12 Russians indicted by Mueller team
No Americans charged; no allegation that vote counts were affected.
WASHINGTON — A dozen Russian intelligence officers have been charged with conspiring to hack Democrats during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to a new indictment in the probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller.
The 12 were members of Russian military intelligence, known as the GRU, and are accused of engaging in a sustained effort to hack the computer networks of Democratic organizations and the Hillary Clinton campaign.
It’s important to note that while the hackers did interact with some Americans in the course of their efforts, none of those Americans has been charged with a crime.
“There’s no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime. There’s no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result,” said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who detailed the new charges at a news conference. “The goal of the conspirators was to have an impact on the election. What impact they may have had ... is a matter of speculation; that’s not our responsibility.”
The president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said in a Twitter post that Friday’s indictment showed “no Americans are involved,” and he called on Mueller to end the inquiry. “The Russians are nailed,” he wrote.
In a statement, Lindsay Walters, a deputy White House press secretary, also noted that the
indictment did not include any allegations of Trump campaign involvement or allegations that the Russian interference affected the election’s results. “This is consistent with what we have been saying all along,” Walters said.
Just hours before Rosenstein’s announcement, Trump said at a news conference in Ellesborough, England, that the special counsel’s investigation was impeding his efforts to get closer to Putin, and offered his latest assessment of the inquiry.
“I think that we’re being hurt very badly by the, I would call it the witch hunt; I would call it the rigged witch hunt,” Trump said after meetings with Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain. “I think that really hurts our country, and it really hurts our relationship with Russia.”
Mueller, as has been his practice, did not attend the announcement. Court records show a grand jury Mueller has been using returned an indictment Friday morning.
The announcement comes days before Trump is due to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland. Rosenstein said he briefed Trump earlier this week on the charges.
The 11-count indictment spells out in granular detail a carefully planned and executed attack on the information security of Democrats, implanting hundreds of malware files on Democrats’ computer systems, stealing information and then laundering the pilfered material through fake personas and others to try to influence voters’ opinions.
Rosenstein said the suspects worked to “hack into computers, steal documents and release those documents with the intent to interfere with the election.”
The hackers also created false online personas, known as DC Leaks and Guccifer 2.0, to try to disguise the Russian origins of their work, Rosenstein said.
Mueller and a team of prosecutors have been working since May 2017 to determine if any Trump associates conspired with Russia to interfere in the election.
With the new indictment, his office has filed charges against 32 people on crimes ranging from hacking to money laundering to lying to the FBI. Twenty-six of those charged are Russians who are unlikely to ever be put on trial in the U.S.