By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
The FBI suspects the Russian web-based media outlet Sputnik was a propaganda machine that spread misinformation during the 2016 election in an attempt to get Donald Trump elected.
To further understand the internal working of Sputnik, the FBI interviewed one of its former employees – an American journalist named Andrew Feinberg.
The FBI interviewed Feinberg for two hours on Sept. 1 in hopes of learning more about the inner workings of the suspected propaganda machine, CBS News reports.
So what did the FBI want to know?
“They wanted to know how I ended up there, you know, who paid me, who signed my checks, what a typical day was like,” Feinberg told CBS News national security correspondent Jeff Pegues. “Who I took my orders from … they wanted to know everything.”
Agents believe Sputnik was involved in “covert intelligence operations” and “paid media trolls.”
Feinberg said he was fired after just four months for refusing to write a story that he believed was wrong.
“They only will run a story … when it meets a certain criteria that the angle that the story takes is one that meets their worldview,” he said.
“The worldview of Vladimir Putin?” Pegues asked.
“Well that’s where the money’s coming from,” Feinberg said.
