Justice Dept. charges two Russian media operatives in alleged scheme

The 32-page federal indictment accuses Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, employees of RT, a Russian-state news site formerly known as Russia Today, of conducting a money-laundering operation that spent nearly $10 million on efforts to covertly influence public opinion and sow social divisions, including placing blame on Ukraine regarding the war with Russia. Authorities said the U.S. company, which was not identified by name in the indictment, allegedly created and posted hundreds of English-language videos on social media sites, including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and X, that echoed Russian state propaganda and garnered 16 million views on YouTube alone. Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva, Russian citizens who remain at large, were charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, which is punishable by up to 20 years, authorities said. Justice officials said that in a separate legal action, prosecutors seized 32 Russian-controlled internet domains that were used in a state-controlled effort called “Doppelganger” to undermine international support for Ukraine. Advertisement Federal authorities said Russian operatives and other U.S. adversaries have accelerated their attempts to interfere in elections and politics with the help of new technologies, including social media and artificial intelligence. It’s coming faster and faster … and therefore it’s a bigger threat than it ever was before,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters at the Justice Department’s headquarters in Washington, where he was joined by FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and other members of the agency’s Election Threats Task Force. “We will be relentlessly aggressive in countering attempts to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy.” RT reacted to the U.S. government actions with an email that mocked the indictment and included, “Hahahaha!” Advertisement Disinformation experts said the U.S. government was seeking, ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, and former president Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, to crack down on Kremlin efforts to interfere before it could have the deep impact that Russian operatives did in 2016. U.S. intelligence officials have said a network of Russian trolls in 2016 spread disinformation boosting the presidential campaign of Trump and seeking to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, including by disseminating stories using material hacked from the Clinton campaign. “In 2016, you had a clear case of a narrative being changed,” a senior western official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive national security matters. In the case of Doppelganger, they were trying to fool people into thinking they were looking at normal newspapers or normal news services.” Advertisement Brandon Van Grack, who was a lead prosecutor on special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, said that “foreign influence wasn’t a national security issue” until 2016, but now there’s a realization that “it could impact democracy.” “They don’t need 1,000 articles to be effective,” said Van Grack, now a partner at Morrison Foerster. Created last year, the Tennessee company posted 2,000 videos — which got 16 million views on YouTube alone — and did not disclose its connections to RT, authorities said in the indictment. The Russians worked with two unnamed founders of the Tennessee company, both foreign nationals who reside in the United States, to deceive influential social media commentators to further amplify the videos, prosecutors said. Advertisement In the indictment, authorities cited remarks from RT’s editor in chief who said this year that “public opinion in the West is changing, very rapidly and very cheerfully,” in part because of RT’s operations. “As long as adversaries keep trying to influence and interfere in our society and our democratic processes, they’re going to keep running into the FBI. The indictment alleges that at least two Tenet contributors were misled about the true source of the site’s funding, while the company’s co-founders knew the money came from Russia. Tenet Media’s launch in November was hotly anticipated in the world of right-wing YouTube, a mega-channel combining the work of prominent pundits like Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and Lauren Southern. The launch was preceded by months of cryptic social media posts and videos in Tenet’s signature purple color, billing the channel as a sort of supergroup for conservative YouTube stars. One unnamed Tenet contributor with 2.4 million YouTube followers on their own channel received $400,000 a month, plus a $100,000 signing bonus and performance incentives, just for making four videos a week for Tenet, according to the indictment. Those documents showed that Kremlin first deputy chief of staff Sergei Kiriyenko had directed a network of political strategists to promote American isolationism, stir fear over the United States’ border security and attempt to amplify U.S. economic and racial tension. The political strategists had created fake webpages undermining support for Ukraine and promoting Russian interests across Europe and the United States, additional internal Kremlin documents previously reported on by The Post have shown. At the Justice Department, Garland scoffed when asked about the RT response mocking the indictment and how the Justice Department could overcome doubts among a significant subset of Americans — mostly far-right conservatives who support Trump — who have sought to discredit reports of Russian interference. “I’m sure that was much funnier in the original Russian,” Garland said of RT’s response. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/09/04/justice-department-election-security/