13 Russians, 3 companies indicted
Charges include defeating lawful functions of the government through fraud, deceit
WASHINGTON — Special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians and three Russian companies Friday, accusing them of using stolen identities, fake campaign events and hundreds of social media accounts while spending millions of rubles to interfere in the 2016 presidential election in a secret effort to aid the Trump campaign.
The 37-page indictment, the first charges by Mueller’s office accusing Moscow of illegal meddling in the election, says that the Internet Research Agency, a Russian firm known for using troll accounts to post on news sites, orchestrated the interference campaign and that its operatives tried to communicate with at least three unnamed Trump campaign officials using fake identities.
“By early to mid-2016, Defendants’ operation included supporting the presidential campaign of thencandidate Donald J. Trump … and disparaging Hillary Clinton,” says the indictment.
Although the indictment alleges that the Russians contacted unnamed people in the Trump campaign, it does not allege that any Trump campaign officials knowingly cooperated with the effort.
“There is no allegation that any American was a willing participant” in the Russian plan, and there is no allegation that it altered the outcome of the election, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in a brief news conference discussing the indictment.
But the indictment undermines President Donald Trump’s repeated contention that the Russia investigation is a “hoax” or “witch hunt.” It details activities the Russians took, initially focused on creating general discord in the U.S., but eventually focused specifically on boosting Trump’s campaign.
At least some of the indicted people have previously been identified as having close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump had been briefed on the indictment. Trump later responded with a tweet, suggesting that the indictment resolved questions about whether his campaign collaborated with Moscow.
“Russia started their antiUS campaign 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 said.
The indictment, apparently quoting internal Russian documents, says the operation began with a “strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system” in general before focusing on backing Trump.
The Russians also undertook activities disparaging Trump’s GOP rivals, including Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida.
The Russians also worked to help Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, in his effort to defeat Clinton in the Democratic primaries, and Jill Stein, whose Green Party campaign reduced Clinton’s votes in the general election in some states.
Though the indictment does not allege that the Russian activities altered the outcome of the election, it doesn’t foreclose that possibility. Given how close the election was in several key states, proving whether any particular activity might have changed the outcome is all but impossible.
“There’s no way to know what the impact was. We really don’t know the scale, we really don’t know whose minds were changed,” said Clint Watts, a former FBI agent and researcher on cyberinfluence campaigns.
But one key element of the campaign clearly might have worsened a Clinton vulnerability. The Russians aimed a significant part of their effort toward alienating minority voters, with an eye toward getting them to stay home rather than vote.
Low minority turnout was one element of Clinton’s loss in some major states, such as Michigan.
The indictment shows that the Russian campaign was far more sophisticated and serious than previously known, Watts said.
The ways in which the Russians made their operation look “authentically American” in order to trick Americans into helping them provided evidence of a sophisticated operation with ties to Russian intelligence, he said.
“This is not what just any goofball could do,” he said. “They got real Americans to do influence for them, unwittingly. That’s next-level.”
The indictment accuses the 13 Russians and three businesses of “impairing, obstructing and defeating the lawful functions of the government through fraud and deceit for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016.”
One of those charged was Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a wealthy Russian businessman and caterer who has been publicly identified as a close associate of Putin’s.
A company controlled by Prigozhin, Concord Management and Consulting, funded and directed the interference campaign in the U.S. and other countries, employing the Internet Research Agency, an internet troll factory from St. Petersburg in Russia, according to the indictment.”
The Russians created fake social media accounts, posing as Americans, using stolen identities of real Americans, to post messages about issues such as guns and immigration.
The attempts to sow division continued after the election, Rosenstein said.
Democrats said the indictment vindicated Mueller’s investigation.
“For all of those who have been asking ‘where is the evidence of a crime?’ — this is it. This is the criminal conspiracy,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the senior Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
According to the indictment, the Russian operatives bought credit card and bank account numbers online to evade the security checks at PayPal.
On Friday, Mueller’s office revealed that one of those who sold account numbers, Richard Pinedo, 28, of Santa Paula, Calif., had pleaded guilty to one count of identity fraud.