Department official says the special counsel would oppose Biden's plan to change his plea. The Justice Department has unveiled a new plan to crack down on violent threats against election workers. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland detailed what threats the DOJ is keeping an eye on. We're just seeing more and more. It's coming faster and faster. It's now AI fueled. They're now using bot farms in a way that was not possible before. Garland also announced DOJ actions against Russian government sponsored attempts to manipulate public opinion ahead of the election. Among those actions are new charges against employees of the Russian television network RT, as well as the seizure of internet domains tied to Russian attempts to influence the election. Let's go ahead and bring in NBC 10 Boston political commentator and my @Issue co-host, Sue O'Connell. Sue, back in 2016, Russia was caught hacking politicians. In 2020, they were caught creating fake social media accounts to spread misinformation. Now here we are in 2024 and they're accused of tricking right wing influencers into pushing Putin's talking points. Has Russia always tried to meddle in U.S. politics, or is this a new effort that came with the rise of social media? Well, Cory, it looks like the continuation of Russian President Vladimir Putin's efforts to influence the American presidential elections. And in this case, intelligence officials say Putin was working to get Trump back into the White House. Look Russians have been meddling in American politics for about 100 years or so. So it isn't surprising this evolution of co-opting these influencers, including names you should know, Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Lauren Southern, all big names with huge audiences. This should be a warning for all of us to be skeptical. Not necessarily suspicious, but skeptical and critical thinkers about who we are looking to for our news. Look, we're not perfect here in mainstream media, right? But these influencers who reports say were completely unaware that they were being used by Russians to spread Putin's propaganda to Americans, have millions of followers and virtually no oversight, no management, no bosses. So they were allegedly ignorant to the danger that they were being paid by a Russian influence operation and just ignorant about the source of their talking points. So, Sue, Donald Trump is infamously dismissive of accusations that Russia is meddling in U.S. politics, and a lot of the conservative voters out there have adopted this view, as have, as you mentioned, all of those influencers. Why are Trump and so many Americans reluctant to recognize that Russia is meddling in our elections? Well I mean, Cory, because Americans are getting their news. A lot of it from these YouTubers, from X posters, from from influencers. And they're looking and getting news that affirms their biases and their points of view. And then people like the Kremlin, organizations like the Kremlin, they just flood the zone with all this information. So if you're just a regular American and you keep hearing the same message over and over and over again from different sources, you're likely to start believing it. Right. And as for the U.S. lawmakers who actually say the words that Putin is thinking in Russia, they see the same disinformation that we do, and some of them, sadly, are not really big thinkers or serious people as they would say in succession. But the propaganda reinforces the bias or suspicion that they have, and they take it at face value. Now, as to why Trump doesn't believe the Russians are trying to put their thumb on the scale to help him win, well, that would take an amount of self-awareness that I don't think Trump actually possesses. So, Sue, do you think the U.S. is reactive to Russia's meddling or is there any way for us to be proactive about in other words, are we going on offense as as the US? Yeah, I'm told that the U.S. is always on alert and on offense for Russian interference. And I'd be remiss to say, if I'm pretty sure that Americans are doing something to influence efforts in Russian spheres. But experts say that keeping track of the Russian disinformation campaigns, telling regular people to try and think critically when you see things, and asking social media companies like X, this is a big one to be more vigilant. These are steps that you can take to reduce Russia's success in meddling in our political process. Put your little thinking caps on people. All right. Sue O'Connell joining us live in the newsroom. Sue, thank you for your insight, as always. And of course, you can join Sue me, Matt Prichard every Sunday morning right here on NBC 10 Boston for @Issue. We recap all the national and local headlines right after Meet the