US accuses Russia of extensive election interference, seizes dozens of sites

Washington — The Biden administration has accused Russia of trying to interfere in the 2024 presidential election, including through a sophisticated influence campaign that included the creation of fake news websites intended to covertly spread Russian propaganda.

Department of Justice brought charges against two people and seized more than two dozen Internet domains used in a foreign malign influence campaign allegedly directed by the Russian government, officials said. The State and Treasury departments are set to announce a series of parallel actions against Russia.

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the actions at the beginning of a meeting of the Election Threat Task Force attended by FBI Director Chris Wray and top Justice Department officials.

Prosecutors unsealed an indictment in federal district court in New York charging two employees of RT, a state-controlled media outlet, who reside in Russia with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate the Federal Agents Registration Act.

Garland said RT and two employees implemented a $10 million scheme to fund and direct the Tennessee-based company to publish and disseminate information favorable to the Russian government. The content, Garland said, was consistent with Russia’s goal of promoting division in the U.S. and anti-Ukrainian messages.

“The American people have a right to know when a foreign power seeks to exploit the free exchange of ideas in our country to spread its own propaganda,” he said.

Garland also announced that the Justice Department had seized 32 internet domains that the Russian government and pro-Russian entities were using to conduct what it called a “covert campaign to interfere and influence the outcome of our nation’s elections.”

The prosecutor general said both plans “clearly demonstrate the lengths to which the Russian government, including at the highest levels, is prepared to go to undermine our democratic process.”

“This is a deadly serious matter and we will treat it accordingly,” Garland said.

Doppelganger Campaign

According to a 71-page affidavit unsealed in federal district court in Pennsylvania, the 32 seized domains were used by the Russian government and government-backed actors to engage in foreign malign influence campaigns known as “Doppelganger,” in violation of U.S. money laundering and trademark laws. The filing contains more than 200 pages of evidence showing documents and images related to the scheme.

Federal investigators said Russian companies have been using the domains, some of which pose as legitimate news sites and unique media brands, to covertly spread Russian government propaganda. They have been acting at the behest of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration since at least 2022.

Garland said Putin’s “inner circles” have ordered Russian public relations firms to promote disinformation and state-sponsored narratives as part of an effort to influence the upcoming presidential election. He said an internal planning document created by the Kremlin stated that one of the campaign’s goals was to “secure Russia’s preferred election outcome.”

The campaigns involved the use of “cybersquatted” domains, which are designed to mimic another entity’s domain name and trick visitors into believing they are visiting a legitimate website. These sites, Garland said, were designed to look like mainstream U.S. news outlets like the Washington Post or Fox News, using the same layout and design, but were fake sites disseminating Russian propaganda created by the Kremlin.

According to court documents, the campaign’s goals include “reducing international support for Ukraine, bolstering pro-Russian policies and interests, and influencing voters in U.S. and foreign elections,” while obscuring the Russian government and its agents as the source of the content.

The Justice Department accused Doppelganger of using “influencers” around the world, paid social media ads, and fake social media profiles posing as U.S. citizens to drive viewers to the domains, “all designed to deceive viewers into believing they were being redirected to a legitimate news media website.”

According to court documents, projects targeting the United States include the “Good Old USA Project,” the “Guerilla Media Campaign” and the “US Social Media Influencers Network Project.”

The Justice Department obtained memos, project proposals, planning documents and other records during the investigation, some of which detailed the campaign’s goals, target audiences and themes. The department redacted the names of political parties and presidential candidates, labeling them only as U.S. Political Party A or B or Candidate A or B, but the documents contain identifying information.

The goals of the “Good Old USA” project include increasing the percentage of Americans who believe the U.S. is “doing far too much to support Ukraine” and lowering President Biden’s trust rating to at least 29% in the run-up to the November election, according to documents filed by the Justice Department. The document appears to have been prepared in late 2023, when Mr. Biden was still running for reelection.

The target audience includes residents of battleground states whose votes will affect the presidential election, residents of “conservative states with strong traditional values ​​who are more likely to vote for candidates” of an unidentified political party, gamers, Jewish Americans and Hispanic Americans, according to the documents. Although redacted, the document appears to refer to the Republican Party.

Documents related to the “Guerilla Media Campaign” call for exploiting various concerns and views of an unnamed political party — again, believed to be the GOP — including concerns about the cost of living and the “loss of the American way of life.” It lists campaign issues as “the risk of white Americans losing their jobs”; the threat of crime from people of color and immigrants, including those from Ukraine; and excessive spending on foreign policy “at the expense of the interests of white U.S. citizens.”

“Target supporters” include an unnamed political party, supporters of an unnamed candidate, “supporters of traditional family values,” and white Americans. Although the names of the parties and candidates are removed, the context clearly indicates that the design refers to the Republican Party and former President Donald Trump.

The documents, which deal with the “American social media influencer network,” describe the Republican Party as “currently pursuing a relatively pro-Russian agenda” that could be “exploited by posing as ardent (Republicans) and passing on parts of their agenda that overlap with ours.”

The project proposal calls for the creation and expansion of a network of 200 Twitter accounts, currently known as X, with four in each state. Two of those four would be “active” and two “dormant,” according to the documents.

The proposal says active accounts would be held in the name of a fake person who supports the GOP. It calls for building a “multi-layered defense” infrastructure to “eliminate the possibility of detecting a ‘Russian footprint,’” which includes virtual private network services and physical services in the U.S., the documents show.

In July 2023, the European Union imposed sanctions on seven Russians and five Russian officials for their roles in the film “Doppelganger”, accusing them of running a “digital information manipulation campaign” called “Recent Reliable News” aimed at spreading propaganda supporting Russia’s war with Ukraine.

Election Interference Warnings

Wray and other Biden administration officials have warned that the Russian government and other foreign opponents continue to attempt to interfere in the electoral process.

“They’re still doing it,” the FBI leader said during a July hearing before the House Judiciary Committee. “We’ve seen it in election cycle after election cycle.”

Already, the FBI has disrupted a Russian AI-enhanced social media bot farm that was spreading disinformation in the U.S. that was intended as an influence operation. Some of the bots’ fictitious profiles allegedly belonged to Americans.

Wray said such attempts to influence the U.S. election are not limited to Russia, but also Iran – in 2020 AND 2024 — and China.

Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, also warned of threats related to the 2024 election.

“We can absolutely expect that our foreign adversaries will remain a persistent threat, trying to undermine American confidence in our democracy and our institutions and sow partisan discord,” she told reporters Tuesday. “And that’s why we all need to not allow our foreign adversaries to succeed.”

FBI, CISA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence he said in a rare joint statement Last month, the agencies observed “increasingly aggressive Iranian activity” during the 2024 election cycle, notably including influence operations targeting American public opinion and cyber operations targeting presidential campaigns.

These Iranian efforts include: recent actions aimed at compromising former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, the agencies said. The intelligence community is “certain that the Iranians, through social engineering and other activities, sought access to individuals with direct access to the presidential campaigns of both political parties,” the intelligence agencies warned.

The Russian government has been conducting influence operations for the past two presidential election cycles. Their attempts in 2016 were extensive and sophisticated, analysis of efforts discovered and launched a widespread effort to sow division among Americans and undermine trust in democratic institutions through social media.

Thirteen Russian citizens and entities accused in February 2018 in the 2016 election interference effort, 12 of them worked for the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm that spearheaded efforts to spread discord in the U.S.

The U.S. intelligence community said in a classified assessment nearly a year ago that Russia conducted election campaigns in at least 11 countries across nine democracies, including the U.S., between 2020 and 2022.