Justice Department Charges Russian Cyberspies With Attack On 2016 Election
July 13, 201812:07 PM ET PHILIP EWING and CARRIE JOHNSON
The Justice Department charged 12 Russian intelligence officers on Friday with a litany of alleged offenses related to Russia's hacking of the Democratic National Committee's emails, state election systems and other targets in 2016.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who announced the indictments, said the Russians involved belonged to the military intelligence service GRU. They are accused of a sustained cyberattack against Democratic party targets, including its campaign committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign.
The GRU attackers also targeted state election systems, including both government agencies and their vendors, and stole information about 500,000 American voters.
The attacks were a signature feature of Russia's active measures against the United States; embarrassing emails were passed to Wikileaks, which released them publicly. The GRU also created other ways to pass the material it stole into the public, including a website called DCLeaks and a fake persona called "Guccifer 2.0."
The flood of embarrassing information about the inner workings of the Democratic Party's leadership led to the resignation of then-DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. Later, Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta also was embarrassed by the release of his emails.
The Russians named in the indictment discussed how and when to release material they'd accumulated in order to make the biggest political splash inside the United States, Rosenstein said.
There is no allegation in the indictment that any American participated knowingly in the GRU cyberattacks, Rosenstein said.
Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller is continuing to investigate whether anyone in the United States conspired with the Russian attack on the election.
But Rosenstein said that responsibility for this prosecution — which is unlikely to go forward to a trial in court as Russia is unlikely to extradite the suspects who've been charged — would pass from Mueller's office to the National Security division of the Justice Department.
Friday's announcement follows a separate but related indictment by the special counsel's office from earlier this year of Russians connected to the campaign of social media agitation aimed at increasing the volume on political controversy within the United States.
The Russian government has so far declined to extradite the people named, although one American attorney has been arguing the case in Washington on their behalf.
Cui bono?
Rosenstein asked Americans to focus not only who was hurt by or benefited politically from the Russian attacks but to unite against foreign influence in the American democratic process.
"In my remarks, I have not identified the victims," Rosenstein said. "When we confront foreign interference in American elections, it is important for us to avoid thinking politically as Republicans or Democrats and instead to think patriotically as Americans. Our response must not depend on who was victimized."
The U.S. intelligence community has concluded, with further verification by the Senate intelligence committee, that Russia's active measures were aimed at hurting Clinton and helping Trump.
White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walter emphasized that no one in the Trump campaign was connected with the indictment unsealed on Friday.
"Today's charges include no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the campaign and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election result," she said. "This is consistent with what we have been saying all along."
Geopolitical implications
Rosenstein's announcement took place just ahead of a planned meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday in Helsinki. Trump told reporters on his visit to the United Kingdom on Friday that he planned to "ask" Putin about Russia's attack on the election.
Trump has gone back and forth as to what he acknowledges about what took place and cited Russia's official denials about its active measures. The president also has said the interference took place and vowed that if it returned in the 2018 midterm election — as U.S. intelligence officials have warned it may — he would "counteract it very strongly."
Rosenstein said the announcement of the charges on Friday took place because that was when the special counsel's office had completed its work investigating them and had the ability to present the evidence to a grand jury. The deputy attorney general said he'd briefed the president about the matter.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the indictment emphasized how tough Trump must be on Putin at their summit.
"The stakes for the upcoming Trump-Putin meeting could not be higher," Pelosi said. "President Trump must demand and secure a real, concrete and comprehensive agreement that the Russians will cease their ongoing attacks on our democracy. Failure to stand up to Putin would constitute a profound betrayal of the Constitution and our democracy."
The indictment unsealed on Friday is available here.
To “19 + 12 Russian spies indictments now and Trump’s campaign personnel for dealings with Russia and secret meetings.”
That all pretty much points to collusion. So why is Trump displaying an obvious obstruction of justice from the oval? It’s so obvious he’s been compromised by Putin. Putin must have some nasty crap on Trump.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson.
