Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco Delivers Remarks at the 2024 American Bar Association General Assembly

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Thank you, Mary, for that generous introduction, for your leadership, and for the opportunity to speak today.

I’m especially honored to be here as the ABA holds its first-ever Democracy Summit.  

By making the Summit the centerpiece of its Annual Meeting — and by convening a distinguished set of leaders on the Task Force for American Democracy — the ABA is leading the way at a critical time for our nation.

I want to thank the Task Force for reminding us that we all have a responsibility — and an obligation – as lawyers and as citizens to preserve our democratic institutions, to defend the Constitution, uphold the rule of law, and build trust in our election system.

This work comes at a crucial moment – at a time when our democracy is facing a test of its mettle — by threats of violence, foreign influence, and false information fueled by AI. 

But we have confronted challenging periods before and persevered.

Indeed, the Justice Department was founded during Reconstruction — an inflection point in the progress of our country — with a mandate to protect the civil rights of Black Americans, and to combat the white supremacists who sought to disenfranchise them.

Yet today, the Justice Department’s mission remains — to uphold the rule of law, keep our communities safe, and protect civil rights.

And there is nothing more important to that mission than defending democracy.

Our republic depends on the operation of a free and fair electoral process — with results that are respected and with elections that are free from violence and free from foreign interference.

So, I’d like to continue the conversation from today’s Summit about our role — and our collective work — to protect our democracy. 

This year, more than four billion people around the world will have the opportunity to vote — in democracies of every shape and size.

But as we prepare to cast ballots here in America, our own democracy is being tested — including by an increasingly polarized political landscape and an alarming increase in threats of violence to public officials.

As Deputy Attorney General, I see this play out across the nation nearly every day.

I receive daily urgent reports — reports that come in from the field, from our 94 U.S. Attorneys across the country.

And over the past few years, the frequency of reports involving threats of violence has skyrocketed.

On a weekly basis — and often multiple times in a week — I get reports about violent threats to public officials, prosecutors, law enforcement agents, judges, and election workers.

This was brought into stark and disturbing relief three weeks ago with the horrific attempted assassination of the former President.

While the gunman’s motive is still not clear — and the FBI’s exhaustive investigation is ongoing — make no mistake: this attack on the former President at a campaign event was a direct attack on our democracy.

Political violence has no place in this country – not then, not now, not ever.

We must reject such violence in the strongest possible terms, regardless of purpose or party.

At the Justice Department, we do this by faithfully applying the rule of law, without fear or favor — and by protecting the public from all threats, foreign and domestic.

The threats we face are constant — and constantly evolving: from cyber and terrorism threats, to foreign interference with elections, and now, to a disturbing rise in violence and threats of violence aimed at public officials — including election workers.

Today, these threats are being supercharged by emerging technologies like artificial intelligence.

The bottom line is that threats to our elections pose a clear and present danger.

Our biggest challenges often require a whole-of-government response.

But this challenge – the threat to our elections and our democratic institutions – requires a whole-of-nation response.

It will take all of our efforts to protect our elections and secure our democracy.

Nowhere is this more true than when it comes to foreign malign influence.

Foreign malign influence is not a new problem — but today’s complex geopolitical environment, and the anonymity and access our interconnected world offers, change the nature of the threat and how we must address it.

We know that the goal of malign foreign actors is to sow discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions and values — and in some instances, to covertly influence our elections.

These malign foreign influence operations can take many forms — false personas, fabricated and divisive narratives, and synthetic content disseminated through technology like deepfakes.

And these threats are coming from an increasingly diverse, growing, and more capable group of foreign actors who are and will continue trying to influence our elections in November.

One of our most important tasks is to expose and build resilience against these efforts.

We are less than 100 days out from Election Day, and the Intelligence Community has made clear that Russia remains the predominant foreign threat to our elections.

Putin and his proxies are using increasingly sophisticated techniques in their interference operations.

They’re targeting specific voter demographics and swing-state voters in an effort to manipulate presidential and congressional election outcomes.

They’re intent on co-opting unwitting Americans on social media to push narratives advancing Russian interests.

They’re working to diminish American support for Ukraine.

And they’re always adapting.

As the Intelligence Community recently shared, Russia is trying to reach U.S. audiences through encrypted direct-messaging apps – moving out of public channels and into private ones, to better conceal the Kremlin’s intentions and enhance its targeting of U.S. voters.

We know from recent intelligence that Iran is also accelerating its efforts.

Relying on vast webs of online personas and propaganda, Iranian government actors are using the Israel-Gaza conflict as kerosene to fuel tensions on social media – with some even creating accounts posing as activists and calling for protests.

I want to be clear: Tehran is working to influence the presidential election.

China looms large as well. Intelligence shows that PRC influence actors are using social media to portray democracies as chaotic and to sow division in the United States.

The PRC hopes to expand its ability to collect and monitor Americans’ data on our social media platforms, to better understand – and eventually manipulate – public opinion.

Unfortunately, foreign actors who seek to exploit our internal divisions have a lot to work with.

