The long awaited intelligence report on Russian ‘interference’ in the 2016 presidential election contains a lengthy and detailed attack on RT’s programming as evidence of a Kremlin plot to subvert U.S. democracy.

The DNI report specifically cited Breaking the Set, a popular RT America show hosted by Abby Martin, as promoting “radical discontent.” Martin gives an impassioned response to former BTS producer, Anya Parampil, about the DNI accusing their two year old show as somehow having an influence on the election.

Abby Martin Blasts DNI Report, New Cold War

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– The US intelligence agencies’ unclassified report on Russia’s involvement in the election didn’t provide any evidence of hacking, instead choosing to focus on media such as RT. Brian Becker speaks with Abby Martin about why her show was included and the way the mainstream media has slandered her.

– Almost half of the US intelligence report is dedicated to describing RT’s alleged efforts to “fuel discontent in the US.” It goes on to accuse some former programs of being overwhelmingly critical of American and Western governments for years. RT International talks with Abby Martin, who was the host of one of the shows cited in the report, Breaking the Set.

– Abby and Robbie Martin immediately respond to the news of the intelligence report blaming Russia Today, and specifically Breaking the Set, for Trump’s win after it broke in a special edition of Media Roots Radio.

– Journalists Abby Martin and Ben Norton join Chris Hedges for a wide-ranging discussion about troubling shifts away from fact-based reporting and governance—as well as the potential costs of insisting that, as Norton put it, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

– Abby Martin joins journalists Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola on their podcast Unauthorized Disclosure to discuss the DNI report, the deep state attempting to undermine POTUS Trump and the rotting Empire.

Abby Martin issued the following response to the Jan. 7 New York Times article falsely representing her work at RT America. 

The long-awaited report by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), allegedly proving Russian “interference” in the US election, includes a section solely dedicated to bashing RT, and specifically calls out my former show Breaking the Set, which ended two years ago, as a propaganda vector marking the beginning of the Kremlin attempt to subvert American democracy.

Desperate to push this US intelligence narrative, The New York Times called the report “damning and surprisingly detailed,” while adding that it includes no actual evidence.

The very next day, on Jan. 7, the Times published another piece titled “Russia’s RT, The Network Implicated in U.S. Election Meddling.”

In the article, NYT journalist Russell Goldman used two blatantly false statements about my work at RT to support the argument that the network is simply a Putin-dictated propaganda outlet.

First, he stated “…two anchors who quit during live broadcasts say the network is a propaganda outlet.”

I did not quit during a live broadcast, nor did I say that the network is a propaganda outlet.

He goes on to say “…Abby Martin, who said before quitting, ‘What Russia did was wrong.’”

Any cursory research into the referenced quote—when I spoke out against Russia’s military entrance into Crimea and the network’s glorification of it—will find that not only did I not quit on air, but that I continued my show for an entire year afterward.

I was interviewed about my on-air statement on many major news stations, from BBC to CNN, where I defended my editorial freedom and also called-out the double standards and hypocrisies in their coverage.

RT issued an official statement in support of my freedom to state my opinion on the network. Over the course of the next year, I continued to voice my concerns and opinions about Russia, from MH-17 to the Ukraine crisis, unfiltered.

I quit the network on my own terms in February 2015 because I wanted to do more in-depth investigative reporting, not because I believed it to be a propaganda outlet.

The Times issued a correction after these false accounts were featured prominently on their website for over 19 hours. But their correction still misrepresents the facts to push their narrative.

The correction reads “this article misstated when the RT anchor Abby Martin left the network. She quit sometime after denouncing on air Russia’s war in Ukraine, not during the live broadcast.”

The error in their article was not simply about when I quit, but the reason and circumstances for leaving the network. The article still implies that I left over this political disagreement.

Additionally, they removed from the article the line “two anchors who quit during live broadcasts say the network is a propaganda outlet,” but they do not note that change in their correction addendum, as is standard.

The article now includes a modified sentence: “Abby Martin quit some time after denouncing Russia’s incursion on air. ‘What Russia did was wrong,’ Ms. Martin said.”

This new line twists the truth, omits the facts, and ironically contradicts their entire argument.

The glaring fact is that I spoke out about the actions of Putin, Russia and RT’s coverage of it on air, and not only was I not fired, but I still had the prime time opinion show on the network for another year.

That begs the question to the NY Times: if RT is simply a Kremlin mouthpiece, how was I allowed to do this and still be featured prominently on the network?

It appears that the Times is, once again, working to push a false perspective being promoted by US government officials and agencies. To paint RT in such a cartoonish, totalitarian fashion—and to promote the idea that it is subverting US democracy—is the dangerous state propaganda that we should be worrying about.

Abby Martin | @abbymartin

Abby Martin goes on-the-ground to the epicenters of state-backed settler terrorism in Palestine’s West Bank, in Part II of her report on illegal Israeli settlements.

Israel’s massive expansion of illegal settlements, built on stolen land and demolished Palestinian homes, is advanced by extreme violence from both the state forces and the settlers.

But the attacks on innocent Palestinians by Israeli settlers goes far beyond fists and rocks.

This installment visits both the rural countryside of Duma—interviewing the surviving members of the Dawabsheh family, victims of a horrific arson attack that left three dead—and the urban center of Hebron, a glaring example of Israeli apartheid under intense military occupation.

Inside the Hotbeds of Israeli Settler Terror

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WATCH PART I // Illegal Israeli Settlements & Palestinian Home Demolitions Surging

FOLLOW // @EmpireFiles & @AbbyMartin

In the past 10 years, the Israeli government has seized and demolished over 1,100 Palestinian homes in the West Bank, leaving over 5,000 people homeless––half of them children.

Enjoying total impunity with the protection of the US Empire, home demolitions by Israel in the West Bank has hit a ten-year high.

Over 200 homes have been demolished in 2016 alone, leaving 800 people homeless––400 of them children. Many hundreds more have orders to evacuate their homes and businesses for demolition.

While this activity led by the fanatical settler movement is illegal under international law, it is completely aided and abetted by the Israeli government.

With hundreds on notice to be evicted and their homes destroyed, Abby Martin goes on-the-ground throughout the West Bank investigating this dire human rights situation. She speaks to residents living under regular settler attacks from encroaching settlements and outposts illegal even under Israeli law, and sees first-hand how this crisis is worsening.

Home Demolitions for Illegal Settlements Surging

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WATCH PART II // Inside the Hotbeds of Israeli Settler Terror

FOLLOW // @EmpireFiles & @AbbyMartin