12 Russians are indicted for meddling in 2016 U.S. election
WASHINGTON — Twelve Russian military intelligence officers hacked into the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic Party and released tens of thousands of private communications in a sweeping conspiracy by the Kremlin to meddle in the 2016 U.S. election, according to an indictment announced days before President Donald Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The indictment represents special counsel Robert Mueller’s first charges against Russian government officials for interfering in American politics, an effort U.S. intelligence agencies say was aimed at helping the Trump campaign and harming his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. The case follows a separate indictment that accused Russians of using social media to sow discord among American voters.
The 29-page indictment lays out how, months before Americans went to the polls, Russians schemed to break into key Democratic email accounts, including those belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Stolen emails, many politically damaging for Clinton, appeared on WikiLeaks in the campaign’s final stretch.
The charges say the Russian defendants, using a persona known as Guccifer 2.0, in August 2016 contacted a person in touch with the Trump campaign to offer help. And they say that on the same day Trump, in a speech, urged Russia to find Clinton’s missing emails, Russian hackers tried for the first time to break into email accounts used by her personal office.
Mueller did not allege that Trump campaign associates were involved in the hacking effort, that Americans were knowingly in touch with Russian intelligence officers or that any vote tallies were altered by hacking. The White House seized on those points in a statement that offered no condemnation of Russian election interference.
It was unclear whether the indictment might factor into Trump’s meeting with Putin on Monday.
Trump has repeatedly expressed skepticism about Russian involvement in the hacking while being accused by Democrats of cozying up to the Russian president. Trump complained about the Russia investigation hours before the indictment, saying the “stupidity” was making it “very hard to do something with Russia.”
The Kremlin, meanwhile, denied anew that it tried to sway the election. “The Russian state has never interfered and has no intention of interfering in the U.S. elections,” Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said Friday.
The indictment identifies the defendants as officers with Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, also known as GRU. If that link is established, it would shatter the Kremlin denials of the Russian state’s involvement in the U.S. elections, given that the GRU is part of the state machine.
The Russian defendants are not in custody, and it is not clear they will ever appear in American court, though the Justice Department has recently seen value in indicting foreign hackers in absentia as public deterrence.
The indictment accuses the Russian hackers, starting in March 2016, of covertly monitoring the computers of dozens of Democratic officials and volunteers, implanting malicious computer code known as malware to explore the networks and steal data, and sending phishing emails to gain access to accounts.
One attempt at interference came hours after Trump, in a July 27, 2016, speech, suggested Russians look for emails that Clinton said she had deleted from her tenure as secretary of state.
“Russia, if you’re listening,” Trump said, “I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”
That evening, the indictment says, the Russians attempted to break into email accounts used by Clinton’s personal office, along with 76 Clinton campaign email addresses.
By June 2016, the defendants, relying on fictional personas like DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0, began planning the release of tens of thousands of stolen emails, the indictment alleges.
The Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks displayed the campaign’s private communications, including deliberations about messaging that played into attacks that Clinton was calculating and a political flip-flopper. Private speeches she gave to financial industry firms were particularly damaging within the left wing of the Democratic party and among independents frustrated with the influence of Wall Street in politics.
The indictment alleges that Guccifer 2.0 was in touch with multiple Americans in the summer of 2016 about the pilfered material, including an unidentified congressional candidate who requested and then received stolen information.
The charges come as Mueller continues to investigate potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. Before Friday, 20 people and three companies had been charged in the investigation.
LAHORE, Pakistan — The deadliest attacks in Pakistan’s troubled election campaign killed at least 132 people, including a candidate, on Friday just before the arrest of disgraced former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif upon his return to the country.
In the southwestern province of Baluchistan, a suicide bomber killed 128 people, including a politician running for a provincial legislature. Four others died in a strike in Pakistan’s northwest, spreading panic in the country.
The attacks came hours before Sharif returned from London along with his daughter Maryam to face a 10-year prison sentence on corruption charges, anticorruption officials said. Maryam Sharif faces seven years in jail.
In the southern town of Mastung, candidate Siraj Raisani and 127 others died when a suicide bomber blew himself up amid scores of supporters who had gathered at a rally.
UK police say bottle was source of pair’s Novichok poisoning
LONDON — British detectives investigating the poisoning of two people with a military grade nerve agent said Friday that a small bottle found in the home of one of the victims tested positive for Novichok, a lethal substance produced in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Dawn Sturgess, 44, and Charlie Rowley, 45, were sickened on June 30 in a southwestern England town not far from Salisbury, where British authorities say a Russian ex-spy and his daughter were poisoned with Novichok in March.
Sturgess died in a hospital on Sunday. Rowley was in critical condition for more than a week, but has regained consciousness.
The Metropolitan Police said the bottle was found during searches of Rowley’s house Wednesday and scientists confirmed the substance in the bottle was Novichok. Police have interviewed Rowley since he became conscious.
Police are still looking into where the bottle came from and how it got into Rowley’s house. They said further tests would be done to try to establish if the nerve agent was from the same batch that was used to poison Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.
Giant hogweed plant burns unsuspecting teen landscaper
FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — A teen landscaper pulling weeds ran into one that should have come with a “Don’t touch me!” warning. His literal brush with what was believed to be the “giant hogweed” plant earlier this week left him with serious burns on his face.
The Richmond TimesDispatch reports 17-yearold Alex Childress came in contact with the towering plant on Tuesday. He ended up with second- and thirddegree burns to his face and left arm. Giant hogweed exudes a sap that can cause burns, blisters and blindness.