U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are warning that Russia is intensifying its already robust effort to subvert confidence in the presidential election on Tuesday by manufacturing false videos and promoting phony allegations of fraud in swing states to stoke division and sow fear.
In a statement on Monday night, three major intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the F.B.I. and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — said that Russia, and to a lesser extent Iran, would most likely flood social media with misinformation on Election Day and for weeks afterward.
“Russia is the most active threat,” the officials wrote, amplifying a warning issued last week.
They cited two new episodes of Moscow’s meddling: a false social-media post claiming that officials across swing states were orchestrating election fraud by stuffing ballots and launching cyberattacks, and a video that promoted a debunked claim that Democrats were falsifying ballots from Arizona voters living overseas to swing the state to Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Influence actors linked to Russia in particular are manufacturing videos and creating fake articles to undermine the legitimacy of the election, instill fear in voters regarding the election process, and suggest Americans are using violence against each other due to political preferences,” the officials added.
The articles they cited were associated with X accounts and obscure websites that purport to carry news.
On Friday, intelligence agencies said Russia was also behind two new fabricated videos that appeared on social media this week, one falsely claiming that Haitians had illegally voted in Georgia and another offering a bogus claim that Ms. Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, and her husband, Doug Emhoff, received a $500,000 bribe from the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, who will be tried next year on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges.
A week earlier, officials blamed Russia for another video that falsely claimed that ballots in Pennsylvania were being destroyed.
Intelligence officials have said that Russia favors former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee. Mr. Trump’s skepticism about offering Ukraine military support, which is defending itself from a full-scale invasion that Russia began nearly three years ago, and his promise to force peace talks to resolve the war there have raised Russia’s stake in the election, officials say.
A federal grand jury indicted three members of an espionage unit associated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in September for mounting wide-ranging attacks targeting politicians, officials and journalists that led to the hacking of the Trump campaign this summer.
Iran is seeking to exact retribution against Mr. Trump, for authorizing the killing in January 2020 of Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the architect of nearly every significant operation by Iranian intelligence and military forces over two decades.
On Monday, officials said Iran was engaged in a broader effort “to create fake media content intended to suppress voting or stoke violence, as they have done in past election cycles.”
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