The Justice Department is cracking down on suspected Russian attempts to interfere with the 2024 U.S. presidential election through online propaganda, announcing Wednesday the indictment of two Russia-based employees of RT, a Kremlin-backed propaganda outlet, on charges of money laundering and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
“We allege that as part of that effort, RT and its employees, including the defendants, implemented a nearly $10 million scheme to fund and direct a Tennessee-based company to publish and disseminate content deemed favorable to the Russian government,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland at a meeting held by the Justice Department’s election threats task force.
“To implement this scheme, the defendants directed the company to contract with U.S.-based social media influencers to share this content and their platforms. The subject matter and content of many of the videos published by the company were often consistent with Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Russian interests, particularly its ongoing war in Ukraine.”
The indictment does not name the Tennessee-based company, but it is believed to be Tenet Media, a new media venture tied to multiple prominent conservative influencers. The Russian nationals, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, edited and produced online content for the company. Kalashnikov was also involved in discussions about the company’s funding and negotiations with the unnamed commentators. To advance RT’s agenda and expand the company’s reach, Afanasyeva assumed two fake personas to influence the company’s social-media posts.
Two unnamed founders and the two alleged Russian agents are being accused of deceiving two commentators by falsely claiming a fictional foreign investor was funding the company. Both of the commentators produced videos and leveraged their audiences for the company, without knowing the true source of its funding. Neither of the founders registered as foreign agents and both previously worked for affiliates of RT.
The Biden administration also unveiled sanctions against ten Russian individuals and entities, and seized 32 internet domains connected to operation “Doppelganger,” a Kremlin-sponsored campaign to propagandize Americans through fraudulent websites and social-media accounts that resemble legitimate news sources.
The campaign involves three companies under the direction of high-ranking Russian government official Sergei Kiriyenko, the Justice Department announced. Kiriyenko is considered to be a close confidant of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and has been sanctioned by the Treasury Department for his senior role in the Russian government.
The internet domains were used to spread Russian propaganda to lower international support for Ukraine, boost Russian policy objectives, and influence American voters, an unnamed FBI agent said in an unsealed sworn affidavit supporting the seizure warrant.
As part of the investigation, the FBI obtained notes from strategy meetings between Kiriyenko, other Russian officials, and Social Design Agency, one of the Russian companies, detailing the objectives of Russia’s social-media operation.
The “Doppleganger” campaign featured social-media influencers, online advertisements, and fake social-media profiles to redirect users to fake news websites. Some of the websites closely resembled well-known American news outlets including Fox News, the Washington Post, and Forward. Russian involvement in the influence campaign was purposefully obfuscated to further the scheme.
Internal records turned over to the Justice Department by Facebook parent company Meta showed the “Doppleganger” campaign equipped artificial intelligence tools to generate content to use in negative ads against U.S. politicians. Meta accounts created by the Russian operatives also resembles news organizations such as CNN and BBC.
One such account, “CNN California,” had just 7 followers on X at the time it was discovered by law enforcement.
“The Justice Department is seizing 32 internet domains that the Russian government and Russian government-sponsored actors have used to engage in a covert campaign to interfere in and influence the outcome of our country’s elections,” Garland said.
At the end of the task force meeting, a reporter asked Garland how this information should be received by those skeptical of claims that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
“This is deadly serious and we are going to treat it accordingly,” Garland said.
When asked whether the Russians were pushing for a specific candidate, Garland declined to get into the details and referred to internal documents the Justice Department obtained.
In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, Democratic Party leaders and allied media organizations raised a panic about supposed Russian collusion with the Trump campaign to bolster his election chances, citing the existence of Russian “troll farms” which generated and disseminated memes critical of Hillary Clinton.
Democrats also promoted the Steele Dossier, a debunked document created by a former British intelligence operative that featured allegations of cooperation between the Russian government and the Trump campaign and formed the basis of multiple FBI surveillance warrants against former Trump aide Carter Page.
In addition, special counsel Robert Mueller investigated claims of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia, but came away empty-handed much to the disappointment of Democrats who turned Mueller into a folk hero.
The discredited claims of Russian collusion, known as “Russiagate,” dragged down Trump’s presidency during the first half of his term and instilled a permanent distrust of the mainstream media among many Republicans and a significant share of independents.
Warnings of Russian election interference from intelligence officials leading up to the 2020 election also influenced social-media platforms when they censored the Hunter Biden laptop story. Days after the story broke, a discredited letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials likened it to a Russian disinformation operation.
President Joe Biden took advantage of the letter during a debate with Trump to dismiss the contents of his son’s laptop, which featured incriminating evidence that he was at least tangentially involved with Hunter Biden’s lucrative foreign business dealings.
Federal investigators verified Hunter Biden’s laptop data in late 2019, and Justice Department prosecutors introduced it at Biden’s criminal gun trial earlier this year. Evidence from Biden’s laptop is set to feature at his criminal tax trial beginning in the coming days.