Russian
election
plot
touched
even
minor
Trump
supporters
By
CATHERINE
LUCEY
APNews.com
WEST
PALM
BEACH,
Fla. -
The
request
was
simple:
organize
or
attend a
sign-waving
rally
supporting
Donald
Trump.
But some
of the
Florida
Republicans
on the
receiving
end of
those
requests
now know
that
they
didn’t
come
from
Republican
allies,
but from
Russian
adversaries.
Caught
up in an
elaborate
Russian
plot
without
their
knowledge,
a
handful
of these
small-time
Trump
supporters
said
their
votes
were not
swayed
and they
didn’t
do
anything
they
weren’t
happy to
do.
Still,
their
interactions
with the
Russians
highlight
the
ways,
both big
and
small,
that the
nation’s
campaign
process
was
infiltrated.
“I
was
going to
do what
I was
going to
do
anyway.
I was a
Trump
supporter,
they
didn’t
convince
me,”
said Jim
Frishe,
a real
estate
development
consultant
and
candidate
for
county
office,
who
organized
a
sign-waving
event in
Clearwater
that was
part of
a
statewide
series
of
rallies
promoted
by the
Russians.
The
Florida
rallies
are one
small
facet of
the
indictment
issued
Friday
by
special
counsel
Robert
Mueller
charging
13
Russians
and
three
Russian
companies
with
interfering
in the
2016
election.
The most
detailed
allegation
of
illegal
Russian
meddling
to date,
it says
they
assumed
U.S.
identities,
sowed
discord
on
social
media,
communicated
with
“unwitting”
Americans
and even
set up
political
rallies
from
afar.
As
part of
that,
the
indictment
says the
Russians
used a
Facebook
group, a
Twitter
account
and
other
“false
U.S.
personas”
to
organize
coordinated
“Florida
Goes
Trump”
rallies
on Aug.
20,
2016.
They
reached
out to
campaign
staff,
grassroots
groups
supporting
Trump,
and
specific
individuals
to
participate.
Frishe,
68, said
he was
called
by
someone
identifying
themselves
as with
a group
called
“Florida
for
Trump”
and
asked to
organize
a
sign-waving
rally.
He said
between
15 and
18
people
showed
up and
that he
didn’t
receive
any
signs or
money or
other
support.
He never
heard
from
them
again.
He
said he
was not
overly
concerned
about
the
indictment,
or his
minor
role in
the
drama,
and that
Russian
interference
is
“nothing
new.”
“It’s
not
surprising,”
Frishe
said.
“It
doesn’t
have a
huge
impact
in this
country.”
Still,
the
indictment
details
a
sizable
effort
to
disrupt
the 2016
presidential
election,
aimed in
part at
helping
Republican
Donald
Trump
defeat
Democrat
Hillary
Clinton.
It
involved
creating
internet
postings
in the
names of
Americans
whose
identities
had been
stolen;
staging
political
rallies
while
posing
as
American
political
activists;
and
paying
people
in the
U.S. to
promote
or
disparage
candidates.
Lilia
Morraz
was
another
person
who put
together
an
event.
She said
she got
involved
after
she
encountered
the @March_for_Trump
account
on
Twitter,
one of
the
accounts
the
Russians
used.
“I
am
really
active
on
Twitter.
They
were
saying
Trump
was not
going to
be
elected.
I
happened
to write
to them
and say
it’s not
true,”
said
Morraz,
60, of
Miami.
Morraz
said
that
from
there,
she was
asked
about
good
places
to hold
a rally
in Miami
and then
“they
told me,
yes, go
ahead
and do
it.” So
she
organized
an event
outside
a
restaurant
that
both she
and @March_for_Trump
promoted.
She said
hundreds
attended
and she
made
signs
herself
and
received
no
money.
Morraz
was
skeptical
about a
Russian
plot.
“I
just
don’t
believe
it. It’s
like
everything
you see
on TV. I
don’t
believe
90
percent
of it,”
she
said.
Another
Florida
Republican,
Betty
Trigueiro,
says she
didn’t
attend
the
Florida
Goes
Trump
rallies.
But her
name and
phone
number
were
included
in a
Facebook
post
promoting
the
event
without
her
permission.
Trigueiro,
62, of
Bradenton,
said
that in
August
2016 she
started
getting
some
Twitter
messages
from
people
she did
not know
with
details
on
pro-Trump
events.
She
thinks
they may
have
gotten
her
contact
information
from her
time as
secretary
of a
local
Republican
club.
She said
she
never
attended
any of
the
events.
While
she was
troubled
that
there
appeared
to
efforts
to
“infiltrate
and
cause
chaos,”
Trigueiro
wasn’t
convinced
the
outcome
was
impacted.
“There
was too
many
people
that
wanted
him
elected,”
she
said.