Jim Acosta
@Acosta
EXCLUSIVE BREAKING NEWS NOW ON CNN: Biden administration to accuse Russia of sustained effort to influence 2024 election.
Disinformation? Like the Russia-forged Hunter Biden laptop?
Like the conspiracy theory that covid originated in a Wuhan lab funded by Anthony Fauci? Like the fake news that masks didn't work and social distancing was bullshit? Like the reich-wing lie that covering up faces during a child's most formative years might stunt their social development and speaking ability?
So it must be ended.
The Biden administration on Wednesday 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, six sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
Wow, what a scoop by CNN. Six Democrat ops called them up and asked "Can you do us a solid and push our newest designs in our Fall Disinformation Line? Thanks!"
It's expected the US will make a series of moves on Wednesday aimed at addressing the Kremlin's efforts including the White House publicly condemning the actions and the Justice Department announcing law enforcement action targeting the covert Russian campaign, the sources said.
RT, the Russian state media network, is a major focus of the US announcement, the sources said. US officials see the Russian outlet as a key piece of Kremlin propaganda efforts.
The Russian disinformation operation is being laundered through both Americans and non-American voices, four of the sources said.
Taken together, the actions would be the Biden administration's most significant public response yet to alleged Russian influence operations targeting American voters. After the US accused Iran of trying to hack both the Trump and Biden-Harris campaigns last month, Wednesday's expected actions are a reminder that US officials continue to see Russia as a prominent foreign influence threat to November's election, the sources said.
LOL, they're still pushing the idea that Iran tried to hack both Trump and the Democrats. Weirdly, only one was actually hacked.
But Russia, of course, is only attempting to help Trump.
On Wednesday afternoon, Attorney General Merrick Garland will host a meeting of the Justice Department's Election Threats Task Force that will be attended by senior law enforcement leaders, including FBI Director Christopher Wray.
...
Wednesday's expected announcements would be the second major effort by the Biden administration to blunt RT's influence in as many months. In July, the Justice Department accused an RT employee of being involved in a scheme that used a network of about 1,000 social media accounts to pose as US residents to spread disinformation about the Ukraine war and other topics. US officials accuse the Kremlin of financing the scheme; a Kremlin spokesperson denied the allegation.
Asked for comment, an RT spokesperson did not respond to the substance of the allegations, and instead emailed mocking comments including, "2016 called and it wants its clichés back."
...
A growing number of foreign operatives have attempted to influence US elections since Russia's 2016 activity, which included hacking the Democratic National Committee and leaking documents aimed at undercutting Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
So Russia was hacking to help Trump then, but Iran hacking Trump's accounts isn't trying to help Kamala. Iran is an equal-opportunity hacker, but Russia only has eyes for Trump.
In the 2024 election, Iran's alleged embrace of a similar hack-and-leak playbook that Russia used in 2016 has US officials on heightened alert. In June, a group of Iranian government-linked hackers successfully targeted the Trump campaign, stole internal campaign documents and shared them with news organizations. The hackers breached the email account of longtime Trump ally Roger Stone to target campaign staff, CNN has reported.
I see no mention of any efforts to hack Democrat accounts, and yet you keep asserting it's trying to hack both parties equally.
But US officials are also keeping a close eye on China, which US officials and private experts say uses a vast set of online accounts to also target US voters. Chinese leader Xi Jinping told US President Joe Biden that China would not interfere in the 2024 US presidential election when the two men met last November, CNN previously reported.
Oh well -- I mean, if Xi promised his agent Joe Biden he wouldn't interfere in the election to aid the party of his agent Joe Biden, that's good enough for me.