Watch Live: U.S. accuses Russia of wide-ranging interference campaign in 2024 election
Washington — The Biden administration accused Russia of attempting to interfere in the 2024 presidential election, including through a sophisticated influence campaign that involved the creation of fake news sites designed to covertly spread Russian propaganda.
Federal agencies were set to announce Wednesday a series of actions against Russia in response to the operation, including charges filed by the Justice Department.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the efforts from federal investigators at the start of a meeting of the Election Threats Task Force that included FBI Director Chris Wray and top Justice Department officials.
The "Doppelganger" campaign
Court filings unsealed in federal district court in Pennsylvania show that the Justice Department seized 32 internet domains that have allegedly been used by the Russian government and government-backed actors to engage in foreign malign influence campaigns called "Doppelganger," in violation of U.S. money laundering and criminal trademark laws.
Federal investigators said Russian companies have used the domains, some of which impersonated legitimate news entities and media brands, to covertly spread Russian government propaganda, and did so at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin's administration since at least 2022.
Among the goals of the campaigns are to "reduce international support for Ukraine, bolster pro-Russian policies and interests, and influence voters in the U.S. and foreign elections" while concealing the Russian government and its agents as the source of the content, according to the filings.
The Justice Department accused "Doppelganger" of using "influencers" worldwide, paid social media advertisements and fake social media profiles purporting to be U.S. citizens to drive viewership to the domains, "all of which attempted to trick viewers into believing they were being directed to a legitimate news media outlet's website."
Election interference warnings
Wray and other Biden administration officials have warned that the Russian government and other foreign adversaries have continued trying to interfere with the electoral process.
"They're still at it," the FBI leader told the House Judiciary Committee during a hearing in July. "We've seen that in election cycle after election cycle."
Already, the FBI has disrupted a Russian AI-enhanced social media bot farm that spread disinformation in the U.S., which was designed to be an influence operation. Some of the fictitious profiles from bots purported to be Americans.
Wray said such efforts to influence U.S. elections were 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 about threats related to the 2024 election.
"We can absolutely expect that our foreign adversaries will remain a persistent threat, attempting to undermine American confidence in our democracy and our institutions, and to sow partisan discord," she told reporters Tuesday. "And that's why it is up to all of us not to let our foreign adversaries be successful."
The FBI, CISA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in a rare joint statement last month that the agencies have seen "increasingly aggressive Iranian activity" during the 2024 election cycle that specifically involves influence operations targeting the American public and cyber operations aimed at presidential campaigns.
Those efforts by Iran include recent activities to compromise former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, the agencies said. The intelligence community is "confident that the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the presidential campaigns of both political parties," the intelligence agencies warned.
The Russian government has for the last two presidential election cycles mounted influence operations. Their attempts in 2016 were sprawling and sophisticated, analyses of the efforts found, and involved extensive efforts to sow division among Americans and erode trust in democratic institutions through social media.
Thirteen Russian nationals and entities were charged in February 2018 as a result of efforts to interfere with the 2016 election, 12 of whom worked at the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm that led the efforts to spread discord in the U.S.
The U.S. intelligence community said in an unclassified assessment nearly one year ago that Russia waged campaigns in at least 11 elections across nine democracies, including the U.S., between 2020 and 2022.
