CNN
The Dallas-area strip mall office of pollster TextToSurvey is also the office of Life Corporation, which authorities say is the source of robocalls imitating President Biden. Both companies are tied to serial entrepreneur Walter Monk.
Arlington, Texas
CNN
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The mystery of an AI-generated robocall mimicking President Joe Biden’s voice, which election security officials fear signals a new frontier in the disinformation war ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Authorities were able to trace the incident to a nondescript strip mall outside Dallas.
New Hampshire’s attorney general has identified Walter Monk and his company, Life Corporation, as being behind the fake phone calls, which authorities estimate called more than 20,000 people and urged Democrats not to vote in the state’s primary. urged.
Monk is a serial entrepreneur whose long list includes companies that have been active in the political robocall industry for nearly two decades, according to a CNN review of campaign finance data and other records.
On Wednesday, 24 hours after authorities accused Life Corp. of being behind Biden’s fake phone call, no one answered the door at the company’s Arlington, Texas, office. The office shares a small strip mall with a bubble tea shop, a 100 yen shop, and a shopping mall. Blood donation center.
As a sign of Monk’s extensive corporate relationships, the names of eight additional companies are posted on the wall in Life Corporation’s office lobby (visible through a locked door). Multiple state anti-robocall task forces identified Monk in a letter this week as the “founding owner” of Life Corporation, and Monk has said in interviews and on his website that he is the owner or president of several other companies. ing. Other companies, including Mr. Monk’s daughter, share the same director, according to Texas corporate records.
Mr. Monk, 71, and other executives from both companies could not be reached for comment Wednesday. A person who answered the phone at one of Mr. Monk’s businesses on Tuesday said it was “undecided” whether the company would issue a statement because Mr. Monk is “very busy.”
Monk writes on his LinkedIn page that he is “obsessed (or obsessed?)” with starting a new business. He told local news outlets that he runs companies ranging from a lobster fishing company in Hawaii to a bar in South Dakota to a beef jerky factory in Minnesota, and after discussions with politicians he decided to enter the political polling business. He said he has decided to enter the industry. Served as a consultant during his son’s soccer games.
About 140 federal campaign and political action committees reported spending a total of about $770,000 in payments to companies with ties to Monk between 2004 and 2022, according to Federal Election Commission records. There is. Both companies made the most money from federal politics during the 2018 election cycle, but spending has declined since then, with no campaign spending reported by any company so far during the 2024 election cycle. Not yet.
Most of the spending is for robocalls, polling, marketing, text messages or similar purposes, campaign records state. The companies received payments from both Republican and Democratic PACs and campaigns, but the top spenders were Republican officials.
The biggest spender is America’s PAC, which works to persuade minority voters to support the Republican Party and is largely funded by conservative megadonor Richard Uihlein. From 2016 to 2018, Americas PAC spent more than $100,000 on polls and research for Monk’s affiliate, Voice Broadcasting, but has not reported any collaboration with the company since then.
Other political clients of Monk-affiliated companies include Gun Owners of America PAC, former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Senate campaign, and the Texas Democratic Party. And in addition to federal politics, the companies also receive compensation from various state-level campaigns, records show.
In an interview with a Fort Worth business publication, Monk said his company sent “millions of text messages and phone calls to both the Trump and Biden campaigns” in 2020 and also “sent millions of text messages and phone calls to both the Trump and Biden campaigns.” He claimed to be sending messages to “thousands of small tribes across Canada.” The company has sales of millions of dollars. However, neither the Trump nor Biden campaigns reported spending directly with Audio Broadcast or another company associated with Monk, although it is possible that they worked as subcontractors for other election vendors.
CNN
A sign on the wall of Life Corporation’s strip mall office lists various other companies with ties to the company, some of which have long histories of political involvement.
The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office said in a statement this week that the agency continues to investigate whether Life Corporation was “cooperating with or at the direction of any other person or entity” when it sent the AI-generated robocalls. He said that
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that Life Corporation and Monk were sued by then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott in 2003 over calls made to people on the state’s no-call list. was woken up. “We don’t know for sure what they’re saying,” Monk told the paper, and the outcome of the lawsuit is unclear. That same year, the Federal Communications Commission issued a complaint against Monk & Life Corporation and nine other individuals for making unsolicited advertising calls.
According to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, Life Corporation used a Texas-based provider called Ringo Telecom to send AI-generated robocalls, and when Apple learned that the calls were under investigation, Life Corporation The service has been temporarily suspended. Ringo did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Two separate analyzes by security firm Pindrop and digital forensics experts at the University of California, Berkeley, found that the fake audio was created using an AI voice creation tool called Eleven Lab.
Eleven Labs told CNN in a statement that it is “dedicated to preventing misuse of voice AI tools” and will take appropriate action in response to reports from authorities, but declined to comment on Biden’s deepfake call. Ta.
Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert and professor at the University of California, Berkeley who studies artificial intelligence, said that as AI technology becomes more readily available, authorities need to reduce the threat of AI disinformation in politics. He said the robocalls showed that they need to be taken seriously.
“This attempt to interfere with our elections was bungled, and it still took us two weeks to track down those responsible,” Farid said. “What happens when the attacks become more sophisticated and well-funded and he starts 24 hours before Election Day?”
CNN’s Yahya Abou-Ghazala and Allison Gordon contributed to this report.
