Russia is trying to sway voters toward Trump using influencers: official

“These actors, among others, support Moscow’s efforts to sway voter preferences in favor of the former president and diminish the prospects of the vice president,” they added.

It follows an announcement Wednesday by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York that the US has charged two Russian nationals who were employees of RT with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and conspiracy to launder money.

Prosecutors said the employees, named Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, ran an operation from Moscow that aimed “to influence the American public by secretly planting and financing a content creation company on US soil.”

The indictment said that over at least the past year, RT “allocated nearly $10 million to secretly finance and operate an online content creation company in Tennessee.”

The unnamed Tennessee company was later named by several media outlets as Tenet Media, a media firm founded by conservative couple Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan.

Several pro-Trump influencers whose content was published by the company, including Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson, said they were unaware of any Russian involvement.

RT scoffed at Wednesday’s accusations, saying, “Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT meddling in the US election,” according to Reuters.

It comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced earlier this week that he is endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in the US election race.

“As I said before, the current president, Mr. Biden, was our man, if I may say so. He withdrew from the race but asked his supporters to support Ms Harris. That’s what we do; we will support each other. her,” Putin said, according to Russian news agency Tass.

“At the end of the day, the choice is up to the American people and we will respect it,” he said.