Russian TV news host Evgeny Popov had a pretty good idea of what the FBI found when they searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. On Tuesday’s broadcast of 60 Minutes, Popov said the agents found a couple of matryoshka dolls, a portrait of Vladimir Putin, a Young Pioneer scarf, two icons, a parachute, and a chained bear with a balalaika.
I presume he was joking. Thanks to The Daily Beast columnist Julia Davis, who watches Putin’s propaganda pals so we don’t have to, for providing this gem.
Popov, who is also a deputy in Russia’s State Duma (parliament), has repeatedly referred to the former guy as Russia’s “friend” and “protege.”
Davis wrote that on Tuesday’s broadcast, Popov said:
As soon as Donald Trump complained that Biden was the worst president in the history of the United States, which is fast becoming a third world country, there was a knock on Donald’s door: ‘Knock-knock, this is the FBI!’ More than one hundred agents stormed in and searched Trump’s Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago.
Dozens of agents ransacked every office, went through every box, and took every document that was of interest to them. It is thought that the FBI was interested in the Top Secret documents supposedly taken by the ex-president from the White House ... Biden, with his dictatorial tendencies, repressions, and persecution of dissidents, is turning America into Ukraine. He already did that, since the opposition is being persecuted by authorities ...
Russian TV propagandists have matched Fox News hosts in expressing outrage over the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search. With straight faces, they complained that the “FBI raid” was symbolic of the rampant persecution of political dissidents in the U.S. by that tyrannical despot President Joe Biden, whom they repeatedly refer to with one of Trump’s favorite nicknames, “Sleepy Joe.”
But Putin’s propagandists are unmatched when it comes to outright hypocrisy. After all, Russia’s opposition leader Alexei Navalny nearly died from being poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent, and is now serving a nearly 12-year prison sentence under harsh conditions after being convicted on trumped-up charges.
Russians also face hefty fines or stiff prison sentences for expressing any opposition to the war in Ukraine. They can’t even call it a “war,” but have to use the Kremlin’s terminology of a “special military operation” if they wish to avoid punishment.
And Russian TV offered music to Trump’s ears when one of their propagandists, military expert Igor Korotchenko, described Trump as the victim of a “witch hunt.” Korotchenko even embellished details of the search, claiming that FBI agents brought “German Shepherd police dogs.”
On Tuesday’s 60 Minutes broadcast, Korotchenko angrily commented:
There is a straight-up witch hunt happening in America. Trump, as the most popular politician in the United States—who has every chance of prevailing in the upcoming presidential election—was chosen as such a witch. They won’t just be vilifying him, they will be strangling him. These raids, involving dozens of FBI officers and German Shepherd police dogs—this is worse than McCarthyism, my friends! This is a symbol of inordinate despotism.
Korotchenko even said he wouldn’t be surprised if Biden “cooked up a case of treason” against Trump.
State TV correspondent Valentin Bogdanov, reporting from New York, was somewhat more restrained. He suggested that Trump could be charged under “an obscure law” that prohibits officials from taking or destroying documents. He listed the potential penalties: Up to three years in prison, a fine, “and, in Trump’s case, the scariest one of all: a lifetime ban from any government position, including the presidency.”
But leave it to Putin’s leading propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov, to go completely over the top. In July, Putin decorated Solovyov with The Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree for his “great merits in shaping the image of Russia and active participation in socially significant events.”
He is the anchor of Russia’s leading TV news show, Evening with Vladimir Solovyov, on Russia-1.
After showing clips of the “Trump Guard,” known in the U.S. as MAGA supporters, demonstrating outside Mar-a-Lago, a reporter noted that “’Civil War’ is trending on social media in the U.S.”
That was the cue for an angry Solovyov to jump in and make even more outrageous threats against the U.S.
This is fun for everyone but the Americans. They don’t really understand what awaits them next. Let’s just say that if the civil war starts over there, there will be only one big question for Russia — whom to support with weapons. We won’t forgive them for Ukraine, that’s for sure.
Solovyov has already been personally sanctioned by both the U.S. and the EU.