"There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result. The special counsel's investigation is ongoing.”
- Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein
“Today’s charges include no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the campaign and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election result,” said Lindsay Walters, the deputy White House press secretary. “This is consistent with what we have been saying all along.”
Hmmm... Trump was briefed on these earlier in the week, yet referred to the fake witch hunt today and still plans to cozy up to Putin with a 'better relationship' meeting IN PRIVATE, NO AMERICANS. WOW!
"There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result. The special counsel's investigation is ongoing.”
- Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein
“Today’s charges include no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the campaign and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election result,” said Lindsay Walters, the deputy White House press secretary. “This is consistent with what we have been saying all along.”
Dip Dip Dip...
I saw that Fox was stressing this part, ignoring that this destroys the smear campaign the house GOP is running, and not discussing the now FACT that Russia attacked us.
I'm fine with not reading Trump's guilt into it yet like Rosenstein said, the indictment does not name any americans or point any fingers. But he was only talking about this set of indictments, not anything else that may be to come. Since there is no 'final report' you can count on there being more to come. And we can now put the 'witch hunt' terminology behind us, there is nothing fake about this.
Sent, upon request, hacked information to a congressional candidate about his or her opponent.
Directly sent stolen information to a “then-registered state lobbyist” and “online source of political news.”
Coordinated the timing and release of of information related to the Black Lives Matter movement with “a reporter.”
Were in “regular contact” with someone advising senior Trump campaign officials about the release of the information.
Discussed the timing of the release of hacked information to “heighten their impact” on the 2016 presidential election.
All of this information sheds new light on Donald Trump’s statement of July 26, 2016, when he said: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Later that day, the Russian hackers “attempted to spearfish for the first time” email accounts used by Hillary Clinton’s personal office. Around the same time, the hackers also targeted 76 email addresses used by Clinton campaign officials.
This was an act of war that the entire GOP refuses to acknowledge. We are at war, a cyber war. We have a congress and president that refuses to protect the American people from being cyber attacked by the Russians because they’d rather find Hillary’s personal emails and lock her up than protect the Citizens of the USA that they swore they’d do. DEPLORABLE!
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson.
Page 18 talks about seeding the rift between Hillary and Bernie supporters right before the Dem Convention. Disturbing.
As I read through this, I'm familiar with all the techniques and tools being used; can't believe our elections were hit like this with these widely known exploits. Just a little public education could have headed all of this off.
This was an act of war that the entire GOP refuses to acknowledge. We are at war, a cyber war. We have a congress and president that refuses to protect the American people from being cyber attacked by the Russians because they’d rather find Hillary’s personal emails and lock her up than protect the Citizens of the USA that they swore they’d do. DEPLORABLE!
As of today, the President still seems to be denying it. If the GOP keeps smearing the investigation and the FBI, all involved should be tried for obstruction.
The indictment plainly states that there are American co-conspirators, including an advisor to the Trump campaign's highest officials. I'm guessing Roger Stone.
It also names a reporter, Hannity? This will be nuts to watch unfold. There will be huge indictments coming.
I just can't believe this is how they did it. Disgraceful.
9/11 was pulled off with box cutters.
We always tend to think this stuff is super-sophisticated, hi tech stuff (probably because of the movies). Tons of simple techniques still work, because people are all hardwired pretty much the same. Fear, confirmation bias, sensationalism, these are centuries old. It's why so much of their work was done BY us... to us. And mostly on facebook.
Interesting note: back at this time in '16, the first reports of internet fake news started coming out. Maybe it was late May/early June. It was then that I started, on my own, to actually read the URL's attached to these news stories. Within a day or two, I was already learning how to spot the fake ones, just by their extensions.
.com: possibly/probably legitimate .com.co: fake as hell.
And the more lurid/sensational the headline, the faster I ran to see that URL. "Pope Endorses Donald Trump" was one of the first ones I caught.
