Russian state media outlet recruited US influencers to meddle in 2024 election, Treasury department says

Kamala Harris is planning to propose a less drastic increase in the top capital gains tax rate, breaking with a plan that Joe Biden outlined in his budget blueprint earlier this year, according to a report.

Harris’s advisers have been discussing the move behind the scenes in recent days, according to the Wall Street Journal. The top rate under discussion is 28% but could change, the report says.

Harris plans to announce her plans in an upcoming economic speech in New Hampshire this afternoon, according to CNN.

The White House has released a statement from Joe Biden on the high school shooting in Georgia.

The president said he and the first lady, Jill, are mourning the deaths of those whose lives were cut short because of “senseless gun violence”.

What should have been a joyous back-to-school season in Winder, Georgia, has now turned into another horrific reminder of how gun violence continues to tear our communities apart.

“We cannot continue to accept this as normal,” he added. He said he was closely coordinating with officials at the federal, state and local level.

Biden also called on Republicans in Congress to work with Democrats to pass “common-sense” gun safety legislation, adding:

We must ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines once again, require safe storage of firearms, enact universal background checks and end immunity for gun manufacturers. These measures will not bring those who were tragically killed today back, but it will help prevent more tragic gun violence from ripping more families apart.

Merrick Garland also spoke about the shooting at a Georgia high school, and said the FBI were on scene to assist local law enforcement.

The US attorney general said he is “devastated for the families who have been affected by this terrible tragedy”.

Multiple people were reported killed and about 30 others injured in the Wednesday morning shooting at Apalachee high school in Barrow county, 50 miles north-east of Atlanta.

The US treasury department announced sanctions against the Russian state media network RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonovna Simonyan, and nine others affiliated with the network over what it said were efforts to meddle in the 2024 presidential election.

It said that beginning in early 2024, RT executives began a “nefarious effort to covertly recruit unwitting American influencers in support of their malign influence campaign”.

Simonovna Simonyan is a “central figure in Russian government malign influence efforts” and allowed RT to used a front company to disguise its own involvement or the involvement of the Russian government in content meant to influence US audience, the department said.

Other RT employees included in the latest sanctions are the network’s deputy editor-in-chief, Elizaveta Yuryevna Brodskaia, who the US said has reported to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin; deputy editor-in-chief Anton Sergeyvich Anisimov, who the US said “conducts activities on behalf of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB); deputy director of RT English-language broadcasting Andrey Vladimirovich Kiyashko; digital media projects manager Konstantin Kalashnikov; and Elena Mikhaylovna Afanasyeva, who the US said “covertly interacted with prominent US social media influencers under the cover of a fake persona”.

Merrick Garland warned that Russia is not the only foreign power seeking to interfere in US elections.

The US attorney general noted that the US intelligence community recently pointed to “increasingly aggressive Iranian activity” during this election cycle.

“The justice department’s message is clear,” he said:

We have no tolerance for attempts by authoritarian regimes to exploit our democratic system of government. We will be relentlessly aggressive, encountering and disrupting attempts by Russia and Iran, as well as China or any other foreign malign actor to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy.

The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, speaking before a meeting of the justice department’s election threats taskforce, said the American people “are entitled to know when a foreign power is attempting to exploit our country … to send around its own propaganda”.

Garland accused the Russian government of using the state-backed media outlet RT to “direct disinformation and propaganda” in the wake of Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine.

As part of that effort, RT and its employees implemented a nearly $10m scheme to direct a Tennessee-based company to contract US-based social media influencers to disseminate content “deemed favorable to the Russian government”, he said.

In a separate enforcement action, the justice department is seizing 32 internet domains that it alleges the Russian government has used “to engage in a covert campaign to interfere and influence the outcome of our country’s elections”, he said.

The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, has accused Russian state media outlet RT and its employees of implementing a scheme to direct a US company to disseminate material that is favorable to the Russian government.

Garland is holding a press conference right now announcing sanctions for election meddling.

This includes announcing indictments against two senior editors at RT for alleged money laundering.

He said that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s “inner circle” directed Russian public relations companies to promote disinformation “as part of a program to influence the 2024 election” for president in the US.

