A Florida woman who ran a Trump supporters page that unwittingly promoted a Russian-coordinated event on Facebook says she doesn’t believe that she was influenced by Kremlin-linked trolls https://t.co/DmgDRFRwyn pic.twitter.com/OAz5julCyA
— CNN (@CNN) February 21, 2018
A woman who ran a pro-Donald Trump Facebook group that promoted events during the 2016 election that have since been linked to Russia denied in a new interview that she was influenced by Russian trolls.
“I don’t go with Russians, c’mon, give me a break,” Florine Gruen Goldfarb told CNN when asked about her group amplifying events planned by Russians.
Goldfarb runs a Facebook page called “Team Trump Broward County.” According to CNN, the page shared multiple events that were planned by Russians during the 2016 election, as well as posting photos and videos from one of the events after it concluded.
{mosads}Goldfarb denied any Russian influence, telling the network that the people who attended the events were simply supporters of then-candidate Trump.
“Those people who were with me were all Trump supporters,” she told CNN. “Very, very much so.”
When a CNN reporter told her the events were planned by Russians posing as Americans, Goldfarb responded “BS.”
“Please report that I don’t believe that. It’s bulls—,” she said. “I know all the people that were with me. They were at my meetings. They were all Trump supporters.”
“Did you guys realize that you were in communication electronically with Russians?” the reporter asked.
“Not me,” Goldfarb replied. “Hillary Clinton was, and so were all her bandits.”
She further denied posting anything that was connected to Russians, before abruptly ending the interview.
Thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian groups were charged last week with multiple counts as part of their attempts to interfere in the 2016 election as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The indictment alleges the goal of the Russians was to support then-candidate Donald Trump and hurt Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
Some of the Russians allegedly communicated with “unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.”
The indictment also alleges that the Russians staged political rallies and posed as U.S. grass-roots entities to encourage “real U.S. persons to promote or disparage candidates.”
In a tweet following the release of the indictments, Trump claimed the indictment showed his campaign “did nothing wrong” and that there was “no collusion” with Russia.