Ever since Donald Trump took his place at the White House, rumors started to appear that Russia had a role to play in the way the elections unrolled. It appears that Trump was afraid that he might lose the presidential elections in the favor of his rival, Hillary Clinton, so someone may have asked his Russian friends to give him a helping hand. As these suspicions grew deeper, investigations started to take place to see if these accusations were indeed true. According to American intelligence agencies, Russian hackers broke into the computers of the Democratic National Committee, well before the elections took place, in order to do harm to Clinton and favor the campaign of Donald Trump.
The hacking of the system was real, as WikiLeaks started publishing almost 20,000 emails coming from the Democratic National Committee’s server. It is said that WikiLeaks got this information from the Russian hackers that got into the system and managed to acquire files that revealed precious information for voters. Of course, Russia and its President, Vladimir Putin, denied any connection with the hacking event, stating that it is not the name of the culprits that is most important here, but the content that was made public. Apparently, this denial was more an attempt to redirect people’s attention from the people behind the cyber-attack toward the content itself, which is, after all, the ultimate purpose of the hacking act. Hackers were hired to get information that could lead to the denigration of the Democrats and their leader, Hillary Clinton, with the goal of helping Trump win the election in a dirty manner.
But Russia didn’t just hack into DCN’s system. Its plans to turn the odds of the American elections went further than this. Several African-American boxers and martial arts instructors were contacted with the purpose of convincing them to teach self-defense classes for African-Americans only. The proposal was rather weird, as the instructors say, but the person on the other side of the phone was very persuasive and they eventually though that there are just classes, so there can’t be anything wrong about them. Also, the money was very good, making the people contacted to say yes to the proposal. So what was so wrong about self-defense classes for African-Americans?
The group that promoted these classes on social media, going by the name of Black Fist, used a rather odd advertiser to attract attention on the campaign. A part of the message was “Let them know that black power matters", which, if we take a better look at it, is meant to fuel the already existent tensions between black and white Americans. The Black Fist group tried to make it appear like it is connected to the Black Lives Matter movement, taking advantage of the existence of social issues in the US with the purpose of creating even more tensions.
What is weird about this group is that it contacted the instructors via social media, then continued communicating with them over the phone, making electronic payments for the classes, so the instructors never got the chance to meet someone in person from this group. This is what happened in the case of Omowale Adewale, a martial arts instructor from Brooklyn, New York. He was contacted via Instagram by Black Fist in January 2017, ending up hosting more than 12 events for this particular group, not ever having any suspicion that Russians may be behind this. A man that was calling himself Taylor, asked Adewale to gather names and contact information from all of the people that were attending the self-defense events, although the instructor doesn’t recall sharing any kind of personal information with anyone. Also, he was requested to take pictures and videos of the events and share them with Black Fist, material that was used supposedly as promotional material on the group’s Facebook page.
The truth is that Russia paid for these so-called self-defense classes in order to stir fear and tensions among people and gather personal information about people that may be easy victims of their propaganda. There were always conflicts between the black and white communities of America and the Russians decided to use this aspect to create more problems in American territories. As the martial arts instructors stated, even though the Black Fist group made payments in a timely manner and continuously promoted their campaigns, it abruptly disappeared several months later, in May. They were encouraged to post photos to social media, wearing their martial art uniforms, and showing class participation. Also, when the instructors were receiving phone calls from the group’s representative, the phone number appeared to be American. But, as discovered, later on, the number came from an Internet phone service provider, so it could very well be used from outside the States.
Do you still believe that Donald Trump won the presidential elections fair and square? Well, think about it twice, because there is more than sufficient proof that the Russians had something to do about it. According to National Intelligence officials, Russia may not have hacked the voting machines during the elections, but it did middle in other ways. Spreading pro-Trump propaganda on the Internet, hacking DCN’s servers, and the presence of online “trolls”, which are paid social media users that promote all kinds of stories are at least a part of the ways through which Russia spread its tentacles in America and tried to influence the decisions of the voters.
After all this scandal, Trump constantly said that the election process was not compromised by the Russian hackers because the voting machines were not breached and that he would like to improve American’s relationships with Russia, while Vladimir Putin stated that even a child could manage to break into the American presidential campaign. Both of them act weird and make awkward statements, like when they know something but refuse to share it, thinking that most of us are too stupid to read between the lines. Also, Hilary Clinton had serious chances to win the elections because he had sufficient supporters, something that scared Trump and made him ask help from his Russian friends that stirred a scandal large enough to cause tensions and affect Clinton’s image so that Trump could grab just a few more votes in order to win.