And in our increasingly polarized environment, social media is the perfect Petri dish for bad guys to spawn division and discord, misuse advanced technology like AI, and threaten our elections.

We are working tirelessly to confront these adversaries and combat foreign malign influence.

Through the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, we are identifying and counteracting foreign operations that target our democratic institutions, with a specific focus on our elections.

Now, foreign malign influence takes root and spreads across online platforms that are tremendous sources of free speech and creativity.

As we counter those who seek to exploit this space and undermine our democracy, we must preserve that freedom.

Part of our strategy involves sharing threat information with companies that operate social media platforms, so that these companies may take their own independent actions to mitigate those threats.

That includes sharing information about specific accounts on their platforms involved in foreign malign influence activity.

Our focus is on the foreign actors behind the accounts, exposing their hidden hand.   

As the FBI makes clear when sharing such information, it’s entirely up to companies what they do in response to these threats on their platforms.

But throughout this process, we are steadfast in our commitment: we will provide companies with actionable intelligence so they can make decisions regarding abuse of their platforms by adversaries conducting foreign malign influence operations, including ones targeting our elections.

And while our adversaries try to hide their hand – we show our work.

Because we recognize that transparency about how we conduct this work is as important as the work itself — including how we do so while protecting First Amendment rights.

That’s why, this week — for the first time — we made public a description of our procedures for sharing foreign malign influence threat information with tech companies, which the FBI implemented earlier this year.

As we carry out this work, we will continue to keep the public updated not only about why we are doing it, but also how.

To strengthen our democracy, we must keep improving our transparency.

Because in today’s world no matter how well intentioned, closed processes and unknown procedures breed cynicism and distrust.

But foreign influence isn’t the only threat we face. Other dangers originate closer to home.

As I said before, violent threats toward public officials are on the rise.

These include threats against those who protect our ability to exercise our most sacred right — the right to vote.

Over the last two years, the Justice Department has prosecuted nearly 700 threats cases. I can tell you that more than half of those threats — about 400 — have targeted federal and state public officials, judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and election workers.

These threats are unacceptable. No one should endure threats of violence simply for doing their job.

For the right to vote to be real for every American, election officials— who are often volunteers — must be able to do their jobs free from improper influence, physical threats, or any other conduct designed to intimidate.

So we are deploying every resource to ensure that all those involved in the democratic process – including election officials and poll workers — remain safe, and that the right to vote is available to all eligible voters.

We investigate threats without regard to the victim’s political views or party affiliation.

And in the past several years, we have prosecuted multiple threats against both Republican and Democratic members of Congress.

This work is carried out by career prosecutors and FBI agents across the country, who are dedicated to investigating election crimes.

Together, they work hand in glove with state and local law enforcement to receive reports of threats and other crimes — and to address them.

To bolster those efforts, we established an Election Threats Task Force – to investigate and prosecute the growing threats to our election process and to the public servants who secure it.

After all, these are the people who ensure we can exercise our most fundamental right — the right to vote — the right that secures all the other rights.

Just last week, an Alabama man pleaded guilty to sending death threats via Instagram to election workers in Maricopa County, Arizona.

And we will not hesitate to bring more of these cases when supported by the facts and the law.

Because a threat to any election official, worker, or volunteer is, at bottom, a threat to democracy.

Perhaps the most disruptive and novel threat to our democratic process comes from the misuse of AI.

The misuse of AI:

• To embolden those threatening election workers and the integrity of our elections;
• To enable wrongdoers to hide their identity;
• To provide new avenues to misinform and threaten voters through deepfakes that contain altered video or cloned audio; and 
• To foster new methods to recruit and radicalize, with incendiary social media content and online harassment and hate.

So we are using all our authorities to make clear that we will not tolerate the misuse of AI to execute and enhance violent threats and voter intimidation.

That’s why just last week, in a statement of interest filed by the Civil Rights Division, we stood up for the principle that voter intimidation must be stopped — whether in person or via AI-generated robocalls.

That’s why three weeks ago, in a first-of-its-kind operation, our agents and prosecutors disrupted nearly one thousand social media accounts used by Russian actors and an AI-enhanced bot farm to spread disinformation andfuel division among Americans.

These are just the latest examples of our commitment to crack down on misuse of AI.

Because every eligible voter has the right to cast a ballot free of coercion, or intimidation, no matter how high-tech.

Now, this work to protect our democracy is not something any of us can do on our own.

As the Task Force on American Democracy and today’s Summit make clear — we need to tackle big challenges together.

The influence of foreign malign actors on elections, threats against public servants, and the misuse of advanced technology all feed on what today’s Summit powerfully describes as the contempt in our discourse.

Disagreement and debate are essential for a healthy democracy. But those disagreements and debates must not push us toward violence – they should align us in common cause.

In 1861, a lawyer from Illinois known for his stovepipe hat urged his fellow citizens to be touched by the “better angels of our nature.”

As threats to our elections converge around us, now is the moment for all of us to step up and to show those better angels at work.

The future of democracy may depend on it.

Thank you.