US Justice Department forces RT America to register as “foreign agent”
By
Trévon Austin
10 November 2017
RT, the Russia-based TV and Internet broadcaster, announced Thursday that the US Department of Justice has forced it to register as a “foreign agent” under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Washington has given the outlet until Monday to register as a foreign agent or its director could be arrested and its assets frozen.
The move is a product of the ongoing anti-Russia witch hunt being led by the Democratic Party, together with the US intelligence agencies, aimed at delegitimizing and outlawing domestic political opposition.
The Justice Department’s actions will have a chilling effect on the numerous independent journalists who have either worked for or appeared on RT, as well as on press freedom in the United States as a whole.
“In demanding RT America register as a foreign agent, the government has produced no evidence that RT qualifies as a foreign lobbying outfit, nor has it bothered to explain how this network is different from Al Jazeera, the BBC, or other state broadcasters,” Max Blumenthal, senior editor for AlterNet’s Grayzone Project, and a regular guest on RT America, told the World Socialist Web Site.
“The only conclusion to draw is that the US government is targeting RT on political grounds, on the basis of its role as a platform for critical perspectives on American foreign policy, and as a test case for a wider campaign of media suppression,” he added.
On January 6, the US Director of National Intelligence issued a report on “Russian intervention” in US politics, which denounced RT as a platform for oppositional sentiment in the United States.
The report alleged that the “channel portrayed the US electoral process…