 Today Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced indictments against 12 Russian citizens. The accused, all members of Russian military intelligence (GRU) acting in official capacities, are accused of a “sustained effort” to break into Democratic National Committee computers and other Democratic computer networks to steal emails and other data.
U.S. intelligence agencies have previously announced that the sophisticated operation undertaken by representatives of the Russian government was designed to help elect Donald Trump president. According to the indictment, the hacking targeted the Hilary Clinton campaign, Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. They then released that “information on the internet under the names DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 and through another entity." At a news conference announcing the indictments, Rosenstein said: "There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime. There is no allegation that the conspiracy altered the vote count or changed any election result." The defendants "corresponded with several Americans during the course of the conspiracy through the Internet." The indictment can be read in its entirety here. http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2018/images/07/13/gru.indictment.pdf According to the indictment, hackers used a technique known as spearphishing - sending emails that seem to be from a trusted source and encourages users to click on a link that compromises the account. The conspirators targeted the Clinton campaign throughout the summer of 2016, and successfully gained access to thousands of emails. Campaign chairman John Podesta’s 50,000 hacked emails were among those stolen. (His risotto recipe became famous as a result of the publication of these stolen emails.) Intelligence officers also allegedly implanted malware on the DNC and DCCC networks, which enabled them to monitor individual employees’ computer activity, steal passwords, and maintain access. The hackers used false identities “DC Leaks” and “Guccifer 2.0” to gain access to records from 2,000 donors. The hackers used cryptocurrency to finance their activities. While this indictment does not name any Americans, some of the Americans who may be named in future indictments are mentioned. 1. On Aug. 15, 2016, the hackers, under the personal Guccifer 2.0, “wrote to a person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign for Donald J. Trump.” In August 2017, Roger Stone, Trump campaign advisor, wrote an opinion article published in Breitbart News telling Clinton to stop blaming Russia for the data hack. 2. An American reporter received stolen data from Guccifer 2.0, and went on to publish that material. “It doesn’t seem to be the Russians that hacked the DNC, but instead a hacker who goes by the name of Guccifer 2.0,” he wrote. In fact, Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian intelligence persona. Both Lee Stranahan, who currently works for Sputnik, and Cassandra Fairbanks, who has worked for Breitbart, Sputnik, and Big League Politics, have bragged that they were in contact with Guccifer 2.0 during the campaign. Stranahan stated in a Tweet today: “I’m one of a relatively small number of journalists who communicated with Guccifer 2.0. I’ve discussed this publicly a number of times for over year.” A CNN report on the indictments can be found here. https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/13/politics/russia-investigation-indictments/index.html A PBS report can be found here. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/5-things-we-learned-from-muellers-new-russia-indictment
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Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team on Friday released an indictment alleging that 13 Russians and three Russian organizations participated in a conspiracy to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
This list contains a combination of points from articles in The Hill and BBC. Links to the articles can be found below. 1. This was a broad, well-organized effort. Beginning as early as 2014, the defendants began to track and study U.S. social media sites related to politics and social issues. They used false personas to contact U.S. persons, and to pay them using accounts created through identity theft to conceal the origin of the payments. They controlled hundreds of social media accounts created under false pretenses. (One account impersonated the Tennessee GOP on Twitter.) 2. Defendants allegedly communicated with Trump campaign members. The indictment states that these campaign members were unwitting participants in the conspiracy. 3. Suppressing votes for Clinton was an important part of the operation. The indictment asserts that the aim of the conspiracy was to promote presidential candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, and to disparage Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz. 4. Defendants took steps to cover their tracks. Multiple false personas, fake accounts, and shell companies were created to conceal the origin of money and information. The creation of these accounts involved identity theft, mail fraud, and wire fraud. 5. The indictment describes serious crimes - visa fraud, identity theft, wire fraud, bank fraud. In addition to Friday’s indictment, an indictment against an American citizen, Richard Pinedo, was unsealed Friday. Pinedo has pleaded guilty to selling personal information stolen from U.S. persons to the defendants. 6. There were real people paid by the defendants to organize rallies, build props, and wear costumes at multiple events in multiple states. At least one person was paid to build a cage for use at a rally, and another was paid to dress up as Hillary Clinton in a prison uniform and stand in the cage. 7. This operation did not end on election day. After the election, persona accounts continued on social media to sow discord among U.S. persons regarding the election and presidency of Donald Trump. There is credible evidence that Russia-controlled personas were involved, this past weekend, in promoting discord among Americans regarding gun violence, in the wake of the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. Rod Rosenstein, deputy director of the FBI, presented the indictment in a press conference Friday. The press conference can be seen here. https://www.c-span.org/video/?441317-1/deputy-attorney-general-rod-rosenstein-announces-indictment-russian-nationals The Hill article can be found here. http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/374305-five-things-to-know-about-the-russian-indictments MSNBC contributor Matt Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman, told Mike Allen of Axios: "Friday’s indictment established the legal architecture for possible future charges. Once you’ve established there was a conspiracy, you can charge anyone who was aware of the conspiracy and took an overt action to further it." The Axios article can be found here. https://www.axios.com/mueller-investigation-russia-facebook-future-7ab6695e-0012-4af5-99a3-d55c665b7796.html The BBC article can be found here. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43093260 The indictment can be found here. https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download  National Public Radio reported today: “A memo alleging the FBI abused its surveillance authority became public on Friday after a push by House Republicans. President Trump authorized the memo's release, even after the FBI expressed "grave concerns" about the ‘accuracy’ of the document, authored by House intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif.” NPR release the text of the memo with annotations from their Justice Department, national security, and White House reporters. The annotated text can be found here. https://www.npr.org/2018/02/02/582828461/fact-check-read-the-gop-memo-released-by-house-intelligence-committee Some Republicans have argued that the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Trump campaign’s ties to Russian government operatives is based solely on the so-called “Steele dossier,” a set of field documents created by Christopher Steele, retired head of the Russia desk in