• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • WATCH NEWS
    • WHAT’S ON FOX
  • ABOUT
    • Meet Our Team
      • Our Journalists
      • Sales & Programming
      • Job Openings
    • Contact WSFX
      • WSFX Jobs
      • Sales & Programming
  • Welcome Home
  • Go With The Pros
  • Medically Speaking
  • Wilmington Eats
  • Unsung Heroes
    • Nominate an Unsung Hero

Fox Wilmington WSFX-TV

Wilmington, NC | Local news Weather and Sports

  • Local News
    • What’s Happening Wilmington
  • Coronavirus
  • Local Weather
  • National
  • Sports
  • Politics
    • NC Voter Information
  • Health
  • MORE…
    • Boundless: Contribute to History
    • Contests
    • Entertainment
      • What’s on TV?
    • Technology
    • Science
    • Lifestyle
    • What’s Happening Wilmington

Russian radio hosts prank Lindsey Graham into thinking he’s on phone with Turkey’s defense minister

October 11, 2019 By Adam Shaw


Senator Lindsey Graham spoke with Brian Kilmeade about having

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., became the latest high-ranking target of two notorious Russian pranksters who have been fooling politicians into thinking they’re foreign officials.

Alexey Stolyarov and Vladimir Kuznetsov, two radio hosts who also pranked House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in 2018, managed to reach Graham by phone and successfully impersonate Turkey’s defense minister. Graham relayed President Trump’s diplomatic interests offered to the senator during a private conversation between the two. None of the information appeared to be sensitive enough to raise concerns.

Audio of the call, first released by Politico, showed Graham repeatedly assuring the pranksters of Trump’s interest in military and economic cooperation with Turkey — specifically mentioning efforts towards a free trade agreement and restoring Turkey’s position in a joint airstrike fighter program.

“The president told me to tell President Erdogan that he wants to turn the discussion to a free trade agreement,” Graham said at one point during the conversation. He proceeded to offer to arrange a call between the two leaders about trade, something he hoped would strengthen relations as the threat of U.S. sanctions loomed over Turkey’s decision to install a Russian missile defense system.

TURKEY’S SYRIA ASSAULT TRIGGERS WAR WITHIN GOP, AS TRUMP BATTLES NEOCON WING

Fox News was able to confirm the call with Graham’s office.

“We have been successful in stopping many efforts to prank Senator Graham and the office, but this one slipped through the cracks,” Kevin Bishop, Graham’s communications director, said in a statement provided to Fox News. “They got him.”

Graham serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has become a key figure in working the president on foreign policy. Initially opposed to Trump in 2016, Graham has become an outspoken supporter of Trump’s approach to Israel and North Korea.  That August call came shortly before Trump caused an apparent rift with Graham by deciding to pull U.S. troops out of Syria in October. Graham and other Republicans have criticized that decision as a permission slip for Turkey to enter the war-torn nation and slaughter Kurdish allies with impunity.

Despite their disagreement, Graham continued defending Trump against House Democrats accusing him of pressuring Ukraine’s government to interfere in a foreign election. Trump aides have countered by suggesting that Schiff — one of the chief Democrats pursuing the House’s impeachment inquiry — was willing to influence the 2020 election during a separate call with Russian pranksters.

In a clip posted by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Schiff told the Russian pranksters that he would be willing to accept dirt on Trump from Ukraine. Stolyarov and Kuznetsov had posed as Andriy Parubiy, the former speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, while offering recordings of a Russian journalist and Russian model discussing compromising information about Trump.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Schiff and Graham weren’t the only politicians to get tricked into believing they were talking to prominent politicians. The president himself spoke to comedian John Melendez, apparently thinking he was speaking with Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.

“I find it astounding that the news media’s not picking up the fact that I totally duped the president & got in touch… within in less than 2 hours while he was on Air Force One,” Melendez tweeted in June of 2018.

Filed Under: Politics

Primary Sidebar

 

Follow Us On Facebook



TRENDING NOW

Here’s your chance to give back on #GivingTuesday

Florida beachgoers form human chain to save swimmer from rough Gulf surf

Brian Stelter confronted by Project Veritas about CNN staffer admitting network’s liberal bias

Biden used Russian bounty story against Trump in 2020 campaign

LA mountain biker dangles from side of cliff, is rescued by helicopter

Biden to keep refugee admissions at Trump-era levels, despite earlier moves to increase it

Footer

PUBLIC FILE INFO

Individuals with disabilities who have questions about the content of our public file or website may contact Connie Petway by phone at
(910) 343-8826 or by email at Isabella.gano@foxwilmington.com

 
 » WSFX FCC Public File
»EEO Report
»Closed Captioning

 

  • Home
  • WATCH NEWS
    • WHAT’S ON FOX
  • ABOUT
    • Meet Our Team
      • Our Journalists
      • Sales & Programming
      • Job Openings
    • Contact WSFX
      • WSFX Jobs
      • Sales & Programming
  • Welcome Home
  • Go With The Pros
  • Medically Speaking
  • Wilmington Eats
  • Unsung Heroes
    • Nominate an Unsung Hero

 

  • Local News
    • What’s Happening Wilmington
  • Coronavirus
  • Local Weather
  • National
  • Sports
  • Politics
    • NC Voter Information
  • Health
  • MORE…
    • Boundless: Contribute to History
    • Contests
    • Entertainment
      • What’s on TV?
    • Technology
    • Science
    • Lifestyle
    • What’s Happening Wilmington

Copyright © 2021 · American Spirit Media LLC · WSFX TV · Wilmington NC · Terms of Service · Privacy Policy