Intelligent people get manipulated every day. From phone scams (see thread in EE), to elder life insurance spots to shampoo ads. Folks in the biz of influence know all our weaknesses. Some only want our money. Some want our destruction.
Everyone involved with this, from Trump to Clinton and the people running their campaigns, as well as Guccifer, we're so monumentally stupid in this affair that it's staggering.
To “19 + 12 Russian spies indictments now and Trump’s campaign personnel for dealings with Russia and secret meetings.”
That all pretty much points to collusion. So why is Trump displaying an obvious obstruction of justice from the oval? It’s so obvious he’s been compromised by Putin. Putin must have some nasty crap on Trump.
You forgot some other bits - in no particular order:
- The firing of Comey. - Telling the Russians that he'd taken the pressure off by firing Comey. - The continued slander of Sessions and rhetoric that if Trump knew that Sessions would recuse himself of the Russian inquiry he would never have appointed him - No-one from the Trump campaign ever met a Russian - to lots of people from the Trump campaign met Russians lots of times and had to change their official reporting once, then twice then three times (or more?) - The concerted and ongoing attack against the free press. - The 'Fake News' campaign. - The attack on Mueller and his character that was previously pristine across all parties. - The attempt to label Mueller - who is a Republican - as a Democrat. - The unprecedented Private meetings with Putin without US advisers or US interpreters present (G7 summit?) - The same thing about to happen on his visit to this week? - Continued verbal attacks, irrational positions and statements on Allies and NATO members - an institution Putin would dearly love to see crumble. - Continued alienation of the USA from allies all over the globe from Canada, Australia to Britain and Europe.
All of it completely circumstantial I am sure and not one thing proves anything. . . . plenty of nearly plausible deniability if you are a Trump stooge.
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
All of it fake news ... yeah, I just rattled off a couple things I thought of but there is so much. It's the same thing if you want to try and list all the lies Trump has told in his short tenure. God Bless Murica!
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
This indictment is still just scratching the surface, imho. You still have the Cambridge Analytica connections, the facebook propaganda campaign, the meetings with the russians and middle eastern actors at Trump tower and in the seychelles, the server in Pennsylvania and all the obstruction items including the current smear campaign. This is going to get very ugly.
Not to mention anything else they've uncovered and anything that might come up when the DNCs servers are investigated at trial. We could have crimes on both sides.
One thing I can help but keep thinking. Somebody had to give the Russians a list of dem emails. The emails hacked were not public emails scraped from a website. In order to cyber spearfish, you need an email list.
Sent, upon request, hacked information to a congressional candidate about his or her opponent.
Directly sent stolen information to a “then-registered state lobbyist” and “online source of political news.”
Coordinated the timing and release of of information related to the Black Lives Matter movement with “a reporter.”
Were in “regular contact” with someone advising senior Trump campaign officials about the release of the information.
Discussed the timing of the release of hacked information to “heighten their impact” on the 2016 presidential election.
All of this information sheds new light on Donald Trump’s statement of July 26, 2016, when he said: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Later that day, the Russian hackers “attempted to spearfish for the first time” email accounts used by Hillary Clinton’s personal office. Around the same time, the hackers also targeted 76 email addresses used by Clinton campaign officials.
All this shows is that Obama was asleep at the switch once again.
Sent, upon request, hacked information to a congressional candidate about his or her opponent.
Directly sent stolen information to a “then-registered state lobbyist” and “online source of political news.”
Coordinated the timing and release of of information related to the Black Lives Matter movement with “a reporter.”
Were in “regular contact” with someone advising senior Trump campaign officials about the release of the information.
Discussed the timing of the release of hacked information to “heighten their impact” on the 2016 presidential election.
All of this information sheds new light on Donald Trump’s statement of July 26, 2016, when he said: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Later that day, the Russian hackers “attempted to spearfish for the first time” email accounts used by Hillary Clinton’s personal office. Around the same time, the hackers also targeted 76 email addresses used by Clinton campaign officials.
