Russia behind latest election disinformation video, US intel agencies say

Russian actors “manufactured” a bogus viral video that showed Haitians illegally voted several times in the state of Georgia, U.S. officials said on Friday.

That conclusion is “based on information available” to the U.S. intelligence community and “prior activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and other disinformation activities,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said in a joint statement.

The agencies noted that the state’s secretary of state, a Republican, had “already refuted” the clip’s claims.

The Russians picked the wrong Georgians to mess with. https://t.co/EBV26PJyTX

— GA Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (@GaSecofState) November 1, 2024

Russian influence actors also created another video that “accused an individual associated with the Democratic presidential ticket of taking a bribe from a U.S. entertainer,” the agencies said. 

That is likely a reference to a campaign waged by a Russia disinformation network that has pushed phony information tying the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris to the legal case surrounding music industry figure Sean Combs.

The joint statement marks the second time in a week that the agencies have banded together to denounce Russian efforts to influence or undermine next week’s presidential election. They previously said Moscow was responsible for fabricating a video of a person tearing up ballots in the swing state of Pennsylvania.

U.S. intelligence officials have said that Russia favors former president Donald Trump in the election. Iran, meanwhile, favors Harris, which is why Tehran-linked hackers broke into the Trump campaign to steal data and then attempted to spread it to the media.

Speaking to reporters earlier today, a CISA official warned that Americans face a “fire hose of disinformation” both before, and after, ballots are cast.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said anyone spreading fake videos was being “highly irresponsible” and that when individuals “knowingly put out inaccurate information about our election process” they are “doing the work of our foreign adversaries for them.”