Two Iranians charged with spreading election disinformation, threatening people to vote for Trump
Summary
FBI Director Christopher Wray speaks during a news conference over ransomware cyberattack at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC on November 8, 2021. A federal grand jury in New York has indicted two Iranian nationals on charges related to a cyber-based disinformation effort to intimidate and influence American voters in order to benefit the presidential re-election campaign of Donald Trump last year. They additionally are accused of sending intimidating emails to voters and disseminating a video that contained disinformation about purported vulnerabilities in the election infrastructure, according to the Justice Department. "If not for successful FBI and victim company efforts to mitigate [that intrusion, it] would have provided the conspirators another vehicle to disseminate false claims after the election," the Department of Justice said. The indictment, filed in federal district court in Manhattan, "details how two Iran-based actors waged a targeted, coordinated campaign to erode confidence in the integrity of the U.S. electoral system and to sow discord among Americans," said Matthew Olsen, an assistant attorney general of the DOJs National Security Division, in the press release.