DOJ: Illegal immigrant stole US citizen's identity to vote in multiple elections, obtain American passport

The U.S. Department of Justice said an illegal immigrant has reached an agreement to plead guilty to charges related to stealing a U.S. citizen's identity to vote in multiple elections and fraudulently obtain an American passport.

Angelica Maria Francisco, a 42-year-old undocumented individual who most recently resided in Russellville, Alabama, is facing a nine-count information filed in federal court for false claims of citizenship in connection with voting, false statements in application for a United States passport, use of a United States passport obtained by false statements, and aggravated identity theft.

A plea agreement was filed as well, indicating that Francisco has agreed to plead guilty to all nine counts, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama Prim F. Escalona and Resident Agent in Charge Joseph R. Wysowaty of the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) Atlanta Resident Office announced on Thursday.

Francisco is accused of assuming the identity of a U.S. citizen in or around 2011. Prosecutors say she used the false identity to get an American passport in 2011. She then allegedly used the passport to travel to and from her native Guatemala in 2012, 2015 and 2018. Using the same identity, she allegedly also registered to vote in Alabama in 2016, before voting in the 2016 and 2020 primary and general elections.

In 2021, Francisco allegedly used the same false identity to apply for and receive a renewed passport, which she used to travel to and from Guatemala in 2022.

The State Department's Diplomatic Security Service investigated the case, with assistance from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, the East Metro Area Crime Center, and the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office.

"I have been very clear that a top priority of this Office is ensuring only eligible American citizens are voting in Alabama elections," Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen said in a statement. "I want to thank the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Northern District of Alabama for their diligent efforts investigating and charging this individual. We will continue to assist law enforcement in every way possible as they prosecute individuals who vote illegally in Alabama elections to the fullest extent of the law."

Allen, a Republican, has made election integrity a top priority this cycle and previously sounded the alarm to Fox News Digital about how state agencies receiving federal funding are required under Executive Order 14019 to send out voter registration information to anyone who comes into contact with those agencies without any verification of citizenship. President Biden signed the order in 2021 as a way of "promoting access to voting," but Republicans argue that its broad interpretation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993 essentially mobilizes the federal government apparatus to become voter registration agencies.

At the Republican National Convention in July, Allen told Fox News Digital that he had also spoken with House Speaker Mike Johnson regarding a piece of legislation called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which aims to require states to obtain proof of citizenship – in person – when registering an individual to vote and require states to remove non-citizens from existing voter rolls.

Last month, prominent conservative Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Mike Lee, R-Utah, pushed for the SAVE Act to be attached to a spending bill extension to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the fiscal year.

"Punting new government spending into 2025 when we have a new President and attaching the SAVE Act ensures House Republicans avoid a Biden-Harris lame duck omnibus and secures our elections at the same time," Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said in a statement on Friday. "The Senate can either ensure only eligible American citizens are voting in our elections – or shut down the government. To me, it’s a no-brainer."

https://www.foxnews.com/us/doj-illegal-immigrant-stole-us-citizens-identity-vote-multiple-elections-obtain-american-passport

Bernie admits Kamala’s policy flips are only to win election

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Sunday called Vice President Kamala Harris' decision to moderate her views on fracking and "Medicare for All" "pragmatic," saying that Harris is "doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election" and that he still considers her to be "progressive."

Still, Sanders added that Harris has a path to victory by campaigning on other progressive positions, like raising the minimum wage, raising taxes on the wealthy and increasing Social Security benefits.

"I think if you campaign on those issues — raising taxes on billionaires — you know what, she's going to win, and I think she could win big," said Sanders, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020.

In recent weeks, Harris has changed her stance on certain issues, like supporting a ban on fracking, the ecologically controversial method of extracting oil and gas, and supporting proposals for "Medicare for All."

In an interview with CNN last month, Harris defended her shifting positions, saying, "The most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed."

Sanders has stopped short of endorsing her since she replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket.

In July, shortly after Biden stepped down from his re-election campaign, Sanders told NBC News that he looked forward to "strongly supporting" Harris but added the caveat, "If she is going to win, she’s going to have to focus a great deal of attention on the plight of the American working class."

In recent weeks, Harris has focused on mapping out her economic agenda, which has led to her softening on several of Biden's core proposals for the fiscal year 2025 budget.

For example, Biden has proposed a 39.6% tax rate on long-term capital gains for households making $1 million or more. In New Hampshire last week, Harris proposed a similar tax, but at 28%.

Asked directly Sunday about the rate Harris proposed, Sanders said that "I would go I would go higher than that" and added that while Biden and Harris have achieved some progressive wins, "much more needs to be done."

Also last week, Harris backed a 25% minimum tax on total income, including "unrealized gains," which is often known as the "billionaire minimum tax."

“It’s just not right that those who can most afford it are often paying a lower tax rate than our teachers and our nurses and our firefighters. That’s why I support a billionaire minimum tax and corporations' paying their fair share," Harris said at the campaign event in New Hampshire.

Sanders said Sunday that he still considers Harris to be a progressive.

