Why Markwayne Mullin decided to amplify Iranian propaganda as if it were real
As last week came to an end, one day after Donald Trump’s embarrassing national address about his election conspiracy theories, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said at an odd press conference that he wanted to “dig in just a little bit deeper” than the president did in his primetime address. It quickly became apparent, however, that this wasn’t a good idea.
The obvious problem with the Oklahoma Republican’s pitch was his willingness to threaten local election administration officials with prison time unless they obeyed the White House’s demands related to election policies. He similarly peddled familiar, unsubstantiated and tiresome claims about undocumented immigrants casting ballots, and raised concerns about election security, even as the Trump administration takes steps to undermine election security.
But that wasn’t the interesting part. Rather, the one thing Mullin said and did that stood out as especially notable was his willingness to pretend that Iranian propaganda was real — because it suited his political agenda. The New York Times reported:
Most egregiously, Mr. Mullin said Iran had hacked state voter files in an attempt to “compromise, is the best word I can use,” a system that allows members of the military as well as civilians to vote when stationed or living overseas.
Mr. Mullin was referring to activity that occurred and was made public in 2020, in which Iran-linked hackers gained access to a voter registration database in Alaska and then created a video purporting to show hackers using that data to fraudulently cast overseas ballots. The voting seen in the video was faked and never actually took place, according to Trump administration officials at the time and a Justice Department indictment of two Iranians connected to the scheme.
In other words, Iran created disinformation videos filled with false claims, which were intended to undermine public confidence in the American elections ahead of 2020. The secretary of homeland security not only believed the propaganda, he decided to amplify and promote Iranian nonsense as if it were real.
The Times’ report added that Mullin “also claimed that information related to the incident was withheld from Mr. Trump during his first term, as well as from Mr. Biden when he was in office.”
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Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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