By Sarah N. Lynch and Andrew Goudsward
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. on Wednesday filed money-laundering charges against two employees of Russian state media network RT for what officials said was a scheme to hire an American company to produce online content to influence the 2024 presidential election.
Justice Department officials said the two employees used shell companies and fake personas to pay $10 million to an unnamed Tennessee company to produce online videos aimed at amplifying political divisions in the United States.
The U.S. Treasury and State departments also announced actions targeting RT, including the network’s top editor, Margarita Simonovna Simonyan.
U.S. officials said Russia’s goal is to exacerbate U.S. political divisions and weaken public support for American aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia.
“We will be relentlessly aggressive in countering and disrupting attempts by Russia and Iran, as well as China or any other foreign malign actor interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said ahead of a meeting on U.S. election threats.
The FBI separately sought court permission to seize 32 internet domains it said were part of Russia’s foreign influence effort.
RT responded with ridicule. “Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT’s interference in the US elections,” the media outlet told Reuters.
The media outlet ceased operating in the United States after Russia invaded Ukraine.
A Russian lawmaker called the reported accusations “pure rubbish” and said Moscow does not think it matters whether Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Kamala Harris wins the Nov. 5 election.
“The only winner of the U.S. election is the U.S. private military industrial complex,” State Duma deputy Maria Butina told Reuters.
The Russian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Moscow has repeatedly said it has not meddled in the U.S. election.
The criminal indictment charged the two RT employees, Konstantin Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, with conspiracy to violate U.S. money laundering and foreign agent laws. Both are based in Russia and remain at large.
The Tennessee company produced nearly 2,000 videos on topics like immigration and inflation that have been viewed 16 million times on YouTube since last November, according to the Justice Department.
In one instance, Afanasyeva told the company to provide a video that blamed Ukraine and the United States for a terrorist attack on a Moscow music venue, the Justice Department said.
The indictment does not name the Tennessee company or charge any of its executives with wrongdoing. However, it alleges that the company failed to disclose that it was funded by RT and its executives never registered with the Justice Department that they were acting as agents of a foreign government.
The Justice Department has previously warned that Russia remains a threat in the election and appears to be favoring Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris.
U.S. intelligence assessments found that Moscow tried to help Trump in 2016, when he defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton, and in 2020 when he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Moscow has denied the allegations.
On social media, Trump repeated his accusation that the Justice Department is working to defeat him in the election.
Justice Department officials say Russian President Vladimir Putin and his proxies have adopted increasingly sophisticated techniques, targeting specific groups of voters and those in battleground states, and are now using bot farms and artificial intelligence.
The FBI last month searched the homes of two Americans with ties to Russian state media, including former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter and Dimitri Simes, an adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign.
The U.S. government has also accused Iran of attempting to influence the upcoming election through cyber operations against both the Trump and Harris campaigns. The Trump campaign has said Iran was behind the leak of internal campaign documents to U.S. media outlets.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Andrew Goudsward; additional reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and Katharine Jackson Doina Chiacu and Daphne Psaledakis in Washington; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Caitlin Webber, Deepa Babington and Jonathan Oatis)
