Russia hired a former Florida police officer to spread disinformation and create deepfakes against Harris.
Dougan allegedly set up a network of fake news websites.
A former Florida sheriff who moved to Russia during an FBI investigation has been identified as a Kremlin-backed propagandist involved in creating deepfake videos and spreading disinformation targeting Kamala Harris's campaign, according to European intelligence documents. John Mark Dougan is responsible for several fake news websites, which have been funded by the GRU, Russia's military intelligence service.
The documents indicate that Dougan operated sites such as DC Weekly, Chicago Chronicle, and Atlanta Observer, which reportedly published misleading local news. Between March 2021 and August of this year, Dougan worked alongside Yury Khoroshevsky, an officer of the GRU's Unit 29155, which is responsible for sabotage and cyber interference operations. Two European security officials revealed that this unit is involved in operations aimed at influencing Western politics.
Dougan also collaborated with the Center for Geopolitical Expertise, an institution in Moscow founded by far-right Russian nationalist Alexander Dugin. According to the documents, the center's director, Valery Korovin, has a close connection with Khoroshevsky. It is mentioned that Khoroshevsky began depositing payments into Dougan's bank account in April 2022, and that they met frequently. Some of these funds were received by Dougan when his sites faced difficulties accessing Western artificial intelligence generators.
Disinformation experts have expressed concern over Russian operatives' efforts to influence the 2024 presidential elections. The Biden administration has pointed out that Russian influence campaigns have operated websites and social media accounts to manipulate public opinion and have created false identities online to spread disinformation. In July, the Department of Justice seized two domains and over 900 media accounts that were allegedly part of a Russian bot farm enhanced by artificial intelligence.
Additionally, Dougan may be behind a video that contained allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct against Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. An individual in the video claimed to be Matthew Metro, a former student of Walz, but the real Matthew Metro refuted the claims. NewsGuard, a company that monitors online disinformation, stated that Dougan was the initial source of those allegations. Just eleven days before the video was published, Dougan had participated in a podcast with an anonymous man who claimed to have been abused by Walz.
In response to the allegations, Dougan claimed he was not the owner of DC Weekly or other sites and denied knowing Korovin or Khoroshevsky. He described himself as an IT consultant for a U.S. company and stated: "Hypothetically, if they were my sites, I would just be fighting fire with fire, because the West is lying about everything that is going on."
