The United States announced Tuesday that it will impose sanctions on entities in Iran and Russia for attempted election interference.
The Treasury Department said the entities — a subordinate organization of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a Moscow-based affiliate of Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU — attempted to interfere in the 2024 election.
“As affiliates of the IRGC and GRU, these actors aimed to stoke sociopolitical tensions and influence the American electorate during the 2024 US elections,” the Treasury Department said in a press release.
“The governments of Iran and Russia have attacked our electoral processes and institutions and sought to divide the American people through targeted disinformation campaigns,” Acting Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith said in the statement. .
“The United States will remain vigilant against adversaries who undermine our democracy,” Smith added.
A spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York said Iran has denied interfering in the US elections “on multiple occasions,” citing previous statements denying the allegations and calling them “lacking credibility and legitimacy,” ” fundamentally unfounded.” and “totally inadmissible.”
“Our reaction remains the same,” said mission spokesman Ali Karimi Magham.
The Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, denied the US accusations in a statement and said that “we respect the will of the American people.”
Tuesday’s Treasury sanctions announcement said the Cognitive Design Production Center, acting on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, planned operations “since at least 2023… to incite sociopolitical tensions among the American electorate.” “.
The Treasury also said that the Moscow-based Center for Geopolitical Expertise, “under the direction and with the financial support of the GRU,” directed and subsidized “the creation and publication of deepfakes and spread disinformation about candidates in the 2024 general election.” in the United States.” .”
That included disinformation that was “designed to mimic legitimate news media to create false corroboration between stories, as well as to obfuscate their Russian origin,” according to the department’s statement.
U.S. intelligence officials said in September that propagandists in Russia, Iran and China were using artificial intelligence in an effort to mislead Americans and interfere in the 2024 presidential election.
Although none of the entities sanctioned by the Treasury Department on Tuesday are affiliated with China, the department said in a separate letter on Monday that their computers had been hacked in a Chinese state-sponsored operation in “a significant incident.” China denied that accusation.
