AG Won't Investigate Russian-Run Fake Tenn. GOP Twitter Account

NASHVILLE, TN -- A leading Democratic state lawmaker called for Tennessee's attorney general to investigate the Republican Party's response to a fake Twitter account allegedly run by Russian operatives.

At a press conference Monday, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Mike Stewart of Nashville said the Tennessee Republican Party did little to distance itself from or refute the actions of the @TEN_GOP account, which drew more than 130,000 followers before it was shut down and named in an indictment as one of scores of fake accounts run by 13 Russian operatives in a elaborate scheme to influence the 2016 election.

“If someone is tweeting under your organization’s name hatred, vitriol, complete lies, it is not a sufficient response to drop an email to Twitter asking them to look into it,” Stewart said Monday, suggesting the party could have held a press conference or otherwise made it clearer it was not associated with the account. "It was not a minor blip in the campaign. It was a significant event and the Republican Party did absolutely nothing. And when they finally took action, they took the most minimal action imaginable."

The account was sufficiently verisimilitudinous to dupe usually thoughtful big-city political journalists while also drawing support from certain Republican and conservative figures - including personality Ann Coulter - and dudgeon from prominent liberals.

Nevertheless, the attorney general will pass on the investigation, a spokesperson saying it's a matter best left to the party itself.

“While we appreciate the seriousness of outside influences on elections, we believe this matter is best addressed first in the Tennessee Republican Party. Our past discussions with the Secretary of State’s Office have not resulted in anything requiring any further action in relation to the fall 2016 election,” Leigh Ann Apple Jones told WKRN.

For its part, the Tennessee Republican Party said they emailed Twitter three times over the course of a year complaining about the account. Executive Director Michael Sullivan said the party did not want to draw attention to the account and that it was Twitter that dropped the ball.

"When a Democratic senator on the Senate Intelligence Committee defends the action of the Tennessee Republican Party and how we reported it and the number of times we reported it, this just shows it’s a pathetic attempt by Mike Stewart to score cheap political points,” Sullivan told News 2.

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