Magician: Dem Operative Paid for Fake Biden Robocall

A New Orleans magician said a Democrat consultant paid him to use artificial intelligence to create a phony President Joe Biden robocall urging New Hampshire Democrats not to vote in the state’s presidential primary, NBC News reported.

Paul Carpenter claims to have been hired by Steve Kramer, who has worked on ballot access for Democrat Dean Phillips, a presidential candidate. Carpenter says he used AI software to imitate Biden’s voice.

“I created the audio used in the robocall,” Carpenter told NBC News. “I did not distribute it. I was in a situation where someone offered me some money to do something, and I did it. There was no malicious intent. I didn’t know how it was going to be distributed.”

Carpenter, who holds a world record in fork-bending, has no fixed address, but is living in New Orleans, NBC News said.

The fake Biden call is at the center of a multistate law enforcement investigation. Law enforcement officials have interest in the call for possibly violating state voter suppression and federal telecom laws. Carpenter and Kramer have not been named as targets of any investigations.

It took less than 20 minutes to create the fake audio and cost just $1, Carpenter said. He said he was paid $150 and shared Venmo payments from Kramer and his father, Bruce Kramer.

“It’s so scary that it’s this easy to do,” Carpenter said. “People aren’t ready for it.”

Kramer, a longtime political operative, worked for numerous campaigns over 20 years, including the 2020 presidential campaign of Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, NBC News said.

Contacted by NBC News, Kramer said he will wait to speak on the matter until he publishes something Saturday. “My op-Ed will explain all,” he said in a text.

Phillips expressed outrage when asked about Kramer’s alleged involvement. Phillips’ spokesperson said the campaign would never work with Kramer again and may pursue legal action if the allegations are confirmed.

NBC News noted it has seen no evidence that the campaign directed Kramer to produce or disseminate the robocall.

According to records from the Federal Election Commission, Kramer was paid $259,946 by the Phillips’ campaign for ballot access work in  December and January.

“If it is true that Mr. Kramer had any involvement in the creation of deepfake robocalls, he did so of his own volition which had nothing to do with our campaign,” Phillips’ press secretary Katie Dolan said. “The fundamental notion of our campaign is the importance of competition, choice, and democracy. We are disgusted to learn that Mr. Kramer is allegedly behind this call, and if the allegations are true, we absolutely denounce his actions.”

In January, House Administration Committee ranking member Joseph Morelle, a New York Democrat, asked the Department of Justice to “immediately” launch an investigation into the robocalls generated by AI featuring Biden’s voice urging New Hampshire Democrats not to vote in January’s primary.

The robocalls said: “Voting … only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday.”

However, a spokesperson for Biden’s New Hampshire write-in campaign told Axios that the calls were “deep fake disinformation designed to harm Joe Biden, suppress votes, and damage our democracy.”

The New Hampshire state attorney general’s office is probing the matter, NBC News said.