Clint Watts, a former FBI Special Agent, says that Russian-controlled Twitter bots helped amplify widespread calls for President Trump to fire National Security Advisor General H.R. McMaster. The hashtag #firemcmaster spread virally earlier this month.
Earlier reports quickly identified the role of pro-Russian partisans in amplifying the hashtag, but Watts’ claims are based on different data, generated by a monitoring project called Hamilton 68. Named after founding father Alexander Hamilton’s warning about the danger of foreign influence, Hamilton 68 monitors 600 Twitter accounts “linked to Russian influence operations.” That includes both automated bot accounts and what Hamilton 68 describes as “trolls.”
