US intel says Russia behind fake 'hit and run' video attacking Kamala Harris

WASHINGTON – Russia is escalating its election meddling efforts with a focus on denigrating Vice President Kamala Harris to help elect Donald Trump, U.S. intelligence officials said Monday.

The Kremlin is creating new videos and also altering existing clips, in some cases using artificial intelligence, to undermine the Democratic nominee and alienate her potential supporters as Harris is locked in a tight race with Trump just 43 days from election day, the intelligence officials said.

Exhibit A in a background briefing the officials gave on Monday: A widely distributed report from a bogus news site falsely claiming Harris left a 13-year-old girl paralyzed in a hit-and-run.

Intelligence officials monitoring overseas “malign influence” efforts have concluded Russia is using a variety of information operations to attack Harris and boost Trump, one official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, said.

More: Senate warns of unprecedented foreign interference in 2024 election

The officials also released an "Election Security Update" report to the public summarizing its most recent findings.

Many of Russia's newest efforts focus on altering videos and then boosting them across all social media platforms on divisive issues, like immigration, that it believes will cost Harris votes and help return Trump to the White House, the officials said. U.S. intelligence concluded long ago that Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind similar efforts in 2016 and 2020.

The intelligence officials would not comment on specific efforts targeting Harris other than the false hit-and-run video.

The Trump and Harris campaigns did not respond to requests for comment.

More: Russia wants Trump back in White House. Iran doesn't. Let the election hacking begin.

But the ODNI official said some of the videos being altered and shared by Russian cyberwarriors are being done specifically to paint Harris in a bad light, both personally and in comparison with Trump.

That official, like several others who briefed reporters, spoke on the condition of anonymity to share the latest intelligence on what foreign adversaries like Russia, Iran and China are doing to interfere in the presidential race – and in some cases, down ballot races across the country as well.

The other noteworthy development, the officials said, is that foreign adversaries, notably Russia, are using artificial intelligence in their disinformation efforts – but more as an accelerant of their existing efforts rather than anything that is revolutionizing campaigns that have been underway for years.

China, for the most part, has stayed out of trying to influence the presidential race one way or the other, the officials said, and Iran has continued to sway voters against Trump, in keeping with previous intelligence that the officials cited in earlier briefings.

An actor in a wheelchair

The fake video about Harris, which shows a young girl in a wheelchair claiming to be a victim of a hit and run, surfaced in early September on a bogus website masquerading as a local San Francisco news outlet.

Last week, the security team at Microsoft issued a report saying Russia was behind the fake ad. The ODNI official said Monday that the U.S. assessment was independent of Microsoft’s.

In its Sept. 17 report, Microsoft's Threat Analysis Center said the fake story was created by a Kremlin-aligned group, dubbed Storm-1516, as part of a “synchronized shift” by three Russian influence operation that are now targeting Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

A video embedded in the article featured a female paid actor discussing the non-existent hit-and-run, Microsoft said. The website was created on Aug. 20 and went offline after being debunked.

'Outlandish' stories, millions of views

The U.S. intelligence officials said they cannot gauge the reach or effectiveness of the videos.

But Microsoft suggested that they have been viewed widely.

It said Russia-affiliated influence actors, dubbed Storm-1516 and Storm-1679, initially “struggled to pivot operations aimed at the Democratic campaign following President Biden’s departure from the US 2024 presidential race.”

But in late August, it said, they gained traction by “producing content implicating Vice President Harris and Governor Walz in outlandish fake conspiracy theories.”

In late August and early September, Microsoft said, Storm-1516 produced and disseminated two fake videos designed to discredit Harris and stoke controversy around her campaign.

The first video, it said, depicts an attack by alleged Harris supporters on what the video’s amplifiers claim is a Trump rally attendee. Microsoft said that video received millions of views, and sought to “inflame political divides by stirring racial and political tensions.”

The second video, Microsoft said, was the hit-and-run video produced by Storm-1516, which then “laundered” the video through a website for a fake TV station it had created just days beforehand.

At the beginning of September, the other Russian influence actor cited by Microsoft, Storm-1679, also pivoted its influence operations to focus on Harris after primarily focusing its campaigns on creating divisive content around France and the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

One of that group's first Harris videos advanced conspiracy theories and false claims about her policies and garnered more than 100,000 views on X in the four hours after it was first published on Telegram.

“Storm-1516, adept at grabbing headlines with its outlandish fake videos and scandalous claims, and Storm-1679 will likely only escalate its targeting of the Harris-Walz campaign in the lead-up to Election Day,” Microsoft said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Russia amps up pro-Trump efforts, Harris attack ads, US intel says