Justice Department tells Russia Today (RT) employees to register as FOREIGN AGENTS.

[pnwmom]

Russia Today hosted the infamous Putin dinner with Jill Stein and Michael Flynn.

http://www.newsweek.com/rt-russia-today-spies-foreign-agents-registration-act-sputnik-trump-mike-flynn-663094

The United States Department of Justice has apparently asked people associated with the American arm of RT, formerly Russia Today, to register as foreign agents, the media outlet said on Monday. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

RT, a news network with ties to the Kremlin, said Monday that a company associated with RT America received a letter from the Justice Department saying “the company is obligated to register” under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. FARA is a statute from 1938 that requires Americans doing political work on behalf of foreign parties to disclose their relationships with those entities. The Justice Department is responsible for enforcing the statute.

SNIP

Since July of last year, the FBI has been investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible coordination with President Donald Trump’s campaign. In May, the Justice Department appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to oversee that investigation. Federal investigators are looking into news websites including RT, Sputnik, Breitbart News and InfoWars, McClatchy reported on March 20, the same day that then-FBI Director James Comey first publicly disclosed the Russia investigation.



Here's Thom Hartmann, refusing to say how much RT pays him:

&t=5s

[haveahart]

1. Ed Schultz and who else that we know will now have to register. Good!

[R B Garr]

2. Oh, this is just hilarious. I wonder if any "special guests"

are getting the look over, too. Looks like Thom Hartmann is exactly what we thought--a foreign agent. It totally fits.

[Hekate]

3. You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas

Dammit

[BigmanPigman]

4. Thank you DOJ, it's about time! What took so long?

[DFW]

5. I doubt that Thom Hartmann deliberately does the work of Putin

I think Thom went where he best thought he'd get an audience. I don't think "willing foreign agent" entered into his thinking for a moment. I can't imagine he'd be for sale, not for dollars, not for rubles. I couldn't say about the rest of them.

[pnwmom]

6. His presence there helps to legitimate the network among his followers, so many of them

view it as a legitimate news source, rather than as a propaganda outlet.

They pay him, wittingly or unwittingly, to be a kind of "loss leader," reeling his progressive followers in.

[DFW]

9. I realize that, and it's very unfortunate

The loss of Air America cost us dearly, although MSNBC picking up Rachel Maddow was a huge stroke of luck.

I hate that Hartmann is stuck in a situation that unfairly helps RT and equally unfairly taints him.

[DetlefK]

7. Which is entirely fair, since Russia is also forcing anybody to register as a "foreign agent".

You are a russian citizen, working for a russian organization who receives part of its funding from foreign sources?

Then you're a foreign agent and the russian attorney-general has the unilateral power (no courts, no hearings, no trials) to shut down your operations on a whim.

[Not Ruth]

8. Is this the step before charging them as spies?

[R B Garr]

10. I just saw that nasty interview with Hartmann over his pay.

What an utterly nasty hypocrite. This is a person who cries about American companies and who lied about and smeared Hillary by tainting her as some corrupt politician, yet he is the corrupt one. Taking money from Russia to smear America.

This is more proof that literally everyone who was smearing about Hillary being crooked are actually the crooked ones. Show us your taxes, Thom or stfu about Democrats. Everyone on his show should show their taxes before they attack Democrats. This is absurd and outrageous.

[MrsCoffee]

11. Well said. I am sick of the hypocrites.

Throwing boulders from their glass houses.