I am Samantha Bee.
Welcome to "Full Frontal."
Let's check in with the House Intelligence Committee, where
Chairman Devin Nunes is killing it, "it" being the credibility
of his entire investigation.
Devin was Ubering away from the Capitol when he got a phone
call, so he jumped out and ran to the White House,
where he met with some guys-- didn't catch their names--
they gave him some super classified information.
So naturally, Devin ran back to give a press conference
about it, didn't share it with this committee,
instead ran back to the White House
to give POTUS a heads up about the secret information Trump's
staff had given him, then to the White House driveway for more
sharing, again, with the press, not his committee,
leaving the rest of us with one question.
What do you make of the combination of the bizarre,
the stupid, and the incompetent in what we've
seen from Nunes over the week?
Oh!
That Trey Gowdy isn't the dumbest
turnip on the committee?
Surprised the shit out of me.
Now attention has shifted to the Senate
investigation, which is awesome, because I have a crush on it.
REPORTER: --committee leaders.
Republican Richard Burr and Democrat Mark Warner made clear
that they wanted to avoid the partisanship
that has plagued their house counterparts' investigation.
Well, that's a pretty low bar to clear.
The only way that house investigation could get more
partisan is if Nunes showed up to work wearing nothing
but a "Don't Tread On Me" flag, while Schiff performed
"Hamilton" in its entirety.
Instead of scampering all over DC
like an eighth grader on a field trip,
the Senate committee has been "finding out stuff."
The Kremlin made effective use of its hacking skills
to steal and weaponize information
and engage in a coordinated effort
to damage a particular candidate.
Which one?
Oh, that poor woman, having to deal with Russian cyber attacks
on top of having Parkinson's?
Now, look.
I think we all know what hacking is.
No way.
I'm getting hacked.
This is major.
MAN: Well, isolate the node, and dump them on the other side
of the router. - I'm trying.
It's moving too fast.
Oh, this is not good.
If only they'd had two more hands!
Let me see if I can explain Russia's
complex, high tech cyber techniques in layman's terms.
They put crazy shit on Facebook, polluting our brains
with disinformation until we all felt
like Winona Ryder at the SAG awards,
which is not to say the Russian operation wasn't sophisticated.
This operation was so sophisticated that it was even,
essentially, targeting the swing states
and making sure voters in the Wisconsins, the Michigans,
and the Pennsylvanias, they were seeing some of this fake news.
Holy crap.
The Russian trolls had a better Midwest strategy
than Hillary Clinton did.
One brain in particular was gobbling up Russian propaganda
like it was a well-done steak drenched in delicious ketchup.
REPORTER: Part of the proliferation of fake news
was because of what President Trump says on Twitter.
President Trump stood on a stage
and cited what appears to be a fake news
story from "Sputnik News."
If you put stuff that helps his campaign,
he will likely use it.
Basically, Trump was Russia's Trojan horse's ass,
filling himself with Russian propaganda and then disgorging,
I assume unwittingly, because, you know, it's him.
But if you're about to fire off a smug tweet
about gullible conservatives, bring your phone down.
REPORTER: A coordinated Russian effort to flood Bernie Sanders
supporters and Bernie Sanders Facebook groups
with anti Hillary Clinton spam and fake news
during the election, stories about Hillary Clinton
murdering her opponents, and using body
doubles, and it worked to a certain extent.
What?
Russia fooled the far left, too?
But those guys didn't seem impressionable at all.
The fake stories were pushed to people who wanted to believe
the system is rigged and Hillary is a criminal more than they
wanted to check snopes.com.
But we're all guilty of thinking with our emotions.
We prove how easily manipulated we are every time we fall
for an April Fool's' day prank, or click on a bullshit
sponsored story, or buy a pair of sauna
pants from an infomercial.
I bought my sauna pants with a matching sauna blazer.
That's why it matters that Congress
is taking foreign propaganda seriously, if a little late.
What people don't understand is the hacking powered
influence to create information nuclear weapons,
essentially, that you put into the social media landscape.
That powers fake news.
And that connection wasn't made, I
don't even think until after the election was over.
Excuse me?
I may not be a former FBI agent, unless you count the time I was
Scully for Halloween, but I did cover
this stuff before the election.
While Russia was hacking computers
to influence our election, our brains
had already been hacked by dank ass
means that drown out facts with baseless conspiracy theories.
I traveled all the way to Moscow,
went through back channels, and actually
sat down with two paid trolls who
had to hide their identities.
That aired the last week of October.
What were the FBI and cable news so busy
with that they missed it?
FBI director James Comey told members of Congress in a letter
on Friday that new e-mails have surfaced which,
quote, "appear to be pertinent to the investigation."
Right. Excuse me a sec.
OK.
Well, Russian officials did watch our piece,
and responded the same way our president
responds to any news about Russians
helping him get elected.
You are fake news.
Russian state TV claimed that we
made the whole thing up, hired actors, and gave them scripts.
$10,000 for a day player?
You got a lot to learn about cable TV, Russian Hannity.
I pay Allana in expired teeth whitening strips.
ALLANA: What?
Nothing.
Love you.
Paid trolls are real, and when they're
done interfering in the French and German elections,
they'll have time to tell us how many children
Susan Rice murdered with Cory Booker so POTUS can retweet it.
That's why all of us need to start
being a little less Mulder and a little more Scully.
We'll be right back.