The Rise and Fall of Michael Flynn; Russian "Fake News" Network Uncovered
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): -- Natalie Allen. Our top stories right now.</s>GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): The U.S. president's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, did not include thousands of dollars in payments from three Russian companies on a government financial disclosure form that he filed in February. Flynn did include the fees in an amended disclosure form, which he then filed on Friday and in a just released statement, his attorney says that Flynn acted properly. CNN's Randi Kaye takes a closer look at Flynn's political rise and fall.</s>GEN. MICHAEL FLYNN, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Ladies and gentlemen, I want to introduce the next President of the United States of America, Donald Trump.</s>RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He was a lifelong Democrat, yet during campaign 2016, General Michael Flynn found himself on the trail stumping for then Republican nominee, Donald Trump.</s>FLYNN: As a kid who grew up in a very strong Democratic neighborhood up in the state of Rhode Island, I don't recognize the Democratic Party that I learned about.</s>KAYE (voice-over): So when he first met Donald Trump, Flynn was impressed.</s>FLYNN: I felt the conversation that we had was enlightening to me.</s>KAYE (voice-over): Flynn is a retired three-star lieutenant general who holds three college degrees, including an MBA. He has 33 years of military experience, serving as a commander in both Iraq and Afghanistan and later as the director of intelligence for U.S. Central Command. And President Barack Obama nominated him to be the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's main spy service, in 2012. He was forced out of that role two years later, he says, for publicly questioning Obama's narrative that Al Qaeda was close to defeat. He later told Politico, "That was Obama's big lie, that the enemy was on the run and we were beating these guys." Flynn felt he still had more to give to his country. So come 2016, he aligned himself with Team Trump.</s>FLYNN: Get fired up. This is about this country.</s>KAYE (voice-over): In July last year, at the Republican National Convention, Flynn delivered a fiery speech.</s>FLYNN: We are tired of Obama's empty speeches and his misguided rhetoric. This, this has caused the world to have no respect for America's word nor does it fear our might.</s>KAYE (voice-over): He also had harsh words for Hillary Clinton.</s>FLYNN: Lock her up. That's right. Yes, that's right. Lock her up.</s>KAYE (voice-over): That same month, Flynn was scrutinized after he retweeted a message bashing Jewish people. It was in response to comments the Clinton campaign had made about Russia hacking the Democratic National Committee. He retweeted this controversial comment that said, "The USSR is to blame. Not anymore, Jews, not anymore." Flynn later apologized.</s>KAYE: After Trump won the election, he named Flynn as his national security adviser. No one could have predicted Flynn would only hold that job for 23 days. That's right, 23 days. Flynn resigned after misleading the vice president and others about the substance of phone calls he'd had with the Russian ambassador.</s>MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I talked with General Flynn yesterday and the conversations that took place at that time were not in any way related to new U.S. sanctions against Russia.</s>KAYE (voice-over): Turns out, that wasn't true. Secret transcripts of Flynn's intercepted calls showed Flynn did discuss sanctions, a potential violation of federal law. After Flynn texted Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak on December 25th to wish him a Merry Christmas, the ambassador texted Flynn three days later, asking, "I would like to give you a call. May I?" The next day they talked by phone --</s>KAYE (voice-over): -- the very same day President Obama ordered extra sanctions on Russia.</s>SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESPERSON: The evolving and eroding level of trust as a result of this situation and a series of other questionable instances is what led the president to ask for General Flynn's resignation.</s>KAYE (voice-over): Flynn later wrote this letter of resignation, explaining he'd inadvertently briefed the vice president and others with incomplete information. Flynn also raised eyebrows in August 2016, during a speech when he referred to Islamism as a, quote "cancer in the body of Muslims."</s>FLYNN: We are facing another ism, just like we faced Nazism and fascism and imperialism and communism. This is Islamism. And it is a vicious cancer inside the body of 1.7 billion people on this planet. And it has to be excised.</s>KAYE (voice-over): As Flynn's lawyer likes to say, his client has quite a story to tell -- Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.</s>HOWELL: And General Flynn recently seeking immunity. Again, as Randi Kaye points out, his attorney saying he has quite a story to tell, immunity in exchange for testimony. But that has not been taken up yet.