Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden Reportedly Posted Grok Imagine Deepfakes Depicting Opponent Rebecca Cooke Saying Things She Did Not Say

Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden repeatedly posted Grok Imagine-generated videos depicting Democratic challenger Rebecca Cooke saying statements she did not make. Cooke called the clips deceptive and defamatory; Van Orden's campaign described them as obvious AI-generated satire. Cooke's attorneys later sent a cease-and-desist alleging the videos were intended to mislead voters and harm her reputation.

Risk classification

• Primary risk domain: 4 Malicious actors
• Primary risk subdomain: 4.3 Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation

The incident involves a political candidate using AI-generated synthetic media to target, impersonate, and manipulate the public perception of a specific political opponent for personal and political gain.

Additional risk subdomains

• 3.1 False or misleading information: The AI system was used to generate highly realistic but entirely fabricated statements and videos of a candidate, spreading false information to voters.

Causal factors

• Entity: Human
• Intent: Intentional
• Timing: Post-deployment

The incident was caused by a human political candidate intentionally using a deployed AI image and video generator to create and distribute deceptive deepfakes of his opponent.

EU AI Act risk tier

• Risk tier: 3 Limited Risk

Limited Risk: The system involves AI-generated content (deepfakes) and chatbots, which are subject to specific transparency obligations under the Act, such as the automatic labels indicating they were made with 'Grok Imagine' mentioned in the report.

AI system and alleged parties

• AI system: Grok Imagine (xAI)
• AI purpose: Deepfake Video Generation; Deepfake Image Generation
• Behaviour type: Tool
• Alleged developer: xAI, Synthetic video generation technology developers, Synthetic media generation technology developers, Synthetic audio generation technology developers, Deepfake technology developers
• Alleged deployer: Synthetic media creators, Public figures, Politicians in the United States, Politicians, Information manipulation actors in the United States, Information manipulation actors, Derrick Van Orden, Deepfake creators
• Alleged harmed parties: Voters, Rebecca Cooke, Public figures, Politicians in the United States, Politicians, Political candidates targeted by deepfakes, Epistemic integrity

Harm severity

Severity ratings are based on this scale.

Highest direct severity in any category: Minor. Severity is scored from Negligible to Catastrophic in each harm category, for harm the reports describe as caused directly or indirectly by the AI system.

• Physical: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Infrastructure: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Property: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Financial: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Environmental: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Malicious content: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Differential treatment: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Civil rights: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Democracy: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Privacy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Psychological: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Epistemic: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible

Malicious content

Reported: The report explicitly describes the creation and distribution of malicious deepfake videos on social media.

Directly caused: Multiple deepfake videos of candidate Rebecca Cooke were generated using Grok Imagine and posted to X (formerly Twitter).

Inferred additional harm: The deepfake videos were likely viewed, shared, and replicated by thousands of social media users, expanding the reach of the malicious content.

Democracy

Reported: The report describes an attempt to fool voters using AI-generated deepfakes during a congressional election.

Directly caused: An active political candidate used AI-generated deepfakes to attribute false, damaging statements to his opponent to influence voters.

Inferred additional harm: The use of synthetic media to deceive voters in a federal election undermines democratic integrity, public trust in campaigns, and the authenticity of political discourse.

Epistemic

Reported: The report explicitly describes epistemic harm through the fabrication of statements and videos.

Directly caused: AI-generated videos fabricated statements of Rebecca Cooke saying things she never said, such as 'Let the peasants eat cake.'

Inferred additional harm: The propagation of realistic deepfakes erodes the shared consensus reality of voters, making it difficult for the public to distinguish real candidate statements from synthetic fabrications.

People affected

• Occurrences reported: 4
• People reportedly harmed: 1
• People reportedly exposed: 10000

Potential causes

Management

• Permissive Platform Policies: Platform management allowed users to generate and share political deepfakes.

Technology

• Generative AI Video Tooling: Grok Imagine allowed the easy generation of realistic deepfake video content.
• Lack of Deepfake Prevention: The AI platform lacked guards to block generating deepfakes of candidates.

Data Inputs

• Target Reference Media: Publicly available video and audio of the candidate enabled realistic cloning.

Human Factors

• Political Malice: A political opponent intentionally used deepfakes to damage a reputation.
• Voter Susceptibility: Voters can be easily fooled or misled by realistic AI-generated videos.

Process and Methods

• Automated Labeling Only: Platform relied on automatic labels, which failed to prevent dissemination.

Regulatory Environment

• Gaps in AI Statutory Laws: Wisconsin statutory protections lacked explicit, robust bans on political deepfakes.
• Reliance on Common Law: Defamation common law had to fill gaps left by insufficient statutory rules.

Information quality

• Classification confidence: High
• Reason for confidence: The report clearly identifies the political candidates involved, the specific AI platform used (Grok Imagine), the nature of the deepfake content, and the legal actions taken (cease-and-desist letter). There is no significant ambiguity regarding the facts of the deployment or the intent of the user.

A U.S. congressional candidate utilized a commercially available AI image generator to create and distribute defamatory deepfakes of his political opponent during an election campaign. This represents a minor domestic political incident using AI-enabled disinformation, posing negligible direct threats to national security, though reflecting broader societal challenges regarding synthetic media in democratic processes.

• Overall national security impact: Minor
• Scope: Single nation
• Primary target: United States
• Alleged perpetrator: Derrick Van Orden

Threat characteristics

• Imminence: Long-term. The election has concluded and the immediate campaign context has passed, representing an ongoing strategic concern regarding political deepfakes rather than an active crisis.
• Autonomy: Human-controlled. The AI tool (Grok Imagine) was directly prompted and utilized by a human operator to generate specific content, acting entirely under human control.
• Novelty: Established threat. The use of AI-generated deepfakes and synthetic media in political campaigns is an established threat with numerous prior documented instances globally.

Impact by dimension

• Physical security: Negligible. The incident involves purely digital, political campaign-related synthetic media with no physical components, kinetic threats, or critical infrastructure impacts.
• Information security: Minor. While the incident involves deepfakes and political disinformation, it was a localized domestic campaign dispute rather than a coordinated foreign intelligence or state-sponsored information operation.
• Sovereignty: Minor. The deepfakes targeted a congressional candidate in a federal election, representing a minor disruption to democratic processes, but did not compromise core government functions or state sovereignty.
• Economic security: Negligible. There was no impact on strategic technologies, critical supply chains, financial systems, or national technological competitiveness.
• Societal stability: Minor. The incident caused minor reputational harm and epistemic confusion among a localized voter base, but did not trigger large-scale civil unrest or systematic human rights violations.