12 Russians face indictment for meddling in US election

WASHINGTON — Twelve Russian military intelligence officers hacked into the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic Party and released tens of thousands of private communications in a sweeping conspiracy by the Kremlin to meddle in the 2016 US election.

This was according to an indictment announced days before President Donald Trump's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The indictment represents special counsel Robert Mueller's first charges against Russian government officials for interfering inAmerican politics, an effort US intelligence agencies say was aimed at helping the Trump campaign and harming his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

The 29-page indictment lays out how, months before Americans went to the polls, Russians schemed to break into key Democratic email accounts, including those belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

It was unclear whether the indictment might factor into Trump's meeting with Putin on Monday. Trump complained about the Russia investigation hours before the indictment, saying the "stupidity" was making it "very hard to do something with Russia."

The Kremlin, meanwhile, denied anew that it tried to sway the election. "The Russian state has never interfered and has no intention of interfering in the US elections," Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said Friday.

The indictment identifies the defendants as officers with Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, also known as GRU, which is part of the state machine.

The Russian defendants are not in custody, and it is not clear they will ever appear in American court, though the Justice Department has recently seen value in indicting foreign hackers in absentia as public deterrence.