The White House press briefing is now due to begin at 1.45pm ET in the west wing, pushed back from the previous schedule for the event, of 1.30pm ET.

It’s highly likely that when it does begin the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, will address the shooting at a high school in Georgia, details of which are still unfolding.

The White House put out a comment quickly after reports began coming through. Those reports say there have been casualties, some believed fatal, and law enforcement say a suspect is in custody. Further details and official confirmation of reports are still awaited, but the White House said that Joe Biden had been informed.

Hello, live blog readers, it’s never a dull day when there’s an election, especially one as pivotal as the 2024 presidential election. We’ll bring you news developments as they happen, so stick with the Guardian.

Here’s where things stand:

• The US plans to accuse Russia of a sustained effort to influence the election by using Kremlin-run media and other online platforms to target US voters with disinformation, according to reports. The Biden administration will reportedly announce a series of actions later today in connection with such allegations.

• A top strategist to the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, will brief Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign on Labour’s election-winning strategy, according to a report. Deborah Mattinson, Starmer’s polling expert who was his director of strategy while he was leader of the opposition, will reportedly travel to Washington DC next week.

• A fundraising event for some of the rioters who attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, aiming to prevent the certification by Congress of Joe Biden’s election victory over Donald Trump, was scheduled to take place today at Trump’s golf club in New Jersey – but has been postponed indefinitely.

• Kamala Harris will travel to Pittsburgh on Thursday to prepare for next week’s presidential debate, according to multiple reports. The US vice-president and Democratic nominee for president will spend the final days leading up to the debate on 10 September in Pittsburgh, the reports say, where she will also hold informal meetings with voters in the battleground of Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state.

• National polls for the US presidential race have been upended ever since Kamala Harris took over from Joe Biden to run against Donald Trump. While Biden was trailing the Republican former president nationally and in many crucial swing states, Harris has gained about three points in national polls since becoming the nominee. The Guardian’s poll tracker assesses polls over a rolling 10-day period. It now has Harris leading nationally by about two points.

• A Republican anti-Donald Trump group is targeting disaffected Republicans and conservative-leaning independents in a new $11.5m ad campaign that will play in key battleground states. The ad buy, by Republican Voters Against Trump, targets voters in swing states and features former Trump voters explaining why they plan to vote for Harris in November.

RT, the Russian state media network reportedly at the center of US accusations of a Kremlin-backed disinformation campaign to influence the 2024 election, has responded to the allegations.

In a statement to Reuters, RT said:

Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT’s interference in the US elections.

Merrick Garland, the US attorney general, is reportedly preparing to speak today about the Biden administration’s claims of Russian disinformation campaigns targeting the presidential election.

Garland and other law enforcement leaders are expected to speak briefly at the opening of a meeting of the justice department’s elections threats taskforce, the Associated Press is reporting.

Ginni Thomas, the far-right activist wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, has thanked a religious liberties group for its efforts to block reforms of the court aimed at reining in the justices’ ethical breaches, including those of her husband.

A new recording obtained by the investigative website ProPublica and the watchdog Documented discloses a July email in which Ginni Thomas thanked First Liberty Institute for fighting to oppose supreme court reforms. She specifically referred to White House proposals from Joe Biden designed to rein in wayward justices on the country’s highest court, of which her husband is the prime example.

The email was read out by the head of First Liberty Institute, Kelly Shackelford, on a 31 July call with donors to the group. He said the email had been written by Ginni Thomas that same day.

Two days previously, Biden had called for sweeping changes to the court, including term limits for the nine justices and a code of ethics that would be enforced by an outside body. Under current arrangements, the justices are liable to a voluntary code which they individually police themselves.

In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, the US president explained why he thought a tougher code of ethics was now necessary. He pointed to “scandals involving several justices” that had damaged public confidence in the court, including “undisclosed gifts to justices” and “conflicts of interest connected with Jan 6 insurrectionists”.

Biden did not mention names, but Clarence Thomas has been implicated in both types of ethically questionable behaviour. ProPublica has exposed the lavish international travel that the justice enjoyed courtesy of the Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow.

A Russian lawmaker has described reports that the Biden administration plans to accuse Moscow of trying to influence the 2024 presidential election as “pure rubbish”.

