Agents of Chaos

You know, when I first heard that term,

I said "Ugh, that's so hokey."

The hierarchy of power in Washington D.C.

is who can raise the money.

and the special interest groups control the money.

-The lobbyists. -That's the swamp.

I didn't run to unify Washington.

Asshole! -Do something!

I ran to change Washington.

What has President Trump done to drain the swamp?

Drain the swamp!

(SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)

-(STATIC CRACKLES) -(SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)

-(STATIC CRACKLES) -(SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)

-(STATIC CRACKLES) -(SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)

Donald Trump.

(IN ENGLISH) My husband woke me up

and said, "You're not gonna believe it,

but apparently, Trump is winning."

And I thought, "God, now they're gonna blame us."

And I even posted that I think that Russians should go out

on the streets and carry an American flag.

Because somebody against whom the whole establishment,

and all of the media,

and all of the deep state, almost all of them, were,

and he still won because the people liked him.

As a young person who still believes in the values

that I was taught by Americans, in an American school...

to me, it was very optimistic to see that.

That it can actually really happen, still.

That is how democracy is supposed to work.

I think we know what we're up against.

We do, don't we?

She's guilty of a very, very serious crime.

She should not be allowed to run.

Hillary Clinton has some explaining to do.

I'm sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails!

-Thank you. (LAUGHS) -(CROWD CHEERING)

You know?

Bernie Sanders leading Hillary Clinton.

(CHANTING) Feel the Bern! Feel the Bern!

Bernie Sanders. You know, I told him.

I said, "The election's rigged."

It was rigged!

"Here's another ballot!" Throw it away, throw--

"Oh, here's one I like. We'll keep that one."

You could put half of Trump's supporters

into what I call the "basket of deplorables."

Isn't this exciting? Don't you love it? I love it!

What's more fun than a Trump rally, right?

I made speeches to lots of groups.

But did you have to be paid 675,000 dollars?

That's what they offered.

-So, um... -(CROWD LAUGHING)

This is the ultimate reality show.

It's the Presidency of the United States.

-(YIPS) -(EAGLE SQUAWKS)

...hacked the hell out of us.

-...the DNC hack... -...hacking the DNC...

-...exposed by WikiLeaks... -...and posted on WikiLeaks...

-Military and civilian... Our country has no idea.

-...agencies, well... -Yeah, I doubt it. I doubt it.

...he'd rather believe Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Putin, he called you a brilliant leader.

Do you wanna be complimented by that former KGB officer?

Well, I think when he calls me brilliant,

I'll take the compliment, okay?

And every time Russia's brought up, they say,

"Oh, Trump!" What do I have to do with it?

Okay, I'm not gonna make you relive

the entire 2016 election.

It was too chaotic. Too crazy. Too much.

But I am interested in figuring out

this Trump-Russia thing.

What was that all about?

Vladimir Putin's plan to rule the world?

A Democrat witch hunt to take down Trump?

A Cold War spy game?

I've been trying for years to answer those questions,

and every time someone asked me

what this movie was about, I'd say...

"Well, how much time do you have?"

Fear. Money. Corruption.

I can't tell you the one thing that explains

what Russia did to us or what we did to ourselves.

All I can tell you is what happened.

That's hard enough when you're talking about

the most chaotic election of our lifetimes.

And maybe for now, that's one thing I will say.

For some politicians, in Russia and America,

chaos isn't something to fear.

It's a way to get by.

Sometimes, with a little help from your friends.

Thank you very much.

The country spent years telling itself stories

to make sense of 2016.

It started in the final days of the Obama administration

with a report from the US Intelligence Community.

An American intelligence report

finds that Russia used disinformation warfare

to try to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

One of the weapons in the Kremlin's arsenal

was its state-run news network, RT.

I read that report.

Well, I laughed my guts out.

They mentioned my name there 27 times.

It would be laughable if it weren't that scary.

If the Intelligence Community...

of the most powerful country in the world...

is that ignorant, the world is in much trouble.

The FBI has an open investigation...

The House Intelligence Committee

issued seven subpoenas...

...an active investigation...

This is a pretty broad investigation,

they are following the money...

What next on the Russian investigation?

...so-called Russian collusion...

It'll now be handled by...

There were too many investigations to count.

The FBI, the Justice Department, both houses of Congress.

Everyone wanted to know what Russia had done.

But if anyone was gonna get the goods,

it would be the team put together

by the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller.

After the announcement that

Rod Rosenstein had appointed Bob Mueller,

a friend of mine sent me an email that said: "Bye, bye!"

He knew that I'd worked with Director Mueller twice before,

and he just assumed that I would just go off and work with him.

People like to think of the Special Counsel's Office

as a witch hunt,

but this is just not a partisan issue.

Our report has one key finding.

Clear, unequivocal...

efforts by the Russian government

to interfere with our election.

The issue that goes to the core of our democracy is...

are we doing everything we can to make sure

that Americans will decide who is running this country?

Oh, so, the DNC knew of the hack on April 19th.

But it wasn't reported until The Washington Post...

I started working on the Russia story

at the suggestion of the legendary reporter

and producer Lowell Bergman.

We formed a team of reporters and collaborators

from the US and Russia to take on different parts of the story.

Uh, did you get hired by a firm that was--

that had a more political interest?

No, but thank you.

But what exactly was the story?

We learned a lot of details about election interference.

The trolling, the hacking, and the alleged collusion.

What I couldn't figure out was,

how did these pieces fit together?

Or even if they did.

The first piece of the puzzle pointed us

toward a cyber trail on the internet,

where a motley band of Russian trolls

had been busy making mischief on social media.

The campaign was riddled with disinformation,

which travels like quicksilver on the internet.

So we sought out Camille François,

who was engaged by the US Senate to study the activities

of the infamous Russian troll factory

known as the Internet Research Agency,

or IRA.

CAMILLE FRANÇOIS: In 2016, people didn't know

what a Russian troll was.

I was quite fascinated

by this new means of controlling narratives.

My background is in human rights,

and I was very concerned with the way digital technology

was actually creating new problems in human rights.

What's really interesting with Russia,

it exemplifies a new trend

in governments using the internet

to control and repress.

Members of the committee, thank you

for having me here today.

We're here to discuss the growing issue

of online imposters and disinformation.

Targeting specific communities at the right time

and with the right tactics

can have a catastrophic impact on society

or on an election.

And I have seen the types of impacts

that those disinformation campaigns can have.

The IRA uses what we call "persona."

A persona is simply an account

that's not who they say they are.

They're really doing three types of personas.

Fake people, like, "Hi, my name is Jenna Abrams.

I am an American conservative."

She doesn't exist. She's a fake person.

That's a fake persona.