WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. intelligence agencies issued a joint statement on Friday blaming Russia for making a video that falsely purports to show a Haitian immigrant claiming to have voted multiple times in the U.S. state of Georgia.
Georgia is one of seven battleground states in Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
“This judgment is based on information available to the IC (intelligence community) and prior activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and other disinformation activities,” the agencies said in the statement, issued jointly by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
The office of Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, on Thursday called the video “targeted disinformation” and said it likely was produced by “Russian troll farms.”
Raffensperger appealed directly to billionaire Elon Musk, owner of X, as well as other social media companies, urging them to remove the video from their platforms.
A spokesperson for X said the content violated its policies and “we are taking action against the posts.”
While the video has circulated widely on X, Reuters also found the content on Facebook. Parent company Meta Platforms did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The U.S. intelligence community for months has assessed that Russia’s influence operations are aimed at fanning divisive narratives and promoting support for Trump, an accusation that Russia has denied.
(Reporting by Rami Ayyub, Susan Heavey and Katie Paul; Additional reporting by Sheila Dang; Editing by Leslie Adler and Deepa Babington)