Maria Butina spent 15 months in US prison for acting as an unregistered Russian agent and is now a lawmaker for the ruling United Russia party.

She told Reuters that the US claims were a “witch-hunt”, adding:

Russia thinks it does not matter who wins the US elections – the only winner is the US private military-industrial complex. That is what matters – and nothing else.

Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are in various stages of planning likely visits to the World Trade Center site in New York City to commemorate the 9/11 attacks next week, according to a report.

Harris is planning to travel to New York City after the 10 September presidential debate with Trump, the New York Times reported, citing sources.

Biden is discussing his own plans to attend ground zero, the report says. Trump is also considering visiting ground zero, according to the Times.

The Biden administration is reportedly planning to accuse Russia of Kremlin-sponsored attempts to target US voters with disinformation in a sustained effort to influence the 2024 presidential election.

According to reports, the White House is expected to publicly condemn Moscow on Wednesday alongside an announcement by the justice department of law enforcement action targeting the covert Russian campaign.

As we reported earlier, the Russian state media network RT is expected to be a major focus of the US announcement. US intelligence agencies have flagged RT as a source of Russian propaganda and disinformation and required it to register as a foreign agent.

In July, the justice department accused a senior editor at RT of being involved in a Kremlin-backed scheme to spread online disinformation in the US, including about Russia’s war in Ukraine, using fictitious social media profiles posing as authentic Americans.

US officials are expected to also name the Social Design Agency, a Russian IT company that has already faced US sanctions for allegedly running fake news sites in Europe on behalf of the Russian government, according to CNN.

The US plans to accuse Russia of a sustained effort to influence the 2024 US presidential election by using Kremlin-run media and other online platforms to target US voters with disinformation, according to CNN, citing sources.

The Biden administration will announce a series of actions on Wednesday targeting what it says are Russian government-sponsored attempts to manipulate US public opinion ahead of the November election, NBC reported, citing senior US officials.

They will include the White House publicly condemning the actions and the justice department announcing law enforcement action targeting the covert Russian campaign, according to reports.

The Russian state media network RT is expected to be a major focus of the announcement, the reports say.

The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, is expected to speak publicly this afternoon about the announcement, according to reports.

Republican Voters Against Trump, the group of disaffected Republicans devoted to stopping Donald Trump from returning to the White House, is stepping up its efforts with an $11.5m ad buy in critical battleground states.

The group is rolling out a new advert featuring former Trump voters vowing never again to back him, focused on the three so-called “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which Joe Biden won in 2020 and which Kamala Harris must retain in November.

The executive director of Republican Voters Against Trump, Sarah Longwell, told MSNBC that the thinking behind the ad buy was to give former Trump voters who are thinking about switching to Harris a “permission structure”. She said that focus groups had shown a “tremendous openness” among some Trump voters to backing the vice-president.

“We are taking Trump-voting voices and elevating them so it sends a signal to other Trump voters who are Kamala-curious,” Longwell said.

They are interested in voting for her either because Donald Trump presents such a threat, or because people are bored by Trump – they are bored with all the drama and tired of the insults.

Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, will give the keynote speech in Washington on Saturday at a dinner hosted by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization.

In a statement announcing Walz’s attendance, Kelley Robinson, president of the organization, said:

Whether it was as a veteran, teacher and football coach, member of Congress, or governor, he has spent his career championing equality.

In August, I attended a Maga-aligned tent revival in western Wisconsin, which promised hope, worship and healing. Much of the event, though, was political: speaker after speaker addressed topics like Covid-19 lockdowns, January 6 (an event one of the headlining speakers at the Courage Tour, Lance Wallnau, attended) and the importance of conservative Christians getting involved in politics.

One of the groups, called the Lion of Judah, is working to enlist poll workers to “fight the fraud” in November – an effort that extremism researchers worry could pose problems for election offices.

I spent some time digging into the Lion of Judah, and found that their course encourages participants to sign up as poll workers as “the first step on the path to victory this Fall”.

“That signals a very insidious desire to monkey around with the results of the election,” said Matthew Taylor, a researcher at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies whose work has focused on anti-democratic currents on the religious right.