The seized sites were linked to a Russian campaign known as “Doppelganger.”

By Josh Gerstein, Betsy Woodruff Swan and Maggie Miller

09/04/2024 02:40 PM EDT

Updated: 09/04/2024 03:25 PM EDT

The Justice Department has seized more than 30 web domains that it said were part of a broader, ongoing, surreptitious effort by the Russian government to influence the 2024 U.S. election and American public opinion, federal authorities announced Wednesday.

The seized sites were linked to a Russian campaign known as “Doppelganger,” one of the most prolific and public campaigns spreading disinformation linked to Moscow in recent years. Experts recently saw evidence of the campaign spreading Russian disinformation related to the failed assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, and the Biden administration has worked to counter the campaign’s efforts in recent months.

The legal actions, which also included the indictment of two Russian employees of the Kremlin-backed media outlet RT, underscored previous warnings this year by the Biden administration that foreign adversaries are looking to interfere in the upcoming vote. The new details about the Russian efforts are likely to increase concerns about continuing interference by foreign governments as the U.S. presidential campaign enters its final stretch.

“The Justice Department’s message is clear: We have no tolerance for attempts by authoritarian regimes to exploit our democratic system of government,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference announcing the crackdown.

Russia has targeted American elections with disinformation for years, most notably during the 2016 presidential campaign, when Russia was linked to disinformation campaigns designed to sway the vote toward Trump. In response to a reporter’s question, Garland said the Kremlin’s aim has not changed.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said he hopes the countermeasures against the Russian propaganda drive will deter other U.S. adversaries, such as China and Iran, from meddling in the election.

“Knock it off,” Wray said.

Garland added: “We will be relentlessly aggressive in countering 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 32 seized websites used domain names similar to those for prominent U.S. news sources like The Washington Post and Fox News, but directed unwitting readers to Russian-produced content that typically fueled Russian-government narratives or sought to foment division in the U.S., Garland said. Some were explicitly focused on the upcoming U.S. election, officials said.

“They were fake sites,” Garland said. “They were filled with Russian government propaganda that had been created by the Kremlin to reduce international support for Ukraine, bolster pro-Russian policies and interests and influence voters in the United States and in other countries.”

In addition, the State Department on Wednesday announced it is cracking down on operations of RT’s parent company Rossiya Segodnya and its subsidiary companies, and would be instituting a new visa restriction policy aimed at these groups. It also announced a $10 million reward for information on individuals involved in RT-linked Russian hacking group RaHDit.

The Treasury Department took further steps against the RaHDit group, sanctioning almost a dozen individuals linked to the group, including Aleksey Alekseyevich Garashchenko, a former Russian intelligence official who leads the group. In addition, top figures at RT were sanctioned, including RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan.

The Russians dubbed a campaign to influence the U.S. elections in 2024 as “The Good Old U.S.A. Project,” according to a planning document the FBI said it obtained and included in a court filing supporting the seizure. The project’s organizers developed messaging for voters in six swing states, and aimed to use targeted social media advertising to track its impact. A key message of the project, according to the affidavit: “that the US should target their effort towards addressing its domestic issues instead of wasting money in Ukraine and other ‘problem’ regions.”

In addition to the “Doppelganger” domains, the project established look-alike pages on Facebook for major western news outlets, using names like “CNN California” and “California BBC,” U.S. officials said.

The Justice Department alleged that Sergei Vladilenovich Kiriyenko was behind the effort. Kiriyenko is the former prime minister of Russia, and currently is a top official in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration, playing a leading role in administering seized Ukrainian territory.

Garland called Kiriyenko a member of Putin’s “inner circle.”

This is not the first foreign interference effort aimed at U.S. elections this year. The announcement came weeks after the Iranian government was linked to a hack and leak operation against the Trump presidential campaign, and after similar targeting of the campaigns of President Joe Biden and of Vice President Kamala Harris was disclosed. On Tuesday night, the accounts of members of Trump’s family on social media platform X were also compromised.

“Russia is not the only foreign power trying to interfere in our elections,” Garland said. “We have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity in this election cycle.”
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The Justice Department also announced criminal charges against two Russians, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, accused them of continuing to covertly distribute media sponsored by RT in the U.S. even after that outlet formally shut down its U.S. operations following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. That campaign involved placing videos on TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube, prosecutors said.

An indictment unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan charges the two Russians with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and money laundering.

“While the views expressed in the videos are not uniform, the subject matter and content of the videos are often consistent with the Government of Russia’ s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Government of Russia interests, such as its ongoing war in Ukraine,” the indictment says.