THE STORY
WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice along with the State and Treasury Departments announced on Wednesday they will target Russia with sanctions over what the Biden administration says is a coordinated effort by Moscow to influence the upcoming 2024 election by spreading disinformation to American voters.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced criminal charges against two employees of the Russian-backed media network RT, being accused of conspiring to commit money laundering and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
“The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing,” Garland said.
“The American people are entitled to know when a foreign power is attempting to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to send around its own propaganda,” Garland added.
GOING IN DEPTH
The Russian group created fake websites to allegedly further influence the election, officials said. The D.O.J. said RT employees funneled over $10 million to a company based in Tennessee to push pro-Russia content with the goal of boosting former President Donald Trump’s chances of winning re-election.
31-year-old Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, also known as Kostya, and 27-year-old Elena Afanasyeva directed the company to contract with social media influencers to amplify Russian propaganda by using over 1,000 social media bots to post misinformation about the Ukraine war.
The information was “often consistent with Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Russian interests, particularly its ongoing war in Ukraine,” the attorney general said.
The news is not the first time Russia has attempted to interfere in an American election. In 2016, Russian actors were found to have hacked the Democratic National Committee and leaked documents in an effort to hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
