The Justice Department has accused a Russian national with interfering in the upcoming November election. It says a Russian woman named Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova from St. Petersburg managed a multimillion-dollar budget for online propaganda to "sow division and discord" ahead of the midterms.
The unsealed criminal complaint describes a Russian effort to use topics like immigration, gun control, the Confederate flag, race relations, LGBTQ issues, the Women's March and the NFL national anthem debate to "inflame passions." The social media posts allegedly manipulated multiple political viewpoints but frequently targeted the GOP.
The complaint says Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin and his companies funded the $35 million budget. Prigozhin is currently facing a criminal charge from special counsel Robert Mueller for allegedly funding a similar attack on the 2016 election.
The New York Times reports unsealing the complaint on Friday is the Trump administration's latest attempt to make Americans aware of election interference.
Khusyaynova lives in Russia, so she can avoid extradition to the U.S. Typically, these charges wouldn't become known until she traveled to a country where she could be detained.
Additional reporting from Newsy affiliate CNN.
