Fresh US Sanctions Target Russia, Iran On 2024 Election Interference

The Treasury and State Departments said Tuesday that the Biden administration had placed additional penalties on Iranian and Russian organizations for their efforts to sabotage the 2024 election. In particular, the Treasury Department is enacting new sanctions against the Moscow-based Center for Geopolitical Expertise and its director, Valery Mikhaylovich Korovin, affiliates of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate, and the Cognitive Design Production Center, a branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the Treasury Department, Bradley Smith, stated that the “governments of Iran and Russia have targeted our election processes and institutions and sought to divide the American people through targeted disinformation campaigns.”

These penalties, according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, are an extension of earlier ones intended to thwart Russia’s and Iran’s attempts to erode trust in democratic institutions. “These actors sought to stoke sociopolitical tensions and undermine our election institutions during the 2024 U.S. general election,” Miller stated in a statement.


According to the Treasury Department, the Russian organizations produced misinformation using generative AI technologies and disseminated it on websites that were intended to produce fake corroboration between the stories. Russia also edited films to its advantage, according to the Treasury Department.

The U.S. warned earlier this year that Iran was using social engineering to gain access to individuals who had direct access to both parties’ presidential campaigns, according to Treasury.

Due to the designation, all of the impacted targets’ assets and property located in the United States or under American control are blocked and need reporting. Less than three weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, President Biden is finishing up his program when the new penalties are announced.

The Biden administration issued a warning prior to the election that several nations, including China, Russia, and Iran, were attempting to improperly influence American elections. CBS News revealed in July that U.S. intelligence had discovered an Iranian plot to kill Trump. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the senior Iranian commander, was assassinated in an airstrike ordered by Trump in 2020. And Moscow has long sought to use covert foreign influence campaigns and cyber activities to attack U.S. national security interests, especially after its invasion of Ukraine.