MAGA’s New Scandalous Tim Walz Conspiracy Linked To Russian Disinfo Plot

Earlier this month, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz was plagued by MAGA rumors that he sexually groomed a former student of his. Now it appears that baseless gossip was funded by a known source of misinformation: Russia.

Last week an anonymous account appeared on X, “DocNetyoutube” alleged that he had spoken to a former student of Walz who was abused by him during Walz’s tenure as a high school teacher and football coach. That same story had a history of glorifying other conspiracies, and was conveniently deactivated shortly after the accusations gained traction. It was unclear whether the account had been taken offline by the account owner or whether X had deleted it.

Experts believe that the Russia-linked network made the call Storm-1516 was behind the bill, reported Wired. Storm-1516’s content relies heavily on falsified primary sources, fooling American viewers into believing that fabricated documents, audio, and video support their baseless conspiracies. NBC News It is estimated that the prolific group – whose false stories have lured politicians at the highest levels of government, including Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance – is responsible for at least 50 conspiracies in the past year alone.

A video spread by another account on But the real Metro, which was tracked down by The Washington Post on Monday – dispelled the bizarre smear, telling the newspaper he was shocked to discover that a group had used his identity to fuel a vicious and false attack on Walz. Metro told the After that he had attended one of the schools where Walz taught but had never met him.

Last month, another pro-Trump super-spreader of disinformation was deposed as a beneficiary of Russian state-controlled media. Tene Mediawhich funded the work of popular far-right personalities including podcaster Tim Pool and Lauren Southern, buckled under pressure from a Justice Department investigation that found the company was backed millions of dollars by Russian state media.

Weeks later, another budding MAGA outlet, Intelligencer, with no apparent connection New York Magazine‘s Intelligence – was caught with ties to Russia. Some of Trump’s closest allies were connected to the outlet, including former Trump policy aides George Papadopoulos and his wife Simona Mangiant. Nearly half of the company’s board members are former aides, surrogates or fake voters for Trump’s previous campaigns.

The site’s financial support did not indicate that it had received money directly from the Kremlin. Instead, Intelligencer started as an affiliate of a right-wing radio station in Australia covering a range of conservative American issues, including climate change denial and Covid-19 conspiracies, until George Eliason, an American journalist with experience in Ukraine, took over. . website. In recent months, Intelligencer’s conspiracy-laden articles have been shared by the likes of Alex Jones and former Trump aide Roger Stone.