It has been revealed that Russian spies hired an ex-US marine to spread rumors to smear the Kamala Harris campaign, including the allegations that her running mate Tim Walz groped his former students.

Documents obtained by European intelligence exposed former Florida county sheriff's deputy John Mark Dougan for working directly with Russian military intelligence to interfere in the US elections, per a report from The Telegraph which summarized the documents seen by the Washington Post. Dougan, who was described by the outlet as a "serial Kremlin propagandist," ran a fake news site which then received funding from Russian military intelligence (GRU) to skyrocket the site's popularity as "one of the most formidable sources of misinformation targeting US voters in recent months," The Telegraph writes.

Dougan is believed to be responsible for an AI-generated video which US officials accuse Russia of creating which smeared Walz and went viral on social media, receiving 5 million views in 24 hours on X. In the video, a man supposedly named Matthew Metro spewed abuse allegations about Walz, from his time as a teacher at a high school in Minnesota, where the man in the video was allegedly a student.

However, the real Matthew Metro reportedly lives in Hawaii and looks completely different from the man in the video. While he did attend Minnesota high school at the time, an investigation from The Post revealed he was never Walz' student.

Dougan fled to Moscow and claimed to be operating independently of the Kremlin. However, the documents show he was closely tied with a senior GRU officer within a unit responsible for cyber warfare and political interference in the West. Dougan is also reportedly subsidized and directed by a Russian institute founded by one who has been referred to as "Putin's Brain," Alexander Dugin.