Washington – The Biden administration has imposed new sanctions on Russian and Iranian entities over their attempts to interfere in the 2024 election, the Treasury and State Departments announced Tuesday.
Specifically, the Treasury Department is imposing new sanctions on a subsidiary of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps known as the Cognitive Design Production Center, as well as on the Moscow-based Center for Geopolitical Expertise and its director, Valery Mikhaylovich Korovin, affiliated with the Russian Main . Directorate of Intelligence.
Bradley Smith, acting secretary of the Treasury Department for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said the “governments of Iran and Russia have attacked our election processes and institutions and attempted to divide the American people through targeted disinformation campaigns.”
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said sanctions build on previous initiatives aimed at disrupting efforts by Iran and Russia to undermine confidence in democratic institutions.
“These actors sought to stoke sociopolitical tensions and undermine our electoral institutions during the 2024 U.S. general election,” Miller said in a statement.
The Treasury Department said the Russian entities have used generative AI tools to create and spread disinformation on websites designed to create false confirmations between the stories. The Treasury Department said Russia also manipulated videos to its advantage.
The Treasury Department said Iran used social engineering to gain access to people with direct access to both parties’ presidential campaigns, something the US warned about earlier this year.
The designation means that all property and interests of the affected targets located in the US or under US control are blocked and must be reported. The new sanctions come as President Biden finalizes his agenda, less than three weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
Ahead of the election, the Biden administration warned that several countries, including Russia, Iran and China, attempted to unlawfully influence the US elections. In July, CBS News reported that U.S. intelligence agencies an Iranian plot discovered to kill Trump. Trump ordered the 2020 air raid that resulted in fatalities Top Iranian commander General Qasem Soleimani.
And Moscow has long sought to use covert foreign influence campaigns and cyber activities to attack U.S. national security interests, especially after the invasion of Ukraine.
