Russian State-Funded TV Interrupts C-SPAN Broadcast Feed Of House Floor

C-SPAN, the independent broadcaster that extensively covers U.S. government activities, had its feed interrupted Thursday by RT, the network funded by the Russian government, while Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters from California was speaking on the House floor.

The interruption lasted about 10 minutes.

"We are currently investigating and troubleshooting this occurrence," said a statement from C-SPAN. "As RT is one of the networks we regularly monitor, we are operating under the assumption that it was an internal routing issue."

It concluded: "If that changes we will certainly let you know."

The otherwise silly technical glitch is drawing inordinate attention because of its timing. Just last week, the U.S. government released a report on Russian intervention and cyberattacks on political parties, private entities and American infrastructure.

RT itself was singled out in the report as a propaganda arm of the Kremlin, which officials use to push their own geopolitical objectives.

As C-SPAN's statement suggests, the incident could be a mere fluke. We'll likely have to wait for the results of the network's investigation to know if there was evidence of anything more untoward or intentional going on.

Watch the bizarre moment below:

Photo credit: Screencap from RT broadcast