Sessions is slippery on Don queries
ONE DAY in January, a Brooklyn activist got a curious call from a man who claimed he lived in Maryland and wanted to set up self-defense classes in the city.
Little did he know it, but Omowale Adewale had been targeted by the network of Kremlin-linked Russian operatives seeking to inflame tensions in U.S. politics.
All the man wanted in return was a record of who was attending the classes, who was teaching them — plus pictures and videos. Adewale never sent through the contact details.
“It’s really diabolical,” he said. “I detest Trump. This is like, obviously, it’s very problematic for me to find out that it was Russians who were behind this . . . I think they had more of a longterm plan with it.”
The St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency not only used social media, but paid some $80,000 to about 100 American activists, independent Russian outlet RBC reported.
The agency denied any direct connection to the Kremlin to RBC, though American intelligence has said that it played a role in Moscow’s attempt to swing the election toward President Trump.
Adewale, 39, who runs two activist groups based in BedfordStuyvesant, was one of those contacted.
He says he got a call out of the blue in early January by a man named “Taylor,” who claimed to work for an organization called “Black Fist.”
Taylor wanted to arrange the New York-based classes, and pay Adewale for his work.
“He didn’t really know how to articulate those aims, and so — as somebody who’s been an activist for a while — I looked at him as, ‘Ah, he has potential, he’s one of these people, they see something wrong and they kind of want to address it,’ ” Adewale said.
Adewale did some research on the group and found a legitimate-looking “Black Fist” website and Instagram and Facebook accounts with upward of 100,000 followers.
He began organizing classes in February for a fee of $320 for four classes in Brooklyn and Queens a month — a number which Taylor haggled down, which Adewale felt added to his authenticity.
“It also didn’t seem like they had unlimited money because I did have to haggle,” he said.
But Adewale was suspicious. Taylor rarely talked about a cause. But when the money started coming in, he relaxed.
“People were coming. He’s advertising them. You know? And he actually paid,” he said. “I mean, (the troll farm) were very sensible in terms of what they were trying to do.”
The “troll farm” even went so far as to send a “Black Fist” Tshirt sent to Adewale, which featured a black fist logo on the front and the word “coach.”
Taylor stopped contacting Adewale in May, shortly before the phony activism group’s social media vanished.
Adewale feels the group was testing the waters with him. “They might have thought I was gonna get a lot of people who work in politics,” he said.
Facebook said last month that around 3,000 ads from the group touching on divisive political and social issues had been seen by about 10 million users, though the trolls’ nonpaid posts reached as many as 30 million people per week last September.
The pages’ focus on issues such as gun rights and police brutality against black people had already been reported, though RBC’s exhaustive investigation is the first time that money is alleged to have changed hands other than the roughly $100,000 in Facebook ads. ATTORNEY GENERAL Jeff Sessions remained tight-lipped on Wednesday when pressed about conversations he’s had with President Trump.
Sessions deftly dodged questions from frustrated lawmakers during an open hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The at-times testy appearance included questions about Russia, special counsel Robert Mueller, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and any talks that Sessions may have had with Trump leading up to the firing of former FBI Director James Comey.
“I do not confirm or deny the existence of any communication with the President,” Session said when questioned repeatedly by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) about Comey’s May dismissal and Trump’s pardoning of Arpaio.
It was a line that Sessions repeated ad nauseum during his last appearance before a Senate committee in June.
Sessions also told the senators he has not been questioned by Mueller’s team of investigators.
Mueller has been investigating potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the outcome of the presidential election.
Sessions recused himself from that investigation in March, but he is seen as a possible witness because of his involvement in the Comey firing and his meetings with the Russian ambassador during the campaign.