"She is not where I am," he said, but he added that her campaign's positions on making the child tax credit permanent, expanding affordable housing options and boosting unions are still "a big deal."

"Her views are not mine, but I do consider her progressive," he said.

CORRECTION (Sept. 9, 2024, 6:26 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated who interviewed Harris last month. It was CNN, not ABC News.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/bernie-sanders-considers-harris-progressive-policy-changes-pragmatic-rcna170102

Russia, China and Iran have all been accused of perpetrating complex campaigns to manipulate U.S. politics

At least four major foreign influence operations aimed at the U.S. election have been identified by authorities and researchers in recent months, and U.S. intelligence officials warned Friday that foreign actors are ramping up their efforts to meddle.

The Justice Department alleged the most high-profile influence operation of the 2024 cycle in an indictment Wednesday, accusing two Russian propagandists who work for the Russia-backed state media outlet RT of committing money laundering by funneling nearly $10 million to a conservative media outlet.

The Justice Department also seized 32 domains from a Russia-based group of fake news sites that researchers call “Doppelganger.” Those websites often mirrored legitimate news operations in an effort to spread pro-Russia narratives.

Less than a month earlier, Iran was accused by the former President Donald Trump campaign of hacking into the email accounts of some of its staffers and leaking emails to U.S. news outlets. China has been accused of creating fake social media accounts pretending to be Americans. Representatives for those countries have denied the accusations.

Together, the efforts highlight the ongoing concerns about foreign efforts to alter the 2024 U.S. election, which forecasters and pundits say has the chance to be a historically close race.

But the campaigns also appear to have floundered. The Russia-backed media company had a middling YouTube presence that failed to attract significant viewership, while Iran’s hack-and-leak has thus far failed to generate the kind of attention seen by previous operations. China’s campaigns have similarly been found to have been narrow and lacking in reach.

There are no indications to show any of these campaigns have had significant success in swaying voters, or even that they’ve directly reached many Americans, said Emerson Brooking, the director of strategy at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which studies online propaganda.

“I would emphasize how important it is to keep this in perspective,” Brooking said. “That even when the numbers sound big, as a share of election-related activity and discourse in the United States, it is a drop in the ocean.”

“Your uncle’s bad opinions probably don’t come from the Russians,” he added.

That has done little to dent the momentum of these campaigns or the efforts to hunt them down. The Office of the Director National Intelligence’s Foreign Malign Influence Center, the U.S. intelligence community’s dedicated group for countering foreign propaganda aimed at the election, has maintained that election manipulation efforts are ongoing and that each country has clear goals: Russia aims to support Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, Iran aims to hurt Trump’s candidacy, and China has decided not to use its existing propaganda apparatus to promote one U.S. presidential candidate over the other, though experts say it is perpetually interested in undermining U.S. support for democracy.

Concerns about efforts to manipulate the election have remained heightened since Russia’s first major campaign was revealed in 2016. Russian election meddlers were found to have successfully spread misinformation and divisive rhetoric through social media platforms while also sparking major news cycles related to emails stolen from staffers on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

In the aftermath, major tech companies pledged to do more, and U.S. authorities launched task forces to help identify and stop foreign influence. Those efforts were largely heralded as a success around the 2020 election, but Republicans have since launched pressure campaigns and lawsuits aimed at reining in that work. Experts warn that 2024 could be particularly fraught.

The influence campaigns also continue to evolve, combining some classic propaganda strategies with new technology and mediums. Russia sought to tap a group of internet-based content creators, while China has used AI to generate fake people.

Some have been in the works for years. On Tuesday, the social media analytics firm Graphika reported it had uncovered new, previously unreported accounts tied to a sprawling, ongoing Chinese propaganda campaign nicknamed “Spamouflage.” Researchers have tracked Spamouflage and Russia’s Doppelganger for years, and treat them as ongoing operations.

While American social media platforms regularly investigate and shut down their accounts — sometimes after being tipped to their existence from the U.S. government — there’s no permanent way to prevent foreign propagandists from registering fake websites or accounts and trying to get Americans to interact with them.

Olga Belogolova, the director of the Emerging Technologies Initiative at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies who previously led policy for countering influence campaigns at Meta, said that despite researchers and social media companies publishing statistics showing the prevalence of some online propaganda campaigns, that doesn’t prove they’re effective.

“Someone posted some content, and that got someone to vote a particular way, or to not vote at all, or to believe something, right?” she said. “That is very difficult to measure.”

Belogolova said that little research has been done into how effective modern influence campaigns were on voters. She pointed to a New York University study of Russian propaganda on Twitter in 2016 that found those tweets did not appear to change voters’ behavior.

Authorities have warned that there could still be more twists to come that may prove more successful. Most notably, Iran is believed to still hold stolen files from the Trump campaign that it has yet to release.

In the press call Friday, an FBI official who spoke on condition of anonymity along with intelligence officials, said that Iran “will likely have that kind of longer-term strategic interest” and “make tweaks to how they are conducting those operations.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/misinformation/foreign-election-influence-campaigns-bark-questionable-bite-rcna169899