Russia considers designating CNN a foreign agent as payback

By Jonah Bennett, DCNF DCNF

Russia is considering designating CNN, Voice of America and Radio Liberty as foreign agents, now that the U.S. has forced state-run RT to register as a foreign agent.

Russian officials said Friday that they’re thinking of making private and government-run American media entities register as foreign agents, which is exactly what Russia warned it would do if American authorities moved to censure RT, The New York Times reports. Such a move could prevent CNN and other U.S. state-owned media entities from operating or distributing content in certain areas.

RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan signaled her intent to comply Thursday, saying that the state-run company would for now give in to U.S. demands to avoid bank account freezes and disclosures of personal employee information. Simonyan believes the application of the Foreign Agents Registration Act to RT America is discriminatory. The deadline to register is Monday.

“We believe that the demand does not only go against the law, and we will prove it in court – the demand is discriminative, it contradicts both the democracy and freedom of speech principles,” Simonyan said. “It deprives us of fair competition with other international channels, which are not registered as foreign agents.”

Simonyan said that while 400 entities are registered under FARA, not a single one of those entities is a media outlet.

The crackdown on RT has come in response to continued investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The U.S. intelligence community believes RT, formerly known as Russia Today, to be little more than a propaganda outlet. A January report from the Director of National Intelligence stated that RT “contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova pledged Thursday that Russia will hit back against any actions designed to attack RT.

“If someone starts to fight dirty, perverting the law by using it as a tool to eradicate the TV station, every move aimed against the Russian media outlet would be repaid in kind,” Zakharova said.

It’s unclear whether Russia will follow through on its threat or not.

Follow Jonah Bennett on Twitter

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW

Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!

Success! Thank you for donating. Please share BPR content to help combat the lies.

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

BPR INSIDER COMMENTS

Scroll down for non-member comments or join our insider conversations by becoming a member. We'd love to have you!

Latest Articles