The probe into Russia's effort to infiltrate and influence the U.S. political system has deepened, Yahoo News reports with the FBI now investigating the Russian news agency Sputnik, to determine if it is "acting as an undeclared propaganda arm of the Kremlin in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)."
As part of the probe, Yahoo News has learned, the bureau has obtained a thumb drive containing thousands of internal Sputnik emails and documents — material that could potentially help prosecutors build a case that the news agency played a role in the Russian government “influence campaign” that was waged during last year’s presidential election and, in the view of U.S. intelligence officials, is still ongoing.
The emails were turned over by Andrew Feinberg, the news agency’s former White House correspondent, who had downloaded the material onto his laptop before he was fired in May. He confirmed to Yahoo News that he was questioned for more than two hours on Sept. 1 by an FBI agent and a Justice Department national security lawyer at the bureau’s Washington field office.
Feinberg said the interview was focused on Sputnik’s “internal structure, editorial processes and funding.”
“They wanted to know where did my orders come from and if I ever got any direction from Moscow,” Feinberg told Yahoo News. “They were interested in examples of how I was steered towards covering certain issues.”
Spoiler alert, yeah, the FBI is probably going to find he was getting directions from Moscow because that's how Russian news agencies and the Kremlin operate—of course Moscow is directing them. What's unclear right now is whether this interview and investigation is part of Robert Mueller's broader investigation into Russia's interference in the election and the Donald Trump campaign. Yahoo News received an email from a Mueller spokesman saying "We are not confirming whether specific matters are or are not part of our ongoing investigation."
However, Asha Rangappa, a former FBI counterintelligence agent and now an associate dean of Yale Law School, tells Yahoo News that this is "incredibly significant" because of the FBI "has since the 1970s taken pains not to be perceived in any way as infringing on First Amendment activity. But this tells me they have good information and intelligence that these organizations have been acting on behalf of the Kremlin and that there's a direct line between them and the [Russian influence operations] that are a significant threat to our democracy."
That's a pretty good plot thickener.