Associated Incidents
The Treasury Department announced new sanctions Tuesday on Iranian and Russian entities accused of trying to interfere with the U.S. 2024 elections, including by allegedly using artificial intelligence to disseminate false information.
In its statement, Treasury said it was imposing sanctions on both a subsidiary of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and an affiliate of Russia's military intelligence agency over their efforts to "stoke sociopolitical tensions and influence the U.S. electorate during the 2024 election." Treasury's statement also said the Russian entity used AI tools to "quickly create disinformation that would be distributed across a massive network" of fake news websites and produced "baseless accusations" about a 2024 vice-presidential candidate, whom Treasury declined to identify.
Although the sanctions target relatively minor entities and are unlikely to have major economic effects, they reflect the deteriorating relationship between the United States and two of its chief geopolitical adversaries. President Joe Biden is weighing much more far-reaching sanctions against Russia's energy sector, while President-elect Donald Trump is expected to try to significantly increase economic pressure on Tehran.
"The Governments of Iran and Russia have targeted our election processes and institutions and sought to divide the American people through targeted disinformation campaigns," Bradley Smith, Treasury's acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement. "The United States will remain vigilant against adversaries who would undermine our democracy."
Sanctions were imposed on the Center for Geopolitical Expertise (CGE), a Moscow-based group founded by Aleksandr Dugin, whom Treasury had already sanctioned in 2015. Treasury accused the center of working closely with the Russian military intelligence service that "oversees sabotage, political interference operations and cyberwarfare" against the West.
In its statement, Treasury said the intelligence service both directed and provided financial support to the center to influence the 2024 presidential election. With that support, Treasury said, the center maintained a network of "at least 100 websites" for its "disinformation operations," through which it pushed false information.
"CGE and its personnel used generative AI tools to quickly create disinformation that would be distributed across a massive network of websites designed to imitate legitimate news outlets to create false corroboration between the stories, as well as to obfuscate their Russian origin," the Treasury statement said.
The Russian center also "manipulated a video" to "produce baseless accusations concerning a 2024 vice-presidential candidate," Treasury said. Treasury did not identify the video, but The Washington Post and other news organizations reported in October that, according to U.S. intelligence officials, Moscow was behind a faked video and other material smearing Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz with abuse allegations. Separately, Microsoft researchers said this fall that Russian entities had circulated false videos on social media in which an actor accused Vice President Kamala Harris of a nonexistent hit-and-run.
The sanctions also target the Cognitive Design Production Center, a subsidiary of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, over its "influence operations," according to the Treasury Department. The Justice Department previously charged three men with an alleged hack-and-leak attack against Trump's presidential campaign.