During the storming of the Capitol in Washington in 2021, American Charles Bausman filmed what was happening on video for the Russian media, writes The New York Times. According to the publication, Bausman has been working with Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeev since 2014.
“In the January 6 surveillance footage, it’s easy to miss a thin man in a red Trump hat sneaking into the Capitol building to film the riots on his phone. <…> Within 24 hours, this man, Charles Bausman, handed over his notes and comments to a Russian TV producer for a propaganda video. He then fled to Moscow, where, speaking on a far-right television channel owned by a sanctioned oligarch, he recently accused the US media of covering up neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
As the Agency notes , this is an interview with Russia 1, in which Bausman said that the riots in Washington were organized by the special services to discredit Trump. After that, Bausman moved to Russia and began to regularly appear on the air of the Tsargrad channel by Konstantin Malofeev.
In 2014, the NYT found, Bausman created a network of sites (including, for example, a site called Russia Insider) through which he “promoted a pro-Russian agenda and also published racist and homophobic materials.”
According to analysts who have studied Bausman's projects, his goal was initially to spread disinformation about Crimea. Later, its publications were repurposed to support the Kremlin's position on Syria and the 2016 US elections, and after Trump's election, sites began to promote far-right views, including anti-Semitic and racist ones.