Did Hillary Clinton suggest jailing Americans for posting "misinformation" and saying "there needs to be deterrence"? No, that's missing context: She said that, aside from indictments against Russians for "direct election interference," civil or criminal charges against Americans parroting Russian state propaganda for money would be a "better deterrence" against Moscow's propaganda efforts. The former U.S. secretary of state was referring to a recently unsealed federal indictment about Russia using right-wing influencers to spread Kremlin propaganda. Clinton was not referring to people who post false stories on the internet.
The claim appeared in a post and video on X, formerly known as Twitter, on September 16, 2024 (archived here). It said:
BREAKING: Hillary Clinton suggests jailing Americans for posting 'misinformation'
'There needs to be deterrence'
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Sept. 17 16:35:39 2024 UTC)
The 19-second video on X is from Clinton's appearance on "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC on September 16, 2024. The original 8:53-minute video posted on MSNBC (archived here) shows Maddow asking Clinton if she felt the U.S. government was going far enough to prevent Russian interference in the 2024 presidential election. Clinton said she believed the Americans who were paid to parrot Russian propaganda should be "civilly or, even in some cases, criminally charged ..." She never mentioned people who post false information on the internet in general as among those who should be charged.
Clinton mentioned the American right-wing influencers who were paid by two Russian nationals, per the unsealed indictment (archived here) filed in the U.S. District Court Southern District of New York on September 4, 2024 (archived here). At 6:42 in the video, she specified the people Russia targets to help spread Kremlin propaganda:
What the Russians started doing in 2015 and 2016, what they continue doing, they've gotten more sophisticated, they aren't even pretending anymore ... You know, their international news operation Russia Today, RT, is an arm of the Russian government, an arm of its intelligence operation. It's basically an extension of their spying efforts. They are using Americans, both those who are witting and willing and those who are unwitting and are just so surprised they're getting, you know, $400,000 a week or $100,000 a podcast to parrot Kremlin propaganda.
Clinton continued, saying at the 7:23 mark U.S. elected officials were repeating Russian propaganda:
And we know from what even Republicans have said -- the chairs of the intelligence committee and foreign affairs committee and other Republicans, who are currently in office, have said -- that Republicans go to the floor of the Congress and they parrot Russian talking points. So, I think it's important to indict the Russians, just as Mueller indicted a lot of Russians who were engaged in direct election interference and boosting Trump back in 2016. But I also think there are Americans who are engaged in this kind of propaganda. And whether they should be civilly or even in some cases criminally charged is something that would be a better deterrence because the Russians are unlikely, except in a very few cases, to ever stand trial in the United States.
Clinton explained why she felt there should be charges, saying at the 8:30 mark:
We need to uncover all of the connections and make it very clear that you can vote however you want, but we are not going to let adversaries -- whether it is Russia, China, Iran or anybody else -- basically try to influence Americans as to how we should vote in picking our leaders.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims about Hillary Clinton can be found here; more fact checks about the 2024 election are here.
