MUELLER CHARGES 16
Indictment: Russian nationals, businesses attempted to swing 2016 election; Trump insists ‘no collusion’
Special counsel Robert Mueller handed down an indictment Friday leveling criminal charges against 13 Russian nationals and three businesses for trying to meddle in the 2016 presidential election in support of Donald Trump.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the charges and noted that the indictment doesn’t claim the effort altered the results of the election between Trump and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
And Trump took the opportunity to insist he and his campaign had been vindicated, tweeting yet again that there was “no collusion!”
But Mueller’s team also uncovered new details indicating the Russian campaign was motivated to help elect Trump.
In one internal memo, prosecutors said, the Internet Research Agency told its employees to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump — we support them).” In another, they said it is “imperative to intensify criticizing Hillary Clinton.”
WASHINGTON – Special counsel Robert Mueller filed his first criminal charges against Russian nationals and businesses Friday for what he called a wide-ranging effort to undermine the 2016 presidential election, including by “supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump.”
The indictment charges 13 Russian nationals and three businesses — including an Internet firm tied to the Kremlin — with conspiracy, identity theft and failing to register as foreign agents. Prosecutors said officials at that firm, the Internet Research Agency, described their work as “information warfare against the United States” and their goal as “spreading distrust toward the candidates and the political system.”
In the indictment, Mueller charged that some of the Russians, posing as Americans, “communicated with unwitting individuals” associated with Trump’s 2016 campaign “to seek to coordinate political activities.”
The charges are the government’s most detailed accounting to date of an effort by Russian operatives — some with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin — to sow distrust in the U.S. political system and to influence the outcome of the election. Among those indicted