After then-President Donald Trump repeatedly denied or downplayed Russia’s electoral interference in 2016, senior Trump administration officials, including Trump himself, refused to recognize or elevate Russian operations in 2020 and tried to characterize the China as the biggest threat.
The sanctions also included recognition by the U.S. government for the first time that a Russian-linked intelligence agent named Konstantin Kilimnik provided information on Trump’s campaign strategy and voting data to services. of Russian intelligence in 2016.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in a statement described the sanctions as “the start of a new US campaign against Russian malicious behavior.”
The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on 16 entities and 16 people it accuses of trying to influence the November elections, including Russia’s first deputy chief of staff, Alexei Gromov, who leads the Kremlin’s use of its media devices. they were trying to exacerbate tensions in the United States. Discrediting the 2020 electoral process in the US “.
Last month, the intelligence community released a report concluding that the Russian government interfered in the 2020 elections with a push for misinformation that sought to denigrate President Joe Biden’s campaign and support Trump. The report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence found that Russia used “representatives related to Russian intelligence” to push unfounded claims about Biden.
The intelligence report named Kilimnik as a key player in the interference efforts. Kilimnik was one of those sanctioned on Thursday as “a Russian-Ukrainian political consultant and well-known Russian intelligence agent who implemented influence operations on his behalf.” The Treasury Department noted that the FBI offered up to $ 250,000 for information leading to his arrest.
The Treasury announcement said Kilimnik “provided Russian intelligence services with sensitive information about the survey and campaign strategy” during the 2016 presidential campaign.
But the Mueller report only said it gave this information to the Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs for whom it worked, leaving many wondering if the campaign polls ever reached the Russian government, which at the time was actively interfering. in the 2016 election to help Win Trump.
The Treasury Department press release on Thursday was the first time the U.S. government has revealed that Kilimnik provided these insights into the Trump campaign to Russian intelligence.
The Mueller report said it “did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort sharing election data and Russia’s interference in the election,” but also said they had limited access to the truth because they could not interview Kilimnik. and Manafort lied about data transfers. .
In addition, the United States imposed sanctions on Thursday against a large number of misinformation points and individuals and entities operating as part of Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s troll farm, the Internet Research Agency.
Some of the sanctions are aimed at disinformation points controlled by the Russian intelligence services, which according to the US exploit a network of websites that obscure their Russian origins in order to attract and manipulate the American public and ‘other Westerners. It includes the Strategic Culture Front, a Russian-registered online newspaper run by Russia’s foreign intelligence service that “created false, unfounded narratives about U.S. officials involved in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. “, according to a Treasury Department briefing, and InfoRos, a leading self-identified news agency run by Russia’s military intelligence unit, which” spread false conspiracy and misinformation narratives promoted by “intelligence officials Military license.