satan). But aside from the candidates, investigators found that many of the posts were not specifically about Trump or Clinton, but about divisive issues in general.

The case against the two companies, Concord Management and Consulting, and Concord Catering, was opened in 2018 by then-special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who was investigating the Russian plot and possible obstruction of justice by the US president. In addition, Mueller also indicted 13 Russian nationals and the Internet Research Agency (known as IRA) during his investigation. Part of Justice's investigation was to establish Concord's relationship with the IRA, the troll farm that operated out of St Petersburg to influence the US electorate on social media in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.

Concord is owned by Yevgeni Prigozhin, one of the Russian president's closest allies. With business dealings also in the military sphere, Prigozhin is reportedly behind the Wagner mercenary company, which has sent contractors to defend Kremlin interests in Syria, Ukraine, Libya and other African countries. He is one of the shadiest men in the president's entourage. Investigators claim that the president's friend managed political projects for the Kremlin, such as the Internet Research Agency (or IRA). Prigozhin has always denied this, despite reports that his company, Concord Catering, supported it financially.

Concord is a firm controlled by Yevgeni Prigozhin, a Russian tycoon close to Putin, and the only Russian entity to respond to charges brought in the US courts as a result of Mueller's investigation. The case put a lot of pressure on the Justice Department as information relating to the spying had to be handed over to Concord's legal teams in order for them to prepare for trial.

Former CIA Director John Brennan appeared publicly before the US House Intelligence Committee investigating Russian interference in the election process. During Brennan's two-hour testimony in the spotlight, the agency's top official until January 2017 admitted for the first time that last summer he had raised concerns about Russian interference in the election and his ties to members of the US president's campaign team. "I am aware of information and Intelligence, which revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and people involved in the Trump campaign," he told lawmakers.

For the former US spy chief there was no doubt that the Kremlin - and President Vladimir Putin - backed Trump because of their "antipathy" towards Bill and Hillary Clinton, and the certainty that if the former secretary of state won the election she would be more uncompromising on human rights issues.