Russia ramping up election-meddling efforts to help Trump beat Harris, intel officials say
WASHINGTON ? Russia is ramping up its election interference efforts as Election Day nears, working specifically to help Donald Trump defeat Kamala Harris, using more sophisticated techniques including unwitting and even "witting" Americans – and trying to sway down-ballot elections as well, U.S. intelligence officials said Friday.
Senior officials heading the U.S. efforts to combat interference by Russia, Iran, China and other foreign adversaries provided those details in a 75-minute briefing with reporters.
The officials, speaking on background to discuss classified matters, said they could not comment on specifics including which Americans, if any, might be under criminal investigation, or what constitutes the kind of “witting” accomplices the Kremlin is using to help the former president defeat Vice President Harris, his Democratic rival.
The briefing marked one of the first times, if not the first, that U.S. intelligence officials have explicitly said Russian President Vladimir Putin was trying to get Trump elected in the current election cycle after allegedly backing him in 2016 and 2020.
Asked for comment, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung responded that "Putin endorsed Kamala Harris," a reference to a joking comment the Russian president made Thursday in which he claimed to favor the vice president.
More: Russia wants Trump back in White House. Iran doesn't. Let the election hacking begin.
The intelligence officials said the new efforts appear to be unprecedented in their breadth and scope, going well beyond what was made public in an indictment Wednesday that alleged a $10 million effort to pay U.S.-based influencers through fake media companies to spew Russian talking points to American voters.
An official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which is coordinating the U.S. counter-election interference efforts, described Moscow's influence apparatus as large and robust, with other Russian entities active in addition to the ones charged on Wednesday.
An FBI official agreed, saying recent indictments offered just a glimpse into the breadth of activity Russia is using to sway the election.
The ODNI official said Putin's statements ? made laughingly at a conference in eastern Russia ? supporting Harris was an example of Kremlin disinformation.
More: Lara Trump, Kari Lake, other notable Republicans appeared on podcasts accused of Russia tie
The official said U.S. intelligence agencies do not take Putin's public statements as representative of Russia's covert intentions, with numerous examples of where his public statements haven't aligned with Russian actions, including his comments that he would not invade Ukraine ? made just before invading Ukraine.
Cheung didn't comment when asked if the former president has been briefed on Russia's alleged election-meddling attempts, and whether Trump disavows them.
Trump himself dismissed the Wednesday indictments in a post on his Truth Social media platform on Thursday.
While providing no details, he alleged it was part of an effort by the Justice Department "to interfere in and suppress the Election in favor of the Democrats by resurrecting the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and trying to say that Russia is trying to help me, which is absolutely FALSE."
The Harris campaign also had no immediate comment on Friday about the new U.S. intelligence. The officials also said Friday, as they have in the past, that Iran is also trying to influence the election ? but against Trump and in Harris's favor.
Using US influencers to push Russian propaganda
On Wednesday, prosecutors charged two Russian citizens with directing a $10 million campaign to influence the 2024 election through online platforms that flooded millions of Americans with disinformation.
On Thursday, federal prosecutors charged a Russian-American former adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign with money laundering and working for a sanctioned Russian state television network.
The Wednesday complaint focused on RT, the Russian state media network dropped by American distributors after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. At a news conference Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the company bankrolled the propaganda campaign through a Tennessee company – later identified as Tenet Media – to distribute Russian misinformation to U.S. social media influencers and encourage divisions in U.S. politics.
In one case, a prominent right-wing influencer was paid $400,000 a month for their content, the indictment alleged.
Some of the right-wing influencers appearing on Tenet Media included Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, Tayler Hansen, Matt Christiansen and Lauren Southern.
Following the indictment, some said they were unwitting victims of the Russian operation.
The Justice Department also seized 32 internet domains that Russians used to distribute misinformation about the election under a program called "Doppelganger," Garland said. The domains, according to the indictment and a 300-page addendum, were built to look like legitimate U.S. news organizations but were instead filled with Russian propaganda that could be picked up and relayed through U.S. influencers.
Russia deploying broader and more sophisticated election interference efforts
During the Friday briefing, the U.S. officials said the use of these conservative influencers was one of several examples of more sophisticated techniques the Kremlin is using this election cycle.
The ODNI official described that as a form of laundering of Russia’s propaganda efforts, including the spreading of divisive election-year narratives, through well-known U.S. media personalities. Americans are more likely to believe those influencers, the official said, than they were past Kremlin efforts, which showed clear signs of foreign propaganda.
Those prior efforts, which are still being used, have included fake personas on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter, that are often easily discernible based on the number of followers and a lack of authentic personal information included in their profiles.
The ODNI official said that while Iran and China also remain active at this point in the election cycle, Russia is of particular concern because of its robust capabilities and the scope and scale of its efforts, including on down ballot races.
More: Putin jokingly supports Harris as US charges Russia with more election interference
A third official, also from ODNI, said the agency has offered to brief both the Trump and Harris campaigns about foreign malign interference efforts. The official would not say whether either of them, or the individual candidates themselves, have accepted.
Neither campaign responded to USA TODAY requests about whether it has agreed to, or received, such briefings about election interference.
'Russia poses the most active foreign influence threat'
On Friday, the ODNI also released a formal election security update to the public, which said that U.S. intelligence agencies continue “to assess that Russia poses the most active foreign influence threat to this year’s U.S. elections.”
The ODNI said that no foreign actor, including Russia, China and Iran, have been identified as seeking to interfere in the actual conduct of the 2024 elections, such as tampering with election machinery.
But, it said, “Russia is looking to amplify divisive rhetoric and influence election outcomes, which is consistent with Moscow’s broader foreign policy goals of weakening the United States and undermining Washington’s support for Ukraine.”
To do so, Russia, through RT and fake media companies it has created, “has built and used networks of U.S. and other Western personalities to create and disseminate Russia-friendly narratives, while trying to mask the content in authentic Americans’ free speech.”
“These actors, among others, are supporting Moscow’s efforts to influence voter preferences in favor of the former President and diminish the prospects of the Vice President through methods such as targeted online influence operations on social media and websites that portray themselves as legitimate news sites,” the report said.
US influencers claim they were duped
In the Wednesday charging documents, the Justice Department alleged that unregistered foreign agents for Russia created the company later identified as Tenet Media as a way to influence the 2024 election ? and that it paid as much as $100,000 per episode to some of its commentators.
Tenet Media’s broadcast on platforms such as YouTube, included appearances by Lara Trump, Trump's daughter-in-law who is now co-chair of the Republican National Committee; Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida; longtime Trump lawyer Harmeet Dhillon; and former Trump national security aide Kash Patel.
Other notable Trump-supporting guests who have appeared on Tenet Media include Republican U.S. Senate nominee Kari Lake of Arizona, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who recently endorsed Trump.
By Thursday night, several of the videos were taken down and replaced with a message from YouTube saying the associated account was canceled. A YouTube spokesman said it had taken down the accounts "following an indictment from the US Department of Justice and after careful review ... as part of our ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations.”
Lara Trump, Mast, Dhillon, Lake, Patel, Ramaswamy, and Gabbard all appeared on Johnson's show. He said Wednesday he too was a victim in the Russian plot.
Contributing: Erin Mansfield
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Russia ramping up election meddling efforts to aid Trump
