Advisor weighs in on Russia

H.R. McMaster says evidence of election interference is ‘incontrovertible.’

WASHINGTON — National security advisor H.R. McMaster said Saturday that evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election was “now really incontrovertible” following the indictment of 13 Russian individuals and three companies.

Speaking at an international security conference in Munich, Germany, McMaster lent credence to a widening scandal that President Trump has routinely dismissed as a hoax.

“As you can see with the FBI indictment, the evidence is now really incontrovertible and available in the public domain,” McMaster said, noting that the United States was becoming “more and more adept at tracing the origins of this espionage and subversion.”

The 37-page indictment handed down Friday by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III describes a vast, secret social media campaign financed by a Russian entrepreneur with ties to President Vladimir Putin that worked to harm Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and promote Donald Trump’s.

These are the first criminal charges related to election meddling brought in the Mueller investigation. Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein said there was no allegation in the indictment of an American citizen participating willingly in the scheme.

In a tweet, Trump claimed that the charges prove his campaign “did nothing wrong.”

At the same Munich meeting Saturday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed the accusations against his countrymen as “just blabber.”