In 2015, a new conspiracy theory swept across much of the American South and Southwest, claiming that then-President Barack Obama was planning on using an upcoming military exercise to install martial law across the country.
Known as Jade Helm, the exercise took part over a number of states, including Texas. The conspiratorial concerns were sufficient enough to convince Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to send the Texas State Guard to monitor the exercises — a move that a plurality of Texans agreed with.
Of course, Obama never plotted any dictatorship or martial law, and Jade Helm ended as little more than a routine exercise for the American military. But this week, we got a glimpse into why conspiracies about Jade Helm seemed to spike when they did.
As the Texas Tribune first reported, former CIA chief Michael Hayden appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe podcast on Thursday, where he revealed that Twitter bot accounts run out of Russia amplified messages about Jade Helm conspiracies.
“There was an exercise in Texas, called Jade Helm 15, that Russian bots and the American alt-right media convinced most, many Texans was an Obama plan to round up political dissidents,” Hayden said.
The former CIA head added that Abbott’s decision to send the Texas State Guard to monitor the American military showed operatives in Russia just how successful this type of online messaging could be. “At that point, I’m figuring the Russians are saying: We can go big-time,” Hayden said. “They made the decision: We’re going to play in [2016] the electoral process.”
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