All this shows is that Obama was asleep at the switch once again.
A brilliant and cunning "whatabout" ... Ingenious.
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
Sent, upon request, hacked information to a congressional candidate about his or her opponent.
Directly sent stolen information to a “then-registered state lobbyist” and “online source of political news.”
Coordinated the timing and release of of information related to the Black Lives Matter movement with “a reporter.”
Were in “regular contact” with someone advising senior Trump campaign officials about the release of the information.
Discussed the timing of the release of hacked information to “heighten their impact” on the 2016 presidential election.
All of this information sheds new light on Donald Trump’s statement of July 26, 2016, when he said: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Later that day, the Russian hackers “attempted to spearfish for the first time” email accounts used by Hillary Clinton’s personal office. Around the same time, the hackers also targeted 76 email addresses used by Clinton campaign officials.
All this shows is that Obama was asleep at the switch once again.
Sent, upon request, hacked information to a congressional candidate about his or her opponent.
Directly sent stolen information to a “then-registered state lobbyist” and “online source of political news.”
Coordinated the timing and release of of information related to the Black Lives Matter movement with “a reporter.”
Were in “regular contact” with someone advising senior Trump campaign officials about the release of the information.
Discussed the timing of the release of hacked information to “heighten their impact” on the 2016 presidential election.
All of this information sheds new light on Donald Trump’s statement of July 26, 2016, when he said: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Later that day, the Russian hackers “attempted to spearfish for the first time” email accounts used by Hillary Clinton’s personal office. Around the same time, the hackers also targeted 76 email addresses used by Clinton campaign officials.
All this shows is that Obama was asleep at the switch once again.
“He said he didn’t meddle,” Trump said. “He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times. But I just asked him again, and he said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they’re saying he did.”
“Putin said he did not do what they said he did,” Trump added later. “And, you know, there are those that say, if he did do it, he wouldn’t have gotten caught, all right? Which is a very interesting statement.”
Trump continued: “Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that.’ And I believe — I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it. But he says, ‘I didn’t do that.’ I think he’s very insulted by it, if you want to know the truth. Don’t forget, all he said is he never did that, he didn’t do that. I think he’s very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country.”
This reminds of Homer Simpson saying "Mr. Burns, I think we can trust the president of Cuba!"
Yep. On Monday they will meet in private and Trump will say nothing about this and then later lie to us. He is afraid to say anything bad about Putin. Trump is the school bully that picks on weak kids and kids who don't like to fight, but the second a brawler walks in he craps himself and make like a lapdog.
Yep. On Monday they will meet in private and Trump will say nothing about this and then later lie to us. He is afraid to say anything bad about Putin. Trump is the school bully that picks on weak kids and kids who don't like to fight, but the second a brawler walks in he craps himself and make like a lapdog.
You're way overthinking this.
He's a senile moron whose only thought process and focus is media attention and photo-ops.
He'll probably just hand Putin another printout of the electoral map and ramble about how no Republican ever did what he could do with electoral votes (for the second time) while Putin just nods and offers "That's a sharp tie, Mr. Trump".
I actually think that Trump sincerely believes there was "NO COLLUSION!" when he goes on his senile rants.
To him and his golden retriever brain, he thinks he's being accused of not winning the election fairly and squarely.
He doesn't understand what the word "collusion" even means. He thinks it's an asterisk on his victory.
You can see that with some of the duller crayons on this board who worship him - they literally don't know what the word "collusion" means or what it entails.
Haus once asked for proof of collusion, and when I pointed out that a member of the Russian military told Trump's dumbest son that he had dirt on Hillary he was so dumb that he responded via personal e-mail with "Awesome! Let's do it!", and they held the meeting.
Haus responded with "How is that collusion? He wanted dirt on his political opinion.
And then there's 40, who is the poster boy of struggling with understanding basic words and concepts, who once claimed he was "colluding" with the stock market in an earnest post praising a brief DOW spike.
