Russians charged with Internet trolling in 2016 election

WASHINGTON — The U.S. special counsel accused 13 Russians Friday of trying to disrupt the 2016 presidential election, charging them with running a social media trolling campaign.

The federal indictment, brought by special counsel Robert Mueller, represents the first criminal charges against Russians believed to have worked to disrupt the election.

The Russian organization was funded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the indictment says. He is a wealthy St. Petersburg businessman.

President Donald Trump and many observers took the news of evidence vindicating Trump’s campaign from accusations of “collusion” with the Russian government on Friday. Trump noted in a tweet that the alleged interference efforts began in 2014 — “long before I announced that I would run for President.”

“The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong — no collusion!” he tweeted.

The indictment contains no allegations that any American participated in the Russian efforts, nor does it or suggest that Trump campaign associates had more than “unwitting” contact with some of the defendants who posed as Americans during election season.

The indictments are largely symbolic and the 13 Russians are not in custody and are not likely to ever face trial.

The Russian group’s strategy included purchasing internet advertisements in the names of Americans whose, staging political rallies while posing as American political activists and paying people in the U.S. to promote or disparage candidates.

“This indictment serves as a reminder that people are not always who they appear to be on the internet,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said Friday. “The indictment alleges that the Russian conspirators want to promote discord in the United States and undermine public confidence in democracy. We must not allow them to succeed.”

The surreptitious campaign was organized by the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm.

Prigozhin said Friday he was not upset by the indictment.

“Americans are very impressionable people,” he was quoted as saying by Russia’s state news agency. They “see what they want to see.”

Starting in April 2016, the indictment says, the Russians bought political ads on social media.

“They engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.”

Cruz and Rubio ran against Trump in the Republican prima- ry; Sanders opposed Clinton in the Democratic primary.

According to one internal communication described by prosecutors, the Russians were instructed to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump_we support them).” And according to one internal review, a specialist was criticized for having a low number of posts criticizing Clinton.

Ahead of a Florida rally, the Russians paid one person to build a cage on a flatbed truck and another to wear a costume portraying Clinton in a prison uniform.

They also organized rallies opposing Trump, including one in New York after the election called “Trump is NOT my president.”