This is why Morgan Freeman is Russia’s newest target

Apr 2, 2018 9:48 AM PDT

1 minute read

SUMMARY

Morgan Freeman is the latest target of Russian ire. The 80-year-old actor is in a video from The Committee to Investigate Russia, warning Americans that Russia is at war with the U.S. and that Americans…

"We have been attacked," the video begins. "We are at war."

[facebook https://www.facebook.com/InvestigateRussia/videos/359900931128832/ expand=1]The CIR website is a repository of information and stories concerning Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. It details the investigations, the investigators, media coverage, and the players surrounding the incidents. Freeman's part is the voice and face of the video urging Americans to take a more concerned stance and demand the U.S. government admit the meddling that took place.

Russia isn't happy about the video or Freeman's participation in it.. State-run media outlet Russia Today said the video shouldn't be taken seriously.

"Many creative people easily become victims of emotional overload while not possessing credible information about the true state of things," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RT, calling CIR's effort a "follow-up to McCarthyism." Peskov went on to say these things eventually fade away and that statements like Freeman's "are not based on real facts and are purely emotional."

"Imagine this movie script," Freeman continues in the video, "A former KGB spy, angry at the fall of his motherland, plots a course for revenge. Taking advantage of the chaos, he works his way up through the ranks of a post-Soviet Russia and becomes president. He establishes an authoritarian regime and then sets his sights on his sworn enemy, The United States. And like the true KGB spy he is, he secretly uses cyber warfare to attack democracies around the world. Using social media to spread propaganda and false information, he convinces people in democratic societies to distrust their media, their political processes, even their neighbors. And he wins."

Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, says Freeman is being used the way Colin Powell was in the lead-up to the 2003 U.S.-led Invasion of Iraq.

"We'll find out who stands behind this story faster than we learned about the contents of the vial," Zakharova said, referring to a vial Powell held up in a speech as he made the American case for war to the United Nations. "The finale will be spectacular, I can't wait to see it."

Meanwhile, Russian media called Freeman "hysterical," even going so far to bring a panel of psychiatrists on to question the Oscar-winner's state of mind. A weatherman even chimed in, saying the actor is overworked and smokes too much marijuana. Russian psychological experts say he may be subject to a Messianic complex from playing God and the President of the United States in so many movies.

To be fair, I also think of Morgan Freeman as God.

The video ends with Freeman calling on President Trump to address Americans from the Oval Office:

"My fellow Americans, during this past election, we came under attack by the Russian government. I've called on Congress and our intelligence community to use every resource available to conduct a thorough investigation to determine exactly how this happened."