In fact, @TEN_GOP repeatedly insisted on the importance of such an investigation, as the below archived tweet shows.

Thus, @TEN_GOP was an active and aggressive member of the American far-right community, not only commenting on political issues, but steering internet users towards political action through the petitions page.

However, according to an investigation by Russian news outlet RBC published on October 17, based on information from a whistle-blower, @TEN_GOP was set up by the “troll factory” in St. Petersburg in order to comment on “political questions.”

Diagram showing the range of accounts on Facebook (dark blue) and Twitter (light blue) created by the troll factory. (Source: rbc.ru)

The revelation is remarkable. @TEN_GOP managed to masquerade as an American and unofficial organ of a major political party for over eighteen months, despite the fact that, according to Buzzfeed, the genuine Tennessee Republican party repeatedly complained about it. In that time, it built a powerful online following, interacted with senior Trump supporters and was widely quoted in the media.

Mainstream outlets including the Huffington Post and Washington Post quoted it as a conservative voice. Kremlin outlet RT quoted it on a range of issues, including denial of the claim that Russia interfered in the election, the Barcelona terror attack, a Trump threat against Toyota, and an attack on Clinton’s health.

Far-right American site InfoWars, itself known for spreading and amplifying false information, quoted the account on race trouble in Sweden, race relations in the United States, and, again, on its denial of the claim of Russian election interference. Breitbart and Fox News also quoted it repeatedly. Far-right activist Jack Posobiec complained when it was suspended and welcomed its successor, @ELEVEN_GOP.

It is unlikely that any of these sites were aware that @TEN_GOP was a Russian disinformation agent; little about the account’s behavior suggested its origin. What these citations show is the effectiveness with which the account managed to pose as a genuine voice on the American far right, and to fool far-right activists online.

Clinton, Blumenthal, and Benghazi

Much of @TEN_GOP’s commentary can be viewed as provocation or “triggering”, making aggressive comments in an apparent attempt to increase general divisions. Some was more active, such as its promotion of the petition.

On at least one occasion the account helped to spread specific disinformation about Clinton, which Trump ended up quoting just a few hours later.

On October 10, 2016, Wikileaks published the second in a batch of emails hacked from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta. The entire U.S. intelligence community concluded that the hacks were conducted by Russian intelligence.

One email was sent by Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal, and quoted a Newsweek article by Kurt Eichenwald on the death of four American diplomats in Benghazi which included the sentence:

“One important point has been universally acknowledged by the nine previous reports about Benghazi. The attack was almost certainly preventable. Clinton was in charge of the State Department, and it failed to protect the United States personnel and an American consulate in Libya. If the GOP wants to raise that as a talking point against her, it is legitimate.”

Very quickly, a number of apparently far-right American accounts began tweeting this sentence, but mis-attributing them to Podesta himself in order to claim that Clinton’s own staff blamed her. Most of the accounts involved have since been suspended, but they have left traces. The posts began with @Republic2016, which tweeted the fake news with an image of the text with a very characteristic pattern of highlighting.

Screenshot of the @Republic2016 tweet. Archived on October 10, 2016. (Source: Twitter)

Like @TEN_GOP, @Republic2016 was highly active, aggressively anti-Clinton, and effectively anonymous; there is insufficient evidence to conclude whether it was another troll factory product or an American account.

The same image was uploaded to pro-Trump Reddit feed /r/the_donald, which served as one of the main focal points of online trolls.

The upload to Reddit. Note the pattern of highlighting. (Source: Reddit)

It was also tweeted by a user nicknamed “Microchip”, a known bot herder and troll, who has been repeatedly suspended from Twitter, but appeared inactive as of October 2017. (Its handle at the time was @WDFx2EU7.) This was the account which was most involved in sending the topic viral, picking up over 2,000 retweets in short order.

Screenshot of the tweet by “Microchip”, from a now-suspended account. Note the identical highlighting and the high number of retweets.

A few minutes after Microchip, @TEN_GOP tweeted a very similar message, linking to an image of the same quote.

Retweet of the @TEN_GOP tweet, posted to Facebook, and showing the text and link to image. (Source: Facebook)

The link has been deleted, but a Google image search for the shortened URL confirms that it was the same quote, with the same pattern of highlighting.