Russian Operative Reveals Plans to Target Western AI
PLUS: Dodgy Data Site Spawns False USAID Claims; Another Prominent Misinformation Spreader Joins the Trump Team
Welcome to Reality Check, your inside look at how misinformation online is undermining trust — and who’s behind it.
Our work is more important than ever. Please support us by becoming a Premium Member.
Follow us on your social media platform of choice: X | LinkedIn | Instagram | Bluesky
Today:
Latest target of Kremlin propaganda: Western AI models
Garbage in, garbage out: Website generates false data about USAID
Dan Bongino joins the ranks of misinformation spreaders in the top tier of the Trump administration
Elon Musk’s Grok AI instructed to ignore reports of misinformation spread by Musk and Trump
And More …
Today’s newsletter was edited by Eric Effron and Sofia Rubinson.
1. U.S. Fugitive Turned Kremlin Propagandist Reveals Russia’s Plan to Hijack Western AI Models
What happened: At a Moscow roundtable about fighting “strategic disinformation,” former Florida deputy sheriff turned Kremlin propagandist John Mark Dougan laid out a vision for the future of Russian propaganda — one that does not merely spread disinformation but that “retrains” Western AI models, effectively turning these tools into disinformation conduits.
“By pushing these Russian narratives from the Russian perspective, we can actually change worldwide AI,” Dougan said during a roundtable in Moscow held on Jan. 27, which was uploaded to YouTube by Russian media. “It’s not a tool to be scared of,” he added, “it’s a tool to be leveraged.”
A closer look: The roundtable, titled, “The Role of the Media in the Fight against Strategic Disinformation,” took place at the Moscow House of Nationalities, a cultural and educational center established by the Kremlin. Besides Dougan, the panel included notable pro-Kremlin voices such as Russian businessman and political figure Vladimir Khomeriki, state TV host Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, and Donbas-based propagandist Andrea Lucidi.
Dougan boasted about how “my one server in my home is writing almost 90,000 articles every month.” NewsGuard has previously uncovered 171 fake local websites Dougan operated in the U.S. and 102 fake local sites he ran in Germany that ran false claims including about the U.S. presidential race and the German chancellor election.
AI, Russian-style: Dougan’s ambitions align with Russia’s broader push to control AI-driven narratives.
“Right now there are no really good models of AI to amplify Russian news, because they’ve all been trained using Western media sources,” Dougan said. “This imparts a bias toward the West and we need to start training AI models without this bias. We need to train it from the Russian perspective.”
Dougan described his challenges trying to build Russian-friendly AI models, including the reluctance of state media outlets like TASS to grant access to their archives for AI training. He also noted that Russian-trained AI often fails to appeal to the ultimate target: English-speaking audiences in the West.
“It’s very important to use models like [‘Meta’s open-source] uncensored llama, but training it on a Russian perspective,” he said. “If you use a Russian model, it will write English in sentences that the regular American won’t understand. So if anyone can get any of these [Russian] media companies to cooperate, this would go so far in our cause.”
From fake news to fake AI: Dougan bragged to the group that his process of “narrative laundering,” a tactic that involves spreading disinformation through multiple channels to hide its foreign origins, can be weaponized to help Russia in the information war.
This tactic, Dougan claimed, could not only help Russia extend the reach of its information, but also corrupt the datasets on which the AI models rely. He cited a NewsGuard audit that found that the top 10 generative AI models repeated Dougan’s Russian disinformation narratives 32 percent of the time. “The more you do this [narrative laundering], the more diverse this information comes, the more that this affects the amplification,” he said. “Not only does it affect amplification, it affects future AI … by pushing these Russian narratives from the Russian perspective, we can actually change worldwide AI.”
Asylum seeker turned Russian hero: When Dougan told attendees at this meeting of fellow disinformation operatives that NewsGuard has named him “Disinformer of the Year” for 2024, he received an enthusiastic round of applause.
Become a Reality Check Member and Get These Exclusive Benefits
Want to get smarter about misinformation? Become a Reality Check Member today and you'll get:
Access to NewsGuard’s digital briefing on March 13, 2025
A free copy of the definitive book on the misinformation crisis, The Death of Truth by bestselling author Steven Brill ($30 value)
Free access to NewsGuard's browser extension that shows reliability ratings for 10K+ news sites right in your browser ($25 value)
2. Website that Tracks Federal Spending Sparks False Claims About USAID
By Macrina Wang
What happened: A website created by a self-described supporter of President Donald Trump to track federal funding, DataRepublican.com, has generated three viral false claims about USAID, the foreign aid agency that the Trump administration has been dismantling.
