Yet more. After CNN reported this afternoon about follow-on conversations after the June Trump Tower meeting, The Washington Post has another development. In a contact brokered by over-the-top publicist Rob Goldstone, an executive with VK (Russia’s top social platform, akin to Facebook) repeatedly pitched Trump aide Dan Scavino on setting up a page on VK.
In other words, after the Trump Tower meeting we already know about, Goldstone – the guy who set up the Trump Tower meeting – started hitting Trump’s social media guy on the idea of setting up a Trump page on the Russian version of Facebook.
Emails from Goldstone suggest that Goldstone had gotten a positive response to the idea from Paul Manafort and Donald Trump Jr. at the Trump Tower. That led him to follow up with Scavino. On its face, the idea seemed to be that Trump could use the platform to reach out to Russian-Americans and Russians. Obviously Russian-American citizens can vote. There’s some utility to that, though there aren’t that many Russian immigrants in the US and certainly for most of them there are English language messaging platforms. As for Russian nationals living in Russia what this would accomplish isn’t really clear.
This is one of the odder revelations of the unfolding Russia story since, for lack of a better phrase, what’s the point? Streaming Russian propaganda to Americans on Facebook, sure. That makes sense. But piping MAGA to Russia? What does that accomplish? For the moment I’d say we should mark it down as simply another way to establish a point of contact, another way to be friends. Or perhaps there’s some dimension of it which is yet to reveal itself.
