Russia linked Facebook group which allegedly mobilized people to participate in anti-Clinton rallies shut down by Facebook

A Russia-linked Facebook group asked a Texas secessionist movement if it would participate in a series of anti-immigrant, anti-Hillary Clinton rallies.

"When they decided to start doing all these 'Texit' rallies, they 

reached out and wanted us to participate," said Daniel Miller, the president of the Texas Nationalist Movement. "And we said 'thanks, but no thanks.'"

The Facebook group, called Heart of Texas, had over 225,000 followers as of last summer. It was shut down last week as part of Facebook's takedown of accounts and pages "affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia," a Facebook spokesman told Business Insider on Wednesday.

Russia has a long history of working to cultivate Western separatist groups. The group Yes California, for instance, set up a makeshift embassy in Moscow in December in partnership with far-right Russian nationalists who enjoy Kremlin support while promoting secessionist movements in Europe and the United States.

But the revelation that the Texas Nationalist Movement — which says its mission is to "secure and protect the political, cultural, and economic independence of the nation of Texas" — was contacted to participate in widespread protests by a page Facebook believes to be linked to Russia marks a significant escalation in the Russians' efforts to influence the United States' political climate. 

Miller said the group had heard from the Heart of Texas Facebook page before. He said an administrator had reached out via Facebook messenger when the page first launched several years ago. Miller said a "gentleman living north of Houston" who seemed legitimate "identified himself as the admin of the page," which at the time was just posting "a bunch of Texas pride memes."

"The character of the page changed over time," Miller said. "It got very political."

Miller would not provide names of the Facebook users who contacted the Texas Nationalist Movement claiming to be Heart of Texas administrators. But he said their accounts, which had photos of their family members and friends, "didn't seem" fake.