David Corn, the author of the newly published book How Russia Won: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Fight for America, has become the subject of the exact kind of covert Russian interference he spent years chronicling. In a first-person article for Mother Jones, adapted from his newsletter Our Land, Corn revealed that a Russian disinformation unit known as Matryoshka—named after the iconic Russian nesting dolls—has been creating and circulating fake videos that use his image, his name, and the branding of both CNN and Mother Jones to spread false and often bizarre allegations against Democratic candidates ahead of the midterm elections. The book, which had been published only two weeks earlier, concludes with a warning that Moscow would likely attack the ongoing midterms to help Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Within days of its release, media outlets were reporting that Russian disinformation operatives, using phony social media accounts, had begun hurling derogatory material at Democrats. Then the operation widened to include a fake version of Corn promoting a nonexistent book called Enemies of Democracy for Dummies. A purported CNN segment showed the fake Corn saying the book would contain “over 300 stories related to crimes committed by members of the Democratic Party.” Another fabricated quote attributed to Corn said: “Apparently, there’s a fissure somewhere in the US that leads straight to hell; otherwise, I don’t understand where all these devils from the Democratic Party are coming from.” The same video asserted that information from the book would “further damage the Democrats’ reputation and standing ahead of the elections.” Corn described the situation as “a bizarre snake-eating-its-tail situation”—a journalist who wrote a book warning about Russian disinformation had now been absorbed into a Russian disinformation operation.
Matryoshka is one of several secret Russian disinformation units Corn documents in his book, and it has been active for some time. During the 2024 campaign, the group used accounts on X and other platforms to spread a stream of lies about Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Harris, according to the fake accounts, had an abortion at 17, was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s, had a grandfather who was a communist, and was connected to Pfizer and Big Pharma. Matryoshka also produced videos designed to look like CNN news segments, including one in which supposed Hollywood celebrities trashed Democrats in vulgar terms, using the phrase “Nazi whores.” More recently, the group manufactured fake CNN spots with damaging, fabricated information about Democratic senatorial candidates. One alleged that Texas candidate James Talarico “despises” Hasidic Jews because they do not allow gender-affirmation treatment. Another claimed Ohio’s Sherrod Brown owned a business that had caused the bee population to decline by a factor of nine. A third said Georgia’s Jon Ossoff had called for a complete halt to military aid to Israel and for all resources to be redirected to Ukraine. While Corn was working on a story about those videos, @antibot4navalny, an anonymous group of activists who track Russian disinformation, alerted him that Matryoshka had also posted on X a supposed Mother Jones video claiming that the Democratic Party had paid $289 million to Mark Thompson, the head of CNN, so the cable network would run reports that “promote gender transition among minors.” Corn published an article exposing that absurd allegation, and after a lawyer for Mother Jones contacted X, the company removed the fraudulent video.
But Matryoshka was not finished with Mother Jones or with Corn. On Friday, @antibot4navalny alerted Corn to a new fake CNN video posted by an obvious bot account on X. The video purported to show Corn promoting a new book—but not How Russia Won. Instead, the book was called Enemies of Democracy for Dummies, and the video declared it would feature more than 300 stories about crimes committed by Democrats. The video displayed a made-up quote from Corn: “Apparently, there’s a fissure somewhere in the US that leads straight to hell; otherwise, I don’t understand where all these devils from the Democratic Party are coming from.” It also asserted that information from the fake book would “further damage the Democrats’ reputation and standing ahead of the elections.” Mother Jones published screenshots of the video, which included the Mother Jones logo in the top right corner and ominous synth music. The segment was one and a half minutes long and ended with a card reading “Read more at MotherJones.com.” Corn made clear that none of this was true, though he joked that Enemies of Democracy for Dummies was not a bad title for a book. A lawyer for Mother Jones again contacted X, but because it was the weekend, the video remained online. It looked as if it had drawn nearly 200,000 views, but Corn was reliably informed that Matryoshka was using bots to inflate the count and that the post likely reached only a few thousand real X users. The video was, in Corn’s view, more an irritation than a cause for great concern—but it was also a demonstration of how easily a journalist’s identity can be weaponized.
