WASHINGTON: The United States indicted two employees of Russia’s RT and imposed sanctions on top editors of the state-funded news outlet on Wednesday, accusing them of seeking to influence the 2024 US presidential election.
The 10 individuals and two entities sanctioned by the Treasury Department include RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonovna Simonyan and deputy Elizaveta Yuryevna Brodskaia.
“Today’s action underscores the US government’s ongoing efforts to hold state-sponsored actors accountable for activities that aim to deteriorate public trust in our institutions,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, chairing a meeting of the Election Threats Task Force, said two Russia-based RT employees have been indicted in New York for money laundering and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. They are accused of funding a Tennessee-based company “to disseminate content deemed favorable to the Russian government,” Garland said, and contracting US-based social media influencers to share content “consistent with Russia’s interest in amplifying US domestic divisions.” RT, in a reaction on its Telegram channel, dismissed the US allegations calling them “hackneyed cliches.” “Three things in life are inevitable: death, taxes and ‘RT’s interference in American elections,’” RT said.
Garland said the Justice Department has separately seized 32 internet domains that the Russian government used “to engage in a covert campaign to interfere and influence the outcome of our country’s elections.” He said members of President Vladimir Putin’s “inner circle” had directed Russian public relations companies “to promote disinformation and state-sponsored narratives as part of a program to influence the 2024 US presidential election.”
The United States has accused Russia of seeking to influence US elections dating back to the 2016 contest between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. The Treasury Department said Simonyan, RT’s editor-in-chief, was a “central figure in Russian government malign influence efforts.” Brodskaia, RT’s deputy editor-in-chief, “reported to Russian President Putin and other government officials,” it said.
Following the 2020 vote, US intelligence officials accused Putin of authorizing “influence operations” aimed at impacting the vote in favour of Trump. US officials have repeatedly warned of efforts by foreign powers, including Russia, to meddle in the American presidential election in November.
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, in an appearance before a Senate committee in May, singled out Russia, China and Iran as the worst offenders -- but said the government was well prepared to protect American democracy from foreign influence. “Specifically, Russia remains the most active foreign threat to our elections,” Haines said.
The US government has also accused Iran of attempting to influence the upcoming election through cyber operations against both the Trump and Harris campaigns. The Trump campaign has said Iran was behind the leak of internal campaign documents to US media outlets.
A website called Savannah Time describes itself as “your trusted source for conservative news and perspectives in the vibrant city of Savannah.” Another site, NioThinker, wants to be “your go-to destination for insightful, progressive news.” The online outlet Westland Sun appears to cater to Muslims in suburban Detroit. None are what they appear to be. Instead, they are part of what American officials and tech company analysts say is an intensifying campaign by Iran to sway this year’s American presidential election.
Iran’s efforts appear intended to undermine former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign to return to the White House, according to the officials and companies, but they have also targeted President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, suggesting a wider goal of sowing internal discord and discrediting the democratic system in the United States more broadly in the eyes of the world.
Haines warned Americans to be wary “as they engage online with accounts and actors they do not personally know.” Her office joined the F.B.I. and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency last month to issue a statement noting that “Iran perceives this year’s elections to be particularly consequential in terms of the impact they could have on its national security interests, increasing Tehran’s inclination to try to shape the outcome.”
Iran’s mission to the United Nations declined to comment on disinformation campaigns and websites targeting the United States. Iran’s vast network of influence operatives and hackers includes front companies controlled by the Revolutionary Guards Corps, according to one Iranian official and another Iranian who works in the state’s media and information sector. Both asked that their names not be published because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The government and the Guards also operate a network of individuals who use social media platforms to push Iran’s views, some under assumed names. They also commission projects from tech firms and start-ups in Iran, the officials said.
Already this year, Iranian operatives have succeeded in hacking the emails of Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to Trump, and attempted to penetrate the campaign of Biden and Harris, with unclear results. Meta disclosed last month that it had detected a similar effort against both political campaigns on WhatsApp.
Khamenei in 2011 ordered the creation of the Supreme Council for Cyberspace, a policymaking body. He called on the Iranian government and armed forces to work with the council to advance the country’s interests and Islamic ideology.
Before 2020, however, Iran demonstrated little interest in directly affecting American elections, according to a report published early that year by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. That began to change after President Trump unilaterally exited the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and imposed severe economic sanctions.
Influence operations linked to Iran have since accelerated, Microsoft noted in a report last year. The company’s researchers identified seven distinct campaigns in 2021; a year later there were 24. At least five deceptive websites have emerged to feed American voters a steady diet of content intended to undermine support for Israel and trust in U.S. democracy more broadly, according to Microsoft and OpenAI, which detected the use of its artificial intelligence tools in the efforts.
Iran’s information efforts have mostly targeted Trump. One article on NioThinker, the liberal-leaning site that Microsoft tied to Iran’s efforts, described the former president as an “opioid-pilled elephant in the MAGA china shop” and a “raving mad litigiosaur.” The Iranian campaigns, though, have also targeted Democrats. A recent headline on Savannah Time, which has no obvious connection to the city in Georgia, warned that Ms. Harris represented “a dangerous flirtation with Communist-style price controls.” Its content often echoes conservative news outlets in the United States, railing against policies supporting L.G.B.T.Q. or other gender issues.
Analysts say Westland Sun is one of several deceptive websites that promote content intended to undermine U.S. support for Israel and trust in democracy. A screenshot of a website with the banner text “SAVANNAH TIME” above a news article with the headline “Kamala Harris’ Evasive Dance: A Masterclass in Political Obfuscation.”
The two Iranian officials said Iran was largely unconcerned with the ultimate victor in November and believed that Washington’s animosity transcends either political party.
In the 2020 presidential election, Iran obtained American voter registration data and used it to send intimidating, faked emails to Democratic voters. A declassified intelligence assessment from 2021 found that Iran sought to undercut Trump’s election prospects. Experts found evidence that Iranian officials wanted to strengthen nationalist groups and use social media to pit extremists against each other in 2024.
Iran also considered tactics such as establishing fake news agencies to interact with American media outlets and deploying “troll teams” on social media, according to the intelligence assessment. Twitter, the platform later renamed X, found three Iran-based influence networks in October 2022, according to the evaluation.
Now, with the next American election just weeks away, Iran appears undaunted. “They clearly are not concerned about blowback,” said Bret Schafer, a senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy. “The risk tolerance is quite high and that makes them a concern, because if they’re not worried about getting caught or naming and shaming, that allows them to just try a bunch of stuff and be pretty aggressive.”