</s>ALLEN: This week experts testify before the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee that the Russian government had an army of Internet trolls that tried to dupe the country during the 2016 election.</s>HOWELL: In some cases, it worked, in fact. Brian Todd shows us how.</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It started with several tweets alleging a terrorist attack at the Incirlik airbase in Turkey last summer. Russian state media outlets, RT and Sputnik, posted variations of the story. Soon, even Donald Trump's campaign manager apparently thought it was true, repeating it on</s>CNN. PAUL MANAFORT, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: There's plenty of news to cover this week that I haven't seen covered. You had the NATO base in Turkey being under attack by terrorists.</s>TODD (voice-over): No attack had in fact occurred at the base. Researchers say it's an example of fake reports spread online, on purpose, with the help of pro-Russian users in what's believed to be a disinformation campaign supported by Vladimir Putin, all designed to influence elections and sow dissent and confusion in the West.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have a coordinated information campaign and a deliberate strategy. So they pick their objectives in the information space.</s>TODD (voice-over): In another case, a leaked email from Hillary Clinton's campaign in which she asked a question about a treatment for Parkinson's disease, was spun into a fake story alleging she was sick, triggering allegations and chatter that the Democratic candidate had the disease. Researchers say the story was shared and reposted by pro-Russian sites and read 8 million times, evidence, experts say, of how Russia was trying to throw last year's election.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How easy is it for them to spread bogus stories?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Once they build an audience with their accounts, it's very easy to do that just through amplification. Anytime you have the ability to promote a story hundreds or thousands of times, than that puts into trending feeds. Once it's in a trending feed, it takes on a life of its own.</s>TODD (voice-over): Experts who researched Russia's fake news campaign testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, explaining how Putin's government uses an army of trolls, online critics, who push their agendas to confuse and frighten audiences in the West, an idea that played out dramatically on the Showtime series, "Homeland," a troll factory, where hundreds of employees toll away, hosting fake tweets under fake names. (</s>BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "HOMELAND") UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Iraq Bob. That's me.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Navy Wife. That's me, too.</s>TODD (voice-over): Their marching orders, post phony stories and tweets and spread them as widely as possible.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On a newsstand, talking points in your folders. Get outraged.</s>TODD (voice-over): Experts say the real-life troll factories used by Russians may not look as slick as the TV version but they are real. They say paid trolls who spread fake reports can amplify their impact using botnets, thousands of other people's computers infected with viruses and harnessed to do their bidding. Analysts say Putin's goal is to create distrust among Americans and their allies in their political systems.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They didn't just want to discredit U.S. elections, they wanted to discredit Hillary Clinton. Sowing division within the European Union, these are all things that are part of the Russian agenda.</s>TODD: When asked about accusations of Russian interference in America's elections, Vladimir Putin said, quote, "Read my lips, no." But experts who testified before Congress say we can expect Putin's government to continue to support fake news campaigns. They say, for Putin, it's easy, it's effective. And best of all for him, it often can't be traced directly back to him -- Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.</s>HOWELL: Brian Todd giving us a very good explanation of what fake news is. But just so important to point out the difference, the distinction between fake news and the dedicated men and women, the people who are really committed to good, quality journalism, who got into this profession to give people the news.</s>ALLEN: And what's so important is that they say, you know, when people, the citizens are ill informed or uninformed, you no longer have democracy. It's very, very scary --</s>ALLEN: -- what is going on and people can't decide what is credible and what is not.</s>HOWELL: I know here at CNN, we are all committed and dedicated to pushing forward with news.</s>ALLEN: We certainly are. Coming here, once the ancestral home of many Christians, one Iraqi town has basically been abandoned. Wait until you see what ISIS did to their church. That's ahead.</s>HOWELL: Plus Pope Francis heads to Northern Italy to bless the rebuilding of a city ravaged by a deadly earthquake. Details ahead as CNN NEWSROOM continues.