Second-Highest Ranking Senate Republican Interacted with Russian Propaganda During 2016 Election

Uses Admission to Attack Press

Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, the second-highest ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate, shared on Saturday that he followed, retweeted or liked Russian propaganda during the 2016 presidential election.

On Wednesday, Twitter’s Director of Public Policy Carlos Monje advised that the social media platform was actively “working to identify and inform individually the users who have been exposed to IRA accounts during the election.” IRA refers to the Internet Research Agency, which Recode describes as “an online troll army with Kremlin ties.”

Senator Cornyn received such a notification, and opted to share it with the public via Twitter in an attack on the press. “Finally social media is waking up to manipulation of public opinion by our adversaries,” he wrote. “All of us need to step up to meet this challenge, especially the Press.”

The tweet, seen below, included the screenshot of an email Cornyn received. It reads:

As part of our recent work to understand Russian-linked activities on Twitter during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, we identified and suspended a number of accounts that were potentially connected to a propaganda effort by a Russian government-linked organization known as the Internet Research Agency.

Consistent with our commitment to transparency, we are emailing you because we have reason to believe that you either followed one of these accounts or retweeted or liked content from these accounts during the election period. This is purely for your own information purposes, and is not related to a security concern for your account.

Take a look:

Twitter’s decision to share this information follows Facebook’s. Last month, the popular platform released a limited tool allowing users to see what Russian propaganda they may have previously liked or followed.

One Twitter user offered another take: