Associated Incidents
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The American expatriate behind a network of fake news websites — including a now-defunct outlet purporting to be from Chicago that spread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines — is working directly for the Russian military’s intelligence service, according to an investigation published this week by the Washington Post.
Former U.S. Marine John Mark Dougan has shifted focus to distributing deepfake videos targeting Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign since his “ChicagoChron.com” page was taken offline earlier this year along with a slew of other bogus news sites, the Post reported.
ChicagoChron was among 167 sites posing as local American news outlets that churned out tens of thousands of baseless articles from Russia “aimed at exacerbating polarization in the U.S. and undermining confidence in the upcoming elections.” That’s according to a probe by NewsGuard, a company that tracks online misinformation operations.
Dougan, a former sheriff’s deputy from Florida who fled to Moscow to evade wiretapping and extortion charges, has denied involvement with any Russian propaganda mission. The Post cited Russian documents provided by European officials that show Dougan was paid by Russia’s military intelligence wing.
In February, ChicagoChron published an article with baseless claims that pharmaceutical giant Pfizer oversaw vaccine trials that killed dozens of Ukrainian children, NewsGuard found.
The article featured video from supposed Pfizer whistleblower “Anna Sakhno,” who claimed the trials were authorized by the Ukrainian Health Ministry and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The fake story “quickly gained traction across Russian state TV and various Russian and international social media platforms,” NewsGuard found, and “was amplified by more than 50 pro-Kremlin accounts in what showed signs of a coordinated campaign.”
Dougan’s suite of websites pushed at least 19 disinformation campaigns from September 2023 through May 2024, drawing more than 37 million views on social media in 16 languages, NewsGuard found.
That included a phony story about Zelenskyy buying yachts, which ended up being shared by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, and GOP Ohio Sen. JD Vance, before his selection as former President Donald Trump’s running mate.
ChicagoChron — which featured a crude rendering of the city skyline in its website banner but otherwise lacked any local content — was soon suspended by its domain registrar, NewsGuard found.
An archived screenshot of the now-defunct chicagochron.com.
Since then, sites and social media accounts tied to Dougan have garnered millions of hits on false claims smearing Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as well as bogus audio suggesting Democrats were behind the assassination attempt against Trump, the Post found.
Experts have long warned of a wide-ranging misinformation campaign by Russia to interfere in the presidential election. Creating a false sense of credibility helps fake narratives gain traction, according to Welton Chang, chief executive of Pyrra Technologies, which tracks disinformation and online extremism for companies, think tanks and universities.
“When you invent total fictions, people find it hard to believe,” Chang previously told the Sun-Times. “But if you base propaganda in that kernel of truth, then you can at least launch off from there and get that buy-in right off the bat.”