US jury indicts 12 Russia intel officers

Ruling in 2016 election case comes three days before Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki

Twelve Russian intelligence officers were yesterday indicted by a US grand jury for interfering in the November 2016 presidential election, just three days before President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

The charges were drawn up by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who is looking into Russian interference in the 2016 vote and whether any members of Trump’s campaign colluded with Moscow.

The indictment accuses members of Russia’s military intelligence agency known as the GRU of carrying out “large-scale cyber operations” to steal Democratic Party documents and emails.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who announced the indictment at a press conference in Washington, said “there’s no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime”.

Rosenstein also stressed that “there’s no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result.”

Rosenstein said he briefed Trump about the indictment before yesterday’s announcement and that the timing was determined by “the facts, the evidence, and the law”.

Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, immediately called on Trump to cancel the talks with Putin.

“These indictments are further proof of what everyone but the president seems to understand: President Putin is an adversary who interfered in our elections to help President Trump win,” Schumer said in a statement.

Russia has always rejected accusations that it interfered in the US presidential election.