“The message from the Justice Department is clear: We will not tolerate authoritarian regimes attempting to exploit our democratic systems of government,” declared Wednesday, September 4 Attorney General Merrick Garland said U.S. officials have unveiled a series of measures, including criminal prosecutions and visa restrictions, to respond to alleged Russian interference in U.S. elections.
It is one of the biggest efforts by the US government, just weeks before the November presidential election, to stop what it sees as a persistent threat from Russia to spread false information. Moscow has denounced a pre-election “information campaign” that was “prepared for a long time,” according to a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, who said Russia was “obviously” preparing a response to the new sanctions.
Seizure of domain names and sanctions against RT
Among the measures, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the seizure of 32 domain names used in a “campaign to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election” conducted under the authority of the Russian presidential administration. In a separate action, he announced charges against two executives of the Russian media outlet RT (formerly Russia Today).
Russian President Vladimir Putin was “aware” of the election interference operations, the White House said. U.S. officials did not explicitly specify which side benefited from them. But U.S. intelligence had concluded that Russian interference had taken place in 2016 and 2020 to favor Republican candidate Donald Trump, a claim Trump categorically denies and Moscow has denied. Asked about this at a press conference, Merrick Garland simply said that according to intelligence analysis, “Russia’s preferences had not changed since the last election.”
The Treasury Department also announced sanctions on two Russian NGOs and 10 individuals, including six RT executives, including its editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan and the two indicted individuals. The State Department imposed visa restrictions on the media group that owns RT, Rossiya Segodnia, and other subsidiaries of the company, and offered a reward of up to $10 million for information on interference in the US elections.
Influencer partnerships and cybersquatting
“RT and its employees, including the two defendants, implemented a nearly $10 million scheme to fund a Tennessee-based company responsible for publishing and disseminating content deemed favorable to the Russian government,” explained Merrick Garland.
“To carry out this scheme, the defendants instructed the company to contract with U.S.-based social media influencers to share this content on their platforms,” the minister said, adding that “the company never disclosed to the influencers – or their millions of followers – its ties to RT and the Russian government.”
Regarding the 32 sites seized, they were “designed to give the impression to American readers that they were major American news sites such as the Washington Post or Fox News,” but “they were fake sites. They were filled with Russian government propaganda,” Garland said. A practice known as “cybersquatting.”
“More tools” to “sow discord”
“Today we are uncovering two illegal and clandestine Russian influence operations targeting the American people,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said. “Since noon today (1600 GMT), we have seized these sites, taken them down, and made it clear to the world what they are: Russian attempts to interfere in our elections and influence our society,” he added. “The reality is that Russia has been interfering in our society and trying to sow discord for decades. What is new is that they have more tools to do so with the advent of technology,” he said, citing social media and artificial intelligence.
RT channel ridiculed the latest American accusations, in response to a CNN report a few hours before the official announcements, referring to “the return of the hackneyed clichés of 2016”.
The United States has accused Russia of trying to influence the outcome of American elections since Donald Trump’s 2016 victory over former Democratic Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In May, US Intelligence Director Avril Haines warned of the growing number of foreign powers seeking to influence the presidential election, but said the country had never been more prepared to thwart such attempts.
Among these powers, the most important are “Russia, China, and Iran,” she listed, specifying that “Russia continues to constitute the most active foreign threat” to the American elections.