U.S. officials believe that two more fake videos circulating online and publicly identified by the FBI as an attempt to push false claims about election security are likely part of a Russian-backed malign influence campaign Ahead of Tuesday’s presidential election, two sources familiar with the process told CBS News.
The news comes after the FBI said in a statement Saturday that the videos “are not authentic, do not originate from the FBI, and the content they depict is false.”
The agency said one of the videos falsely claims that “the FBI has apprehended three affiliated groups engaged in voter fraud, and the second involves First Gentleman Doug Emhoff.”
The FBI did not say in its statement who was behind the videos and declined to comment further when contacted by CBS News.
It added that the two videos — featuring Justice Department and FBI signage and images of Emhoff — were distributed as part of “efforts to mislead the public with false content about FBI operations.”
The FBI has not attributed the creation of the propaganda to any actor.
Saturday’s revelation brings to four the number of fake videos produced and distributed by Russia to deceive the American electorate, which have been publicly identified by the US government in recent days.
On Thursday, Georgian Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said said a video what claims to show Haitians they claim voted illegally because Harris is a fake and probably the work of a Russian troll farm.
And in a joint statement Friday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the intelligence community “assesses that Russian influence actors” produced the video.
Another fake video that appears to show someone in Pennsylvania’s Bucks County destroying ballots is also bogus, both state and federal officials said.
The ODNI, FBI and CISA said in a statement Friday that “Russian actors produced and amplified the video.”
In recent weeks, U.S. intelligence agencies and Microsoft have been assessing these U.S. adversaries have conducted influence campaigns to mislead voters in the 2024 elections.
Both the US government and Microsoft have said that Russia prefers former President Donald Trump, while Iran prefers Vice President Kamala Harris.
