WASHINGTON − U.S. intelligence officials say Russia is behind a fake video smearing Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz with false sexual abuse allegations as part of an election interference effort favoring Donald Trump that will continue after Nov. 5.
The content, including baseless allegations from the Minnesota governor’s time as a high school teacher, was fabricated and then boosted online and across social media by operatives working for the Kremlin, said an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
“The intelligence community assesses that Russian influence actors created and amplified content alleging inappropriate activity committed by the Democratic vice presidential candidate during his earlier career,” the ODNI official told reporters Tuesday.
The disclosure was part of an ongoing effort by election security officials from the ODNI, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to warn the public about efforts to meddle in the election.
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With less than two weeks go to, the officials said, Russia remained the foreign government most aggressively involved in trying to interfere, favoring former President Trump.
The officials, all speaking on background to discuss highly sensitive intelligence, said Iran also remained active in an effort to boost Vice President Kamala Harris and undermine Trump.
The ODNI released a declassified memo on its most recent intelligence. Last week, a video surfaced on X, formerly Twitter, in which a person claiming to be a former student made allegations against Walz.
Soon after, The Washington Post interviewed the actual former student in question, who was not the man in the video, and who said the nothing like the alleged incident had ever occurred.
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Even so, the claim was quickly shared by many pro-Trump accounts, garnering potentially millions of views on X and other social media platforms, according to Wired magazine. The outlet attributed the fake post to a Russian-aligned propaganda network called Storm-1516 that has also been linked to a fake video claiming Harris injured a young girl in a hit-and-run incident in San Francisco in 2011.
The officials also warned at the briefing that efforts by Russia, Iran, China, and potentially other countries, could actually increase after the polls close.
They cited the briefing paper and another document, which described those three countries in particular as being “intent on fanning divisive narratives to divide Americans and undermine Americans’ confidence in the U.S. democratic system.” Foreign actors are expected to continue to conduct influence operations through the inauguration “denigrating U.S. democracy, including by calling into question the results of the election,” the briefing paper said.
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“These actors probably perceive that undermining confidence in the elections weakens the legitimacy of our democracy and consequently makes the United States less capable of effectively pursuing policies that are counter to their interests,” the document said.
Recent intelligence suggests that Russian actors are considering − and in some cases implementing − a broad range of influence efforts timed with the election, “including some aimed at inciting violence and calling into question the validity of democracy as a political system, regardless of who wins.”
“Others are aimed at amplifying false information and conspiracies − that may exacerbate post-election tensions in the United States,” the ODNI briefing document said.
The briefers also said Iran, which opposes Trump for his hardline policies, “may try to incite violence like they did after the last presidential election, in which it is believed to have created a website “containing death threats against U.S. election officials,” the document said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Russia’s latest election meddling involves Tim Walz smear campaign
