September 5, 2024, 9:22 AM
September 5, 2024, 9:22 AM
USA announced sanctions on Wednesday against executives at RT, a Russian state-funded news outlet, and others, accusing them of making “malicious influence efforts” against the 2024 US presidential election.
With Cristóban Vásquez, RFI correspondent in Washington
The Justice Department, Treasury Department and State Department jointly imposed a new round of actions against Russia.
He Justice Department publishes indictment against two RT journalists (formerly Russia Today) for conspiracy to launder money by creating a company that allegedly used $10 million to influence U.S. politics through influencers who promoted division and debate on sensitive issues in the United States such as the war in Ukraine.
“The American people have a right to know when a foreign power attempts to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas to deliver its own propaganda,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland.
In line with the allegation, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control USA designated 10 individuals and two entities, cancelling their financial transactions with entities in the United States, and the State Department announced visa restrictions for RT journalists and others linked to the alleged Russian plan to influence the US elections.
Among those profiled are RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonovna Simonyan and her deputy Elizaveta Yuryevna Brodskaia.
The Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, He said the entity “will not waver” in its commitment to “safeguard our democratic principles and the integrity of our electoral systems.”
Simonyan was a “central figure in the malicious influence efforts of the Russian government”, while Brodskaia “briefed Russian President” Vladimir Putin and other officials, the Treasury Department said of the two RT editors.
Through National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, the White House said that Putin “was aware of RT’s activities” to interfere in the 2024 US elections.
RT reacted through its Telegram channel and He dismissed the US accusations as “hackneyed clichés”.
“Three things are inevitable in life: death, taxes and ‘RT interference in the US elections,'” the outlet wrote ironically.
“This is clearly an operation, an information campaign (…) that has been in the works for a long time and is necessary now that the final phase of the electoral cycle is approaching,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in an interview with the Ria Novosti news agency.
The diplomat said that Moscow is “obviously” preparing a response to these new sanctions, which will “make the whole world tremble” two months before the electoral duel in the United States between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
Washington has accused Moscow of trying to influence the presidential election since the 2016 contest between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Following the 2020 election, US intelligence officials have accused Putin of authorising “influence operations” to favour Trump’s vote.
