NEW YORK — A veteran political consultant on the Dean Phillips campaign payroll confessed to a deep-fake robocalls designed to undermine President Biden in the New Hampshire presidential primary. Steve Kramer said the idea for the hoax was entirely his own and had nothing to do with Phillips, a Minnesota congresan seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. Why did Kramer do it? He likened himself to American Revolutionary heroes Thomas Paine and Paul Revere. From the start, Kramer said, he saw the robocall as as an act of civil disobedience to call attention to the dangers of artificial intelligence in politics. “This is a way for me to make a difference, and I have,” he said in an interview. “For $500, I got about $5 million worth of action, whether that be media attention or regulatory action.” Kramer expressed no remorse. He acknowledged being receiving a subpoena from the Federal Communications Commission. Prosecutions could mean jail time, he said.
Earlier: Prosecution ahead for fake election robocalls?