Lisa Monaco Archives

DOJ cracks down on AI threats ahead of 2024 election

May 15, 2024

Federal prosecutors are increasing efforts to combat election-related crimes involving artificial intelligence. Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced that the Justice Department will seek tougher sentences for crimes using AI, including threats against election workers and voter suppression.

Artificial intelligence continues to be a significant concern as the 2024 election approaches. According to a new Elon University Poll, more than three-quarters of Americans believe AI abuses will impact the election’s outcome.

About 73% of Americans believe it’s “very” or “somewhat” likely AI will infiltrate and manipulate social media, including through the use of fake accounts and bots to spread misinformation.

Seventy percent suspect that AI-generated fake video and audio information will blur the lines between truth and deception. Meanwhile, 62% say AI will be used to convince certain voters to skip voting. Overall, 78% say at least one of these AI abuses will be used and over half think all of them are likely to happen.

Federal prosecutors are stepping up their efforts. Monaco announced on Monday, May 13, that a Justice Department task force will seek tougher sentences for crimes where AI is used, including threats against election workers and voter suppression.

https://twitter.com/TheJusticeDept/status/1790503668984221815

“These advanced tools are providing new avenues for bad actors to hide their identities and obscure sources of violent threats,” Monaco said. “They’re providing new avenues to misinform and threaten voters through deepfakes, spreading altered video or cloned audio impersonating trusted voices. And they’re providing new avenues to recruit and radicalize with incendiary social media content that accelerates online hate and harassment.”

The policy change aims to address the growing challenges posed by AI tools in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. These tools can easily mimic politicians’ voices and likenesses, spreading false information more effectively. The new guidelines will target cases where AI makes these crimes more dangerous and impactful.

A recent example involved an AI-generated robocall in New Hampshire imitating President Joe Biden and urging voters to skip the primary. The robocall was created by a New Orleans magician for a political consultant working for Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, a Democratic challenger to Biden.

https://twitter.com/TheJusticeDept/status/1790488801107738747

U.S. officials are also concerned about foreign adversaries using AI to spread election disinformation. In December, senior officials simulated a scenario in which Chinese operatives created an AI-generated video showing a Senate candidate destroying ballots.

“Fulfilling that charge means confronting the full range of threats to our elections,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “That includes continuing our work through this task force, our U.S. Attorney’s Offices and our FBI offices across the country to investigate, disrupt and combat unlawful threats against those who administer our elections.”

The Justice Department faces pressure from election officials to investigate the surge of threats and harassment they have received, many of which stem from false claims of fraud in the 2020 election. In March, an Ohio man was sentenced to over two years in prison for making death threats to an Arizona election official.
DOJ has seized $1.4B in Covid relief fraud. How was so much money stolen?

August 24, 2023

The Justice Department announced it charged 371 defendants, including members of gangs and transnational criminal organizations, with crimes related to $836 million in Covid relief fraud. The charges are part of a coordinated law enforcement sweep that took place from May to July.

That brings the total to 3,000 defendants and $1.4 billion seized since the department launched the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force in May 2021.

119 defendants in the latest sweep have already been convicted or pleaded guilty. The sheer size of the fraud can be attributed in part to the ease of obtaining the money. This fraud has been the subject of Congressional hearings.

“Our focus on recovering stolen funds won’t be thwarted by fraudsters who try to hide or spend those funds before being prosecuted,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said when announcing the enforcement action. “We will seek judicial orders requiring convicted defendants to pay back every stolen dollar – and we have 20 years to realize those recoveries.”

“Small Business Administration’s first round of PPP loans resulted in 14 years-worth of lending in 14 days,” SBA Deputy Inspector General Sheldon Shoemaker told the House Oversight Committee in March. “As the program swelled to more than one trillion dollars, so did the risk to taxpayers. A simple system control that disallowed payments over one thousand dollars for each employee or validation with tax identification records could have prevented these improper payments. We also found in PPP, the Department of Treasury’s do-not-pay list was not included within the initial internal control environment, allowing billions of dollars of likely improper payments.”
Senate Dems seek to limit Supreme Court funding to force ethics code reform

May 3, 2023
Senate Democrats want to hold back some Supreme Court funding until the justices create what’s described as a “clear and enforceable” code of ethics. In a letter to the Appropriations Committee, 15 Democrats asked that $10 million in funding be withheld until the justices comply with Congress’ demand.

