OPINION:
It’s an election year. That means President Biden’s intelligence agencies and Justice Department are stirring up visions of foreign election interference, this time via “bots” and other internet influencers.
But they can look much closer to home, say right at the White House, where Mr. Biden is acting like a bot farmer by sending out disinformation under a web address similar to former President Donald Trump’s.
On July 9, the Justice Department and the director of national intelligence put out statements on their war against foreign disinformation.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, who conservatives believe is there to prosecute Mr. Biden’s political adversaries such as Mr. Trump, said the Justice-intelligence team had taken down a Kremlin-operated bot farm. It used artificial intelligence to create fake American personas to “disseminate disinformation to sow discord in the United States and elsewhere,” the Justice Department said.
Meanwhile, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said: “The Intelligence Community recognizes the importance of informing the public of foreign efforts to influence our democratic processes and, consequently, leading into the Presidential and congressional elections this year, we are launching today the first of what will be regular updates regarding such threats.”
Not said is when this Biden administration effort will mature into news media reports that Mr. Trump is behind the whole foreign bot scheme. Rest assured, it’s coming.
Let’s examine how the White House is putting out this bot-type disinformation.
I had thought Mr. Biden was principally running on putting people in jail. The Jan. 6 Trump supporters and Mr. Trump himself, while casting the former president’s “MAGA” voters as the worst Americans ever.
Then I found out his campaign rests on going after the brainy Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025 on how conservatives can gain and keep power.
What a Biden rallying cry: “Down with Heritage.” Sure, it’s a well-endowed Washington think tank. But it’s probably not right on the tips of the tongues of working Americans struggling with inflation under Mr. Biden. Let’s see how Heritage polls with taxes, inflation and Mr. Biden’s illegal migrant criminals.
The Biden campaign says the project’s conservative ideas are extreme and ties them on a daily basis to Mr. Trump, who says he had nothing to do with the project.
Then, this unfolded. As the Biden war drums pounded, Make America Great Again Inc., the Trump-aligned super PAC, bought a domain, Trumpproject2025.com. A PAC insider told me the idea was to capitalize on all the Biden web searches on Project 2025 by diverting traffic to MAGA’s new web address.
The site is simple: On one page, it talks about how Mr. Biden is a horrible president and how Mr. Trump will save America. It lists his, and his alone’s, policy proposals in contrast with the voluminous Heritage-led blueprint.
Under the headline “Two Choices,” the site says, “President Trump will end Biden’s inflation nightmare. President Trump will lower gas prices with this plan to unleash American energy.”
In response, the Biden-Harris campaign launched a botlike attack with Mr. Biden as spokesman.
Adorned in aviator glasses, the president went on his official @JoeBiden X account to shake his finger at you, the viewer and say, “Project 2025 will destroy America. Look it up.”
He displays the Trump website, distorted by adding a “s” — Trumpsproject2025.com.
That site takes voters to list all the awful things that Mr. Trump says he will do. The problem is, none of them are his campaign positions. Mr. Biden is a bad liar. He’s also not good at bot-type disinformation.
“Takes away reproductive freedom nationwide.” Mr. Trump does not propose a ban on abortion.
“Uses the presidency for revenge on Trump’s political and personal enemies,” trumpsproject2025.com says. Mr. Trump does not propose this. Mr. Biden is actually doing this.
The website explains Mr. Trump has used Justice to target his political adversaries. In 2022, Mr. Biden said he was using his powers to personally “making sure” Mr. Trump could not run again. His Justice Department has indicted Mr. Trump twice.
Mr. Biden’s bot farm also says Mr. Trump is “terminating your health care and cutting your social security.” Not true.
These are more bot-type lies that Mr. Garland should investigate for interfering in an election with a bogus website.
The MAGA PAC insider told me, “It’s just another example of the Biden team’s lies on this.”
Former Trump White House activist Stephen Miller has formed America First Legal. It has become a conservative force in Washington by filing lawsuits to uncover Mr. Biden’s schemes and stop liberal tyranny.
After the Biden-Harris campaign tweeted that Trumpproject2025.com was endorsing the Heritage plan when it is doing the opposite, Mr. Miller responded: “Hoaxers never gonna quit hoaxing. http://Trumpproject2025.com is a superpac website that has precisely zero to do with the Heritage effort. Your entire campaign is just hoaxes all the way down. Hoax on top of hoax on top of hoax.”
On his Truth Social platform, Mr. Trump posted: “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it. The Radical Left Democrats are having a field day, however, trying to hook me into whatever policies are stated or said. It is pure disinformation on their part.”
• Rowan Scarborough is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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