President Joe Biden’s administration has imposed new sanctions on Russian and Iranian entities, accusing them of attempting to interfere with the 2024 U.S. election, it announced Tuesday. The Treasury Department alleges that the organizations attempted to spread disinformation related to the presidential race.
In a statement, the Treasury Department said that “these actors aimed to stoke socio-political tensions and influence the U.S. electorate during the 2024 U.S. election.”
The targets of these sanctions are a subordinate organization of a branch of the Iranian military and a Moscow-based affiliate of Russia’s main foreign military intelligence agency.
According to the Biden Treasury Department, the Moscow-based Center for Geopolitical Expertise (CGE) worked with the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) to use generative artificial intelligence to spread disinformation. CGE also doctored a video “to produce baseless accusations concerning a 2024 vice presidential candidate in an effort to sow discord amongst the U.S. electorate.” The Treasury Department did not name the VP candidate who was targeted. However, in October, U.S. intelligence officials said that “Russian influence actors” created a fake video attempting to attack Tim Walz, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ running mate.
CGE and GRU, according to the statement, “used generative AI tools to quickly create disinformation that would be distributed across a massive network of websites designed to imitate legitimate news outlets to create false corroboration between the stories, as well as to obfuscate their Russian origin.”
Russia’s embassy in Washington told Reuters in a statement: “Russia has not and does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, including the United States.”
A subsidiary of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Cognitive Design Production Center, sought to “incite socio-political tensions among the U.S. electorate,” according to the Treasury Department. In addition, an IRGC member hacked multiple accounts of people involved in a 2024 presidential campaign.
Intelligence officials have previously said that Iran was behind a successful breach of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign, while Google said Iranian hackers targeted both the Trump and Biden campaigns in May and June.
“The Governments of Iran and Russia have targeted our election processes and institutions and sought to divide the American people through targeted disinformation campaigns,” said Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith. “The United States will remain vigilant against adversaries who would undermine our democracy.”
These sanctions add on to ones that are already in place. Now, all property of the people described in the sanctions that are in the U.S. are blocked.
In September, the U.S. restricted Russian-linked broadcasters for attempting to interfere with the presidential election. Ten Russian state media executives were also sanctioned for allegedly trying to harm “public trust in our institutions.”
Russia previously attempted to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election to boost Trump, according to intelligence officials.
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