Matryoshka went on to use old bot accounts, some created as many as 12 years ago, to spew out at least nine sham Mother Jones videos, each promoting an outrageous but spurious allegation against a Democratic candidate. One video “revealed” that a Democratic senatorial candidate was a closeted gay man who hid his sexual orientation to maintain a luxurious lifestyle, had previously been accused of embezzling public funds to pay for male sex workers, and, according to the fake Corn, “dated underaged boys and had sexual relations with them.” The fake Corn added, “As a gay man, I find it outrageous that a gay man would hide behind a woman to maintain his lavish lifestyle.” Corn noted that he is not gay. Another video claimed a Democratic candidate for governor who served in Vietnam was suspected of killing 37 civilians in a massacre. A third said a different gubernatorial candidate had recruited minors into sex work and, while working for the Girl Scouts, organized sex parties for Democratic Party members. A fourth accused another candidate of causing a fatal car accident while under the influence of alcohol. A fifth claimed a Democratic gubernatorial nominee sold crack to college students, resulting in 17 deaths. Each video used the same template: footage of Corn, a written quote from the fabricated book, the Mother Jones logo, and dramatic background music. Corn said he deliberately avoided linking to the videos or naming the candidates, because they were lies designed to damage the candidates. The videos were all in the same style, and they seemed too absurd to have much impact, but they were part of a coordinated campaign.
Corn wrote that he has been asked by colleagues and friends if he is frightened. His answer: not yet. But the experience is unnerving. “It’s a demonstration of how easy it is to be misrepresented and exploited by unidentified scoundrels,” he wrote. “And, as we all know, it’s tough to beat back a lie on the internet. We’re all vulnerable to a cyber assault.” He compared the fake videos to a “brushback pitch”—a baseball term for a pitch thrown close to a batter to intimidate. The videos, he said, were too silly to have much impact, and their view counts were artificially inflated by bots. The real reach was likely small. But the fact that a foreign adversary could deploy a fake video of a real journalist, complete with the logos of legitimate news organizations, was a warning about the information environment. X did not immediately respond to a request to delete the posts with the videos, and because of the weekend delay, they remained online for hours or longer. For Corn, the larger concern was not the individual lies about him, but what the operation represented: a sustained effort by Russia to interfere in the midterm elections, boost Trump and the Republicans, and undermine trust in American democracy. He noted that the operation had already targeted the Democratic Party with a flood of false accusations, and now it was using his identity to lend those accusations a false aura of journalistic credibility.
With five weeks to go before Election Day, Corn asked how extensive Putin’s war on the midterms might become and how far Moscow would go to boost Trump and the Republicans. He predicted that if Trump tries to spark chaos and a crisis with accusations of vote fraud or actions to interfere with the election and the vote tally, Putin’s disinformation army would do whatever it could to bolster false claims and conspiracy theories—or cook up its own. Corn wrote that one reason he wrote How Russia Won was to counter the false “Russia, Russia, Russia” narrative peddled relentlessly for years by Trump, Republicans, MAGA influencers, and right-wing media personalities who denied Russia had been covertly intervening in US elections. By echoing Putin’s denials, these “useful idiots” had been complicit in a foreign adversary’s attack on American democracy. The Matryoshka operation, by incorporating truly fake news about Corn, had proved the premise of his book: the United States has been under continuous assault from Moscow, which has schemed to assist Trump and the Republicans. For Corn, the episode was both personal and symbolic. He had written a book to call attention to Russian disinformation, and now he was being used by Russian disinformation to subvert the midterms. The experience demonstrated that no one is immune—not even a journalist who literally wrote the book on the subject. In the final weeks of the campaign, the question was not whether Russia would try to interfere, but how aggressively, and whether the American public would be able to recognize the lies.