WASHINGTON — The Justice Department will crack down on agents who are working to advance foreign agendas in the United States, Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, said on Thursday as he warned of a growing Russian threat to the United States.
Influence operations undertaken by foreign governments “are a form of information warfare,” Mr. Rosenstein said in a speech at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. “The Russian effort to influence the 2016 presidential election is just one tree in a growing forest.”
Mr. Rosenstein, whose remarks came as he delivered a report from the Justice Department’s cyberdigital task force, said that the government would step up enforcement of laws governing foreign agents and inform victims when they had been targeted in influence schemes.
His speech followed a week in which Russian influence was once again shown to have a transformative impact on modern American political life.
Last Friday, Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers for stealing and disseminating information from the Clinton campaign to influence the race.
On Monday, the Justice Department accused Maria Butina, a Russian who tried to broker a secret meeting between President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, with carrying out a secret plot to get Republican Party leaders to support pro-Russian policies.
Ms. Butina privately compared herself to a Soviet-era propagandist and used her personal connections with the National Rifle Association and religious organizations to further her goals.
“These actions are persistent, they are pervasive, and they are meant to undermine America’s democracy on a daily basis, regardless of whether it is election time or not,” Mr. Rosenstein said. “Russian intelligence officers did not stumble onto the ideas of hacking American computers and posting misleading messages because they had a free afternoon. It is what they do every day.”
