This Investigation Into the Russian-Sponsored Trump Rallies In Florida Will Keep You Up Tonight

In Robert Mueller’s indictment, he goes on and on about rallies allegedly organized by Russians, impersonating Americans, via unwitting American partners. One of the ones he highlights is a series of rallies collectively titled “Florida Goes Trump” that was supposed to take place on August 20, 2016.

I was curious. What did this series of rallies look like. If you do a Google search and limit the results to August 2016, to catch announcements and coverage of, as well as commentary on, the events this should capture it. As you can see, there is no contemporaneous coverage of the events. The references generated are from other links on the pages that date from 2017.

If you try the same thing with images, it is the same result. Click the images, follow them to their source, and you’ll see that they either reference a Trump campaign rally held the same day or they go to pages links that are more recent. The sole exception I’ve found was the image from this one tweet:

This required a deeper dive.
There was an Facebook announcement on the Palm Beach County website:

So what was the turn out?

It is unclear how many of these events actually took place–and it is quite likely that many of these events saw zero or negligible turnout–but some did have actual results on the ground. By searching through Twitter with the keywords “flash mob” and the hashtags #MarchForTrump and #FloridaGoesTrump for August 20, 2016 (the day of the flash mobs), we can find some photographs and videos taken of the events.

One video shot from Pensacola shows eight Trump supporters (plus one behind the camera) on a street corner holding flags. They all enthusiastically (but not quite in harmony) yell “lock her up,” about Hillary Clinton.

Another rally organized by the Russian troll factory-linked Facebook page was in Fort Myers outside of a Bass Pro Shop. A local Trump supporter shared a video of eight supporters (plus a child, dog, and the camera operator) yelling “southwest Florida for Trump!”

We can also find a photograph of the rally in Spring Hill:

This is Miami:

So this is what the Russians paid for in Florida. And the truck and Hillary impersonator in a cage? There is zero evidence they ever did anything besides spend the money they were paid.

Guys, this is not how a rogue superpower meddles in an election.

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