“Congress has broad authority to compel the Supreme Court to institute these reforms,” the letter stated. “During recent ‘interbranch disputes’ between Congress and ‘a recalcitrant Executive Branch,’ some courts have encouraged Congress to ‘withhold appropriations,’ which can act as a ‘powerful incentive’ for action within the executive branch. Nothing in the Constitution mandates that the judiciary be treated any differently when Congress is faced with judicial recalcitrance.”

The senators are urging the Appropriations Committee to add a stipulation into the 2024 funding bill that would hold the funds until the justices create a code of ethics with set parameters, including how they will publicly release information about recusals.

Republicans are accusing Democrats of trying to hold back money the court specifically requested for security.

“The left is willing to threaten the lives of the justices,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said. “This is disgraceful. Every senator who signed this letter should be embarrassed.”

Democrats contend they have passed bills to enhance security for not just Supreme Court justices but all federal judges.

“We have an obligation to protect them. And it was Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has provided round the clock security for Supreme Court justices from the U.S. Marshals at their home, which I think is entirely proper,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said. “So there’s no question about the bipartisan commitment to their safety.”

If the Senate adds the funding stipulation, the House would have to agree to it, likely leading to a negotiation or stalemate.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are accusing Garland of providing misleading testimony to the Judiciary Committee.

In May 2022, dozens of people gathered outside Supreme Court justices’ homes to protest the Dobbs decision, which had just been leaked to the press. Garland told the committee that the U.S. Marshals who were sent to protect the justices’ families had the full authority to arrest people under any federal statute.

But Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., publicized training slides shown to the marshals as a briefing before the detail began. The slides told marshals to avoid making arrests unless “absolutely necessary,” and to coordinate any arrest with the U.S. Attorney’s Office ahead of time.

Attorney General Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco have been asked previously if they wants to amend their testimony on the matter but declined.
Related Stories
- Can Congress force the Supreme Court to create new ethics rules?
- Senate Judiciary Dems still seek Chief Justice Roberts’ testimony
DOJ indicts Sinaloa drug lords who fed victims to tigers, offers $56M for info

April 14, 2023

The Justice Department indicted leaders of the Sinaloa drug cartel who are accused of murder, torture, and other heinous crimes including feeding people both dead and alive to tigers. Those charged include sons of Joaquin Guzman Loera, better known as El Chapo, who is now serving a life sentence at a maximum security prison in Colorado.

“The Justice Department is announcing significant enforcement actions against the largest, most violent, and most prolific fentanyl trafficking operation in the world. That operation is run by the Sinaloa Cartel and fueled by Chinese precursor chemical and pharmaceutical companies,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said when making the announcement.

The nearly 30 defendants have been charged with fentanyl trafficking, weapons and money laundering, witness tampering and other crimes. The indictments target everyone involved in the fentanyl supply chain, from people making precursor chemicals in China, to manufacturers in Mexico, to those who distribute the final product.

El Chapo’s sons and other leaders of the cartel, known as “Chapitos” were the biggest targets of the indictments. They are accused of taking over the Sinaloa cartel using violence and threats after El Chapo’s extradition to the United States in 2017. They are accused of using aircraft, submarines, tunnels and just about every means of transportation there is to maintain their drug distribution network.

“Each of the nearly 30 defendants in these cases represent part of the machine that is pumping poisonous fentanyl into cities and towns across our country,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said. “We won’t grind the cartel machine to a halt unless we attack it from every angle. And to do that, we need to use every tool we can and join forces with partners around our government and around the globe.”

