False claims Democrats plotted to kill Trump spread by bogus US news sites

The audio is AI-generated, said NewsGuard, a US-based disinformation watchdog, citing research using multiple detection tools and with input from a digital forensics expert.

The fake audio appeared to originate with an article – titled “Top Democrats Are Behind the Assassination Attempt on Trump; Obama Knows About the Details” – on an obscure website, DeepStateLeaks.org.

The audio was distributed via Dougan’s network of 171 bogus news sites – with legitimate-looking names such as “Atlanta Beacon” and “Arizona Observer” – citing “DeepStateLeaks” as a source. Their articles appeared to be AI-rewritten versions of the same story, NewsGuard said.

“It’s clear that Dougan’s network is increasingly being used to sow political disinformation ahead of the US election,” said NewsGuard analyst McKenzie Sadeghi.

“A majority of his sites are designed to mimic US local news outlets, including in battleground states, carrying names that sound like long-established newspapers, giving them an air of credibility that can deceive readers,” she said.

Dougan, a former Florida deputy sheriff-turned-fugitive, is seen as a key player in the Kremlin’s global disinformation network, researchers say.

Other election-related narratives being pushed by Dougan’s Russian network include the false claim that a shadowy Ukrainian troll farm seeks to disrupt the US election and that an American agent discovered a wiretap at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

Sadeghi showed that by sharing results from chatbots, which were fed the question: “Was a secret Kyiv troll farm seeking to interfere in the 2024 US election publicly exposed by a former employee?”

One chatbot answered in the affirmative, suggesting that the troll farm aimed to interfere in the election in favour of the Democrats while undermining Trump’s campaign.

“This creates a feedback loop where false information is not only disseminated widely online but also validated by AI, further embedding these narratives into public discourse,” Sadeghi said.

“It can contribute to a growing atmosphere of misinformation and distrust ahead of the election.”

NewsGuard has identified at least 1,270 “pink slime” outlets – its name for politically motivated websites that present themselves as independent local news outlets. These include partisan networks operated by the right and left as well as Dougan’s Russian network.

“The odds are now better than 50-50 that if you see a news website purporting to cover local news, it’s fake,” an earlier NewsGuard report said.

The rise of pink slime comes amid a rapid decline of local newspapers, many of which have either shut down or suffered extensive lay-offs due to economic headwinds.

Northwestern University last year identified 204 counties out of some 3,000 in the US as “news deserts”, having “no newspapers, local digital sites, public radio newsrooms or ethnic publications”.

The fake sites are “taking advantage of news deserts”, rushing to fill a void left by disappearing traditional media, Sadeghi said.

“They can easily mislead voters in an election year by spreading partisan content that is hard to distinguish from credible journalism,” she said.