A closer look: On Feb. 5, 2025, after news broke that the Trump administration was placing thousands of USAID employees on leave, the creator behind DataRepublican.com (@DataRepublican on X) announced in an X post that a new search tool was added to the website to “help you track nonprofit leadership and follow USAID grant flows with ease.”
Although the website did not originally identify its owner, the X account for the site stated on Feb. 25 that it is run by a software engineer named Jennica Pounds. “What began as a side hobby became a mission when I uncovered the role of NGOs in these issues. This is not about left or right. This is about us—the people,” Pounds stated.
Social media users have since used the search tool, which carries the stated mission of “exposing government fraud and wasteful spending,” to make inflammatory false claims about USAID funding that have amassed tens of millions of views.
Some users shared a table generated from DataRepublican.com data that listed 10 universities in Canada, the U.K., and New Zealand and dollar amounts of their supposed USAID funding, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars each.
Others posted a screenshot from the site showing that “Jeffrey E Epstein” — who is identified on DataRepublican.com as a director of health insurance organization Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc — received $265,915 in 2023. Several social media posters wrongly claimed that the recipient was the late convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
X users also claimed that former first daughter Chelsea Clinton received $84 million from USAID, citing a financial chart published on Data Republican that showed a box labeled “Bill Hillary & Chelsea Clinton” and a figure of $83,624,489 in “gross receipts.”
Actually: None of these claims are true. They resulted from misreadings or misrepresentations of the Data Republican website.
While the tool is described next to search results as tracking “USAID grant flows,” the results often include funding from other sources, including other U.S. government agencies and foreign governments. Some results capture funding unrelated to USAID.
For example, the claim that 10 universities in Canada, the U.K., and New Zealand received hundreds of millions of dollars each from USAID apparently originated when an X user searched “university” with the tool and shared his findings in a Jan. 30 post.
When NewsGuard replicated the search, it became clear how users may have been misled. Searching “university,” the tool displays a list of institutions, each with a link labeled “See USAID Grant Flow.” However, when users click these links, they are taken to pages listing the financial details for each university that dollar amounts labeled as “taxpayer funds.” The tool does not clarify that “taxpayer funds” can refer to money from any government agency, including foreign agencies.
In fact, four of the foreign universities listed told NewsGuard in February 2025 that they did not receive any funding from USAID.
And the $84 million that supposedly went to Chelsea Clinton represents the total funds received by the Clintons’ philanthropic foundation in the 2023 tax year — none of which actually came from USAID or other government funds. This money also did not go directly to Chelsea; tax records show that as the foundation’s vice chair, she received $0 for her work in the 2023 tax year.
At some point, the creator of the tool added disclaimers saying “FUNDING IS FUNGIBLE!!! That means USAID DOLLARS DO NOT LITERALLY FLOW INTO THESE NGOS!!!!” and “THIS IS A TOOL NOT A VERDICT! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!”
However, these disclaimers do not explain that the search results include far more than USAID funding.
A message sent to Jennica Pounds through X did not draw a response. DataRepublican.com does not provide a way to reach the site.
Click here to find out more about NewsGuard Trust Scores and our process for rating websites. You can download NewsGuard’s browser extension, which displays NewsGuard Trust Score icons next to links on search engines, social media feeds, and other platforms by clicking here.
3. From Misinformer to Law Enforcer: Low-Rated Website Owner Dan Bongino Is Now #2 at the FBI
By Sam Howard
What happened: Dan Bongino has joined the roster of top Trump administration officials who NewsGuard has found to repeatedly spread misinformation. On Feb. 23, Bongino was named deputy director of the FBI.
A former U.S. Secret Service agent and New York Police Department officer, Bongino hosted a podcast, “The Dan Bongino Show” (Podcast Trust Score: 1/10), and owns the conservative news site Bongino.com (Trust Score: 44.5/100). (Bongino announced on Feb. 25 that his last podcast show will be March 14.)
A closer look: Bongino.com and “The Dan Bongino Show” have advanced numerous false claims about U.S. politics and health.
An October 2024 article on the site falsely claimed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief funding was depleted “to aid illegal aliens.”