The Justice Department is seeking to extradite eight defendants who are already in custody in other countries. Many are still on the loose. The State Department is offering $56 million in rewards for information that leads to their arrest or conviction. The Treasury Department also levied sanctions against two Chinese companies and five individuals for the sale of precursor chemicals in China to the Sinaloa cartel. It’s all part of a nearly whole of government effort to end a fentanyl crisis that killed 107,735 from August 2021 to August 2022.
Justice Department endorses bill to counter foreign tech companies

March 10, 2023

The Justice Department is officially coming out in support of the RESTRICT Act. The bipartisan proposal would allow the federal government to regulate and ban foreign technology that is deemed a national security risk.

This bill applies to all companies that pose a national security risk including Huawei, ZTE and Russia’s Kaspersky Lab. Lately, the hot topic has been TikTok, and the Chinese Communist Party’s ability to use it to collect American’s data.

“So instead of playing ‘Whac-A-Mole’ on Huawei one day, ZTE the next, Kaspersky, TikTok, we need a more comprehensive approach to evaluating and mitigating these threats,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said.

The Justice Department gave multiple reasons for its support, including the legislation being broad enough to enable regulation across entire categories of high-risk technology.

“The RESTRICT Act would also ensure that the Department of Justice has the authorities we need to go after adversaries and enablers who violate the law and put our people and businesses at risk,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement.

Monaco added that the department looks forward to working with members on both sides of the aisle to get it signed into law.

It’s rare but not unheard of for the Justice Department to officially endorse legislation. Last March, the department endorsed a bipartisan bill led by Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa., to ensure Big Tech companies like Google, Apple and Amazon, can’t discriminate in favor of their own products and services.

For example, if someone searched “I need a cloud based storage service” on Google, Google cannot prioritize its service in its search results over rivals.

As for the RESTRICT Act, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo also endorsed it, and said she wants to help get it through Congress.
Crypto ringleader that helped launder $700 million arrested in Miami

January 18, 2023

A Russian national who runs a crypto exchange in Hong Kong was arrested Tuesday night in Miami. Prosecutors at the Justice Department said the crypto exchange, Bitzlato, processed over $700 million in illicit funds that were made from crimes including ransomware and drug trafficking.

Now the firm’s majority shareholder, Anatoly Legkodymov, is charged with conducting an unlicensed money transmitting business and faces five years in prison.

“Operating off shore or moving your servers out of the continental U.S. will not shield you. And whether you break our laws from China or Europe – or abuse our financial system from a tropical island – you can expect to answer for your crimes inside a United States courtroom,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said.

The Justice Department said Bitzlato catered to known crooks, and purposefully worked around safeguards put in place by the U.S. government to detect and investigate financial crimes. Bitzlato is even accused of advertising that they require minimal identifying information from clients to complete their transactions.

According to the Justice Department, senior executives at Bitzlato were well aware that their clients were criminals. Legkodymov wrote in an internal company chat to a colleague that many of their users were “known to be crooks.” Another executive also suggested that the company should only combat drug dealers “nominally” to avoid hurting their bottom line.

“The result was that Bitzlato became a safe haven for criminals, including drug dealers and ransomware groups. They knew that when the police traced their funds to Bitzlato, Bitlato would not be able to turn over its users’ true identities,” Breon Peace, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said.

The FBI says it is working to keep crypto markets free of illicit activity. Deputy Attorney General Monaco says the Justice Department is also taking steps to address what she called a crisis of confidence in the crypto currency markets.

“The FBI will continue to pursue actors who attempt to mask their criminal activity behind keyboards and use means such as cryptocurrency to evade law enforcement,” FBI Assistant Deputy Director Brian Turner said. “We, along with our federal and international partners, will work relentlessly to disrupt and dismantle these types of criminal enterprises.”

DOJ cracks down on AI threats ahead of 2024 election

DOJ has seized $1.4B in Covid relief fraud. How was so much money stolen?

Senate Dems seek to limit Supreme Court funding to force ethics code reform

DOJ indicts Sinaloa drug lords who fed victims to tigers, offers $56M for info

Justice Department endorses bill to counter foreign tech companies

Crypto ringleader that helped launder $700 million arrested in Miami

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