Chad Sweet Discusses Foreign Election Interference and AI in IGP Roundtable

As the November presidential election approaches, American intelligence officials are warning of escalating foreign interference efforts by adversaries seeking to undermine trust in democratic institutions and influence US politics. From cyberattacks to online propaganda and disinformation fueled by AI, nations including Russia, Iran, and China are ramping up attempts to manipulate public opinion and exacerbate political division in the US.

On October 1, Chad Sweet, former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief of staff and CEO of the Chertoff Group, a security risk management and growth advisory firm, discussed the ongoing threat of foreign influence campaigns during a student roundtable hosted by Columbia SIPA’s Institute of Global Politics (IGP), where he is a Carnegie Distinguished Fellow. Sweet spoke about how interference tactics have evolved, the impact of AI on disinformation operations, and the role of the private sector in developing solutions and protecting election integrity.

“This is the third presidential election where we will have significant foreign interference, but what makes this one unique is that it’s really the first AI-supercharged election,” said Sweet, who was joined by Evan Wolff, adjunct professor of international and public affairs at SIPA and cochair of cyber and privacy practice at law firm Crowell & Moring.

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Sweet highlighted that Russia and Iran are interfering on opposite sides in the US election, despite being allies in Ukraine and the Middle East. The Russians, he noted, want a future Trump administration because they believe it will pressure Ukraine to reach a settlement, while the Iranians want a Harris administration because they think the US will be more sympathetic to the plight of Gazans and potentially reopen the Iran nuclear talks. “What’s interesting is we have two actors which are normally aligned – Russia and Iran – that actually want different outcomes in this election, so their interventions are creating a really toxic environment of confusing, clashing foreign interference signals,” Sweet said.

Last month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed indictments against two employees of RT, a Russian state media network, involved in a scheme to pay a Tennessee company to produce and spread pro-Russia videos on social media platforms. Indictments in two other cases were also unsealed, revealing the DOJ’s seizure of 32 web domains used to spread Russian propaganda in the Doppelganger campaign and charges against three Iranian nationals working for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to hack into the Trump presidential campaign. Sweet stressed that making these documents public was an important strategic move as they reveal to citizens, state, and local government officials, along with private sector businesses, how foreign adversaries employ tactics in interference operations.

Sweet said he believes the “bulk of the cyber talent” is in the private sector and is leading “innovation in the field” rather than the government. Therefore, it’s critical to involve cybersecurity firms and the commercial cybersecurity industrial base in developing new technologies and strategies to combat foreign interference. He cited initiatives like CrowdStrike and Microsoft’s botnet-dismantling efforts as two examples.

Later in the conversation, Sweet and Wolff discussed the challenges of authentication, attribution, and retribution of cyberattacks and deepfake audio, photo, and video content. “At the heart of any deterrence policy is a stated doctrine of attribution and retribution, and we don’t have a stated policy on AI right now,” Sweet lamented.

“The threat of foreign interference is here and it’s going to stay because the cost for our adversaries to do this is very low, our ability to get accurate attribution is very challenging, and they know that, so the cost-benefit analysis is quite attractive,” Sweet said.

The panelists emphasized the importance of bipartisan efforts to address cybersecurity and election security issues. They discussed the potential for legislation to provide civil and criminal penalties for disinformation and support for social media companies in moderating content.

Sweet concluded by reminding students to look at the content they consume online with a discerning eye.

“If you see a highly disruptive video of any kind online, pause before you click, stop before you forward, and really play a role as a citizen to question it,” he said.