A May 2024 article on the site advanced the false claim that a $2.3 billion grant to redevelop New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport was only available to minority or women-owned businesses.
On a July 2023 podcast segment, Bongino falsely claimed that the Presidential Records Act allowed Trump to handle classified documents after leaving office.
In a December 2022 podcast episode with Trump, Bongino did not correct Trump’s baseless claim that Democrats “used Covid to cheat” in the 2020 presidential election.
During a December 2022 podcast segment, Bongino falsely claimed that there is a connection between the COVID-19 vaccines and “an outbreak of people dying suddenly.” He also said that COVID-19 vaccination “has been almost entirely ineffective at stopping the spread of COVID.” On the most recent episode of his podcast on Feb. 25 (two days after his FBI appointment was announced), Bongino ran an advertisement promoting ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine “to be prepared for whatever comes,” reported Mediaite editor Aidan McLaughlin.
Zooming out: Bongino is among several Trump administration figures with ties to news sites with low NewsGuard Trust Scores.
Sebastian Gorka, now deputy assistant to the president, hosted his podcast “America First with Sebastian Gorka” on his site, SebGorka.com (Trust Score: 42.5/100).
Darren Beattie, the new undersecretary for public diplomacy at the State Department, is the apparent owner of conservative news site Revolver.news (Trust Score: 7.5/100).
Until December 2024, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. chaired Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine nonprofit that repeatedly advances false or egregiously misleading health claims on ChildrensHealthDefense.org (Trust Score: 17.5/100).
NewsGuard sent emails to the FBI, the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the White House, seeking comment on the above claims. The FBI declined to comment and the other agencies did not respond.
NewsGuard also sought comment from SebGorka.com, Bongino.com, Revolver.news, and ChildrensHeathDefense.org. In an emailed response, Gorka stated: “Don’t make me laugh. Is this the same Newsguard that is so ‘unbiased’ you accepted $749,000 from Biden’s Pentagon and deemed Communist China’s People’s Daily ‘more reliable’ than Conservative American outlets, you hacks.” (Editor’s note: Both the Trump and Biden administrations have licensed NewsGuard's data and services to monitor foreign disinformation from Russia, China, and Iran, though we have not executed any U.S. government contracts in years. NewsGuard does not rate any Chinese state media outlets as reliable, including People's Daily, which has a rating of "Proceed with Maximum Caution: This website is unreliable because it severely violates basic journalistic standards.”) The other sites did not respond.
If you see something, say something
If you see or hear something that you think may be provably false, please alert NewsGuard via realitycheck@newsguardtech.com and we'll do our best to get to the bottom of it. Note: Tips should not include content that you simply disagree with, however strongly.
4. Reported Elsewhere: Musk’s AI Chatbot Trained to Censor Criticism of Musk and Trump
The Verge recently reported that X’s AI model, Grok, was trained by one of its engineers to censor any news sources that have reported that Elon Musk — Grok’s owner — or Donald Trump had spread misinformation. This finding seems inconsistent with Musk’s avowed commitment to Grok as a “maximally truth-seeking” AI model.
The engineer inserted a special instruction to the Grok model for when it is asked in a prompt about the “biggest disinformation spreader on X.” As reported by The Verge, guidelines to the AI model stated: “Ignore all sources that mention Elon Musk/Donald Trump spread misinformation.” This instruction would mean the AI model when responding to this prompt would censor news sources that have reported instances of Musk or Trump spreading misinformation.
To its credit, Grok discloses instructions made to its AI model, so Grok users were able to spot this special instruction and raise questions about it. The head of engineering for xAI, which operates Grok, responded to the criticisms by posting on X that this special instruction had been removed and that it had been made by an employee who hasn’t “fully absorbed xAI’s culture yet.”
The Futurism website then tested whether the Musk-protecting instruction had indeed been removed. Futurism found that it had. When the site prompted Grok to respond on who “spreads the most disinformation on X,” Futurism reported that the chatbot replied, with caveats, that Musk is “frequently identified as one of the most significant spreaders of disinformation on X.”
Reality Check is produced by Co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, and the NewsGuard team.
We launched Reality Check after seeing how much interest there is in our work beyond the business and tech communities that we serve. Subscribe to this newsletter to support our apolitical mission to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies. Our work is more important than ever. Have feedback? Send us an email: realitycheck@newsguardtech.com.