The Justice Department announcedd charges Thursday against two Iranians for allegedly helping to orchestrate a cyber-enabled campaign to intimidate and influence American voters in the 2020 election.
The campaign, which was first described by American intelligence officials in October 2020, involved emails to tens of thousands of registered voters purporting to be from the far-right extremist group the Proud Boys. The emails threatened the recipients with physical injury unless they switched parties and voted for President Donald Trump.
Recommended Videos
The indictment, filed in the Southern District of New York, adds that the two Iranian defendants allegedly tried to compromise voter registration websites in eleven states, “to create the appearance that election results could not be trusted” by misrepresenting that the election web sites could accept fraudulent ballots, a senior Justice Department official told reporters in a conference call.