US media outlets pushed Russian disinformation about Biden in the 2020 election, intelligence report says

• Russia planted anti-Biden stories in US media, per a report from the National Intelligence Council.
• State agents helped produce a documentary that aired in the US in January 2020, it said.
• Officials said it formed part of wider Russian efforts to influence the election.

A recently released intelligence report has tied US media outlets to Russian efforts to influence the 2020 presidential election in the hope of preventing President Joe Biden from winning.

A March 10 intelligence community assessment from the National Intelligence Council, declassified Monday, draws together a range of previously alleged Russian influence operations in one document.

It says, with "high confidence," that Kremlin influence operations aimed to denigrate Biden, support former President Donald Trump, undermine public trust in the electoral process, and worsen social division.

The report also said that, in contrast to 2016, there were few Russian efforts to attack any technical aspect of the voting process, such as ballot casting, voter registration, or the transmission of results.

Instead, the report said, one of the key methods was to use parts of the US media to "launder influence narratives."

President Vladimir Putin and senior Russian officials "were aware of and probably directed" these efforts, the report said.

Accessing the US media

The report said that people linked to Russian intelligence were directed to "to launder influence narratives ... through US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, some of whom were close to former President Trump and his administration."

The report named two operators: Ukraine legislator Andriy Derkach, who has ties to Russian intelligence; and Russian influence agent Konstantin Kilimnich. No US individual, show, or network is named.

During 2020's US presidential election campaign a GOP-led Senate probe resurfaced a longstanding set of corruption allegations about Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and their connections to Ukraine. When the report came out, there was no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens, the Associated Press reported.

Nonetheless, the story blazed across several right-wing media outlets.

Notoriously, a poorly-sourced story published by the New York Post alleged that Hunter Biden had communicated with a Ukrainian official about meeting his father. The outlet said it had learned of the emails involved via Rudy Giuliani, then Trump's personal lawyer.

A separate Department of Justice investigation into Hunter Biden's taxes continues into 2021. Documents on his dealings in Ukraine and China have been subpoenaed in relation to this.

As part of the 2020 Russian media influence efforts, Derkach and Kilimnich also "helped produce a documentary that aired on a US television network in late January 2020," the intelligence report said, once again not naming any outlet.

On January 21, 2020, the pro-Trump outlet One America News (OAN) announced the airing of the first in a three-part documentary series titled "The Ukraine Hoax: Impeachment, Biden Cash, and Mass Murder with guest host Michael Caputo." It was due to air over January 25 and 26, the outlet said.

Caputo, a former Trump official at the Department of Health and Human Services, has several ties to Russia including having served as a PR officer for Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom, as Insider's Tom Porter reported.

OAN and Caputo did not immediately respond to Insider's query about whether it has had contact with either of the operatives or whether they helped produce the documentaries.

Unleashing the trolls

The "laundered" narratives in the report were then "heavily amplified" by "Russian state media, trolls, and online proxies, including those directed by Russian intelligence," the report said.

"These influence actors frequently sought out US contributors to increase their reach into US audiences," the report said.

As well as amplifying election-related content, they also stirred conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic and played to allegations of social media censorship - a talking point frequently featured on US rightwing media. They also highlighted divisions in the US surrounding protests for racial justice, the report said.

The report said that they championed Trump, and "sometimes sought to discourage US left-leaning audiences from voting by suggesting that neither candidate was a preferable option."