OCTOBER 6, 2016
Just over a month before the November election, some of my intelligence sources were in full-on alarm mode. They were being briefed on what were then the early stages of the FBI counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference in the election. By then word had not spread far and wide that there was suspicion about whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians to influence the election. But there were suspicions among a relatively small group of US officials in the White House, the intelligence agencies, and federal law enforcement. They were seeing troubling signs in real time.
It was the perfect storm for America's adversaries to invade.
And that is exactly what US intelligence officials believe Vladimir Putin and Russia had done.1 Thousands of hackers and an elaborate misinformation army helped Putin invade the United States through disruption and division. By October 2016, American voters were primed for “influencing.”
Many Americans were worn down by the campaigning. Polls showed that both candidates were among the most unpopular presidential picks in US history.2 FiveThirtyEight, a website that uses statistical analysis to make predictions, projected that Clinton had a 75 percent to 80 percent chance of winning.3 No one had yet accurately gauged the impact of Russian interference in the election, or how Putin had been covertly tipping the scale to get Trump elected.4
At 1:45 p.m. on October 6, perplexed office workers in DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in Brooklyn, looked out their windows and saw two men struggling to unfurl a gargantuan twenty-by-thirty-foot banner over the side of the Manhattan Bridge. The men left and the banner remained. It featured a photograph of a larger-than-life, dark-suit-and-tie-clad Putin in front of the Russian flag, which is three equal horizontal swaths of white, blue, and red. The word “peacemaker” was printed in block letters underneath Putin. It was a windy October day, and the banner billowed over the East River.5 What do you do when you see a random banner with the giant face of the Russian president flapping in the breeze in New York City? You call 911. An hour later, police took down the banner.
People promptly tweeted their accounts of what happened.
“2 dudes just hung a giant Vladimir Putin ‘Peacemaker’ flag off the manhattan bridge.”6
“The Manhattan bridge, right now. (Vladimir Putin, peace maker???)”7
“This just dropped on the Manhattan Bridge. Living in some weird and scary times.”8
It was a confusing symbol. At that moment in history, many Americans had little context for assessing the strange Russian leader, or what the word “peacemaker” under his face could possibly mean. Putin-led interference in the election had been usurped by the highly contentious and uncharacteristically emotional battle for the presidency, and wouldn't become front-page news for several more months. In New York City, the Russian hackers were more the domain of computer geeks and conspiracy theorists. It is possible Russian investors had figured into some of the urban legend–like stories circulating about what was really going on with those glass tower condominiums that had been built by wealthy foreign investors (or investors who bought them on spec) and had remained largely empty. People wondered whether the buildings remained empty because they had just been a pipe dream for overly enthusiastic investors and had lost market value, or whether they had been bought up for more covert, even ominous purposes. The hackers may have become part of that storyline. But Russian hackers weren't mainstream watercooler or cocktail party conversations.
Still, the banner made people pay attention, both those who were following the cyber-espionage angle and those who weren't. It was a wonky image that stuck in people's minds, largely due to the fact that it didn't make any sense. It wasn't your ordinary poster wheat-pasted onto the side of a tunnel by a guerilla artist. It was a political message promoting the leader of another country. This occurred during a year when a sector of the population feared that Trump had a fascist agenda and that we'd be doomed if he was elected to the White House. All kinds of doomsday scenarios were seeping into people's minds.
Nobody knows who made that banner. Yet whoever created it likely added to the overall paranoia surrounding that month. The banner stands for me as a physical example of the kind of propaganda Russian operatives have engineered over time. This propaganda didn't really make sense to most people who hadn't lived in Russia long enough to understand the cultural and political consciousness. The propaganda always made people pause and look. It often achieved its goals. People didn't recognize it as propaganda and believed it to be truth.
US intelligence analysts closely examine images like this. They weigh the timing of events, study human reactions, and ascertain whether there is a connection to something bigger. The banner on the Manhattan Bridge was hanging above New York City for a matter of minutes, so it didn't have a major impact on the election or the people who saw it. But moments like that stand out, especially if you're a US intelligence operative or a White House official tracking Russian meddling in the election. It may not have been a coincidence that the banner was hoisted in such a way that you could see New York City's iconic Freedom Tower—our newest symbol of resilience—behind it.