RT America’s ‘foreign agent’ registration driven by error-riddled intel report
The US Department of Justice based its decision to demand RT America register as a foreign agent on the intelligence community’s report accusing RT of influencing the 2016 election, a DOJ official said.
The report, issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in January 2017, “was certainly relevant to our decision to examine them more recently,” National Security Division Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Hickey told reporters on Thursday. He cited no other factors that contributed to the decision.
“Thank you DOJ for finally confirming what many have suspected, about how the sausage is made: RT America was forced to register as a foreign agent at least partially on the basis of a report filled with false facts, obsolete data and blatant errors,” said RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan.
The ODNI report claimed that Russia had meddled in the 2016 US presidential election. The report did not provide any hard evidence of Russian interference, relying instead on a group of select analysts from the CIA, FBI and NSA who drew on intelligence collected by the three agencies. A seven-page annex was devoted to RT and its influence on the election “by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences." Riddled with factual errors, the analysis of RT America’s coverage dated back to 2012 – long before the 2016 election.
Read more
T&R Productions LLC, which produces shows for RT America, filed a registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) on November 10, citing US government threats of legal action. Hickey denied that DOJ had threatened anyone, saying that the decision to register was “voluntary.”
“Obviously, this whole thing was designed to interfere with RT’s ability to do its work in the United States,” political commentator Dan Kovalik told RT. “Instead of being a news source, it’s now a foreign agent. And that will linger in people’s minds. The goal is to delegitimize RT in the minds of American viewers.”
Asked why the DOJ never responded to RT America’s request for an advisory opinion regarding the FARA registration, Hickey said it would have been redundant.
“There was no purpose served by separately copying and pasting the very same reasoning and the very same facts into a new document,” he said.
RT America’s request for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) disclosures on registration of other foreign-backed media outlets such as the BBC or Al Jazeera was making its way through the DOJ, Hickey said. “I understand that it’s currently in the pipeline and individuals are evaluating it in due course. If we learn anything from that FOIA request, we’ll take action as appropriate.”
The DOJ official pushed back on questions that sought to paint T&R's FARA registration as proof it was somehow not a news organization or that it engaged in misinformation.
“What we do not do is make a judgment about ‘good’ journalism or ‘bad’ journalism. We are not interested in the point of view of the agent of a foreign principal,” Hickey said. “What is relevant is whether you are expressing that point of view under the direction and control of a foreign principal.”
According to Kovalik, RT presents different points of view from the US establishment, in particular on issues such as Ukraine and Syria.
“I think censorship is very much underway already and I think it will be harder for Americans to find alternative views of the world,” he said.
[contf] [contfnew] 
RT
[contfnewc] [contfnewc]
The post RT America’s ‘foreign agent’ registration driven by error-riddled intel report appeared first on News Wire Now.
