Iran Behind Online Effort To Provoke Violence From Trump Supporters

In early December, a website materialized with a list of public figures related to the presidential election. It had names and home addresses, labeling them “enemies of the people” and overlaying crosshairs over their portraits. The FBI now says Iran was behind the effort to spur Trump supporters to violence.

The list targeted FBI Director Christopher Wray and former Homeland Security Department official Christopher Krebs, along with various state officials and employees of voting machine companies. Both Republicans and Democrats were listed, the unifying thread being their support of the election.

The website had attracted suspicion before this news, with the complexity of its hosting and intentionally public author locations in Eastern Europe. It resisted efforts to take it down by using various web archives, such as Internet Archive and the Russian V-Kontakte.

Still, the existence of the list was enough to drive some Trump supporters to violent action: It spread on social media under the hashtags #remembertheirfaces and #NoQuarterForTraitors, distributing the message that those listed were “changing votes and working against the President” to “overthrow our democracy.”

A group of them bearing rifles surrounded the home of one person on the list, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, as she was preparing to watch holiday movies with her young son. They called her a murderer and streamed the event online, ignoring pleas from neighbors that they were scaring children with their shouting.

Other members received weeks of death threats and required security details. All have now been informed that Iran was behind the attack.

“We have known since day one that foreign actors seek to undermine trust in the United States’ elections process,” one of the investigation’s officials told the Washington Post. “President Trump has perpetuated a false narrative that has allowed this type of foreign attack to penetrate the minds of American citizens.”

Iran has worked to foment division in the U.S. and front the blame onto President Trump, hoping to sabotage his reelection chances and have someone less hostile to Iran’s theocratic regime take his place. They previously sent out thousands of emails ostensibly from the Proud Boys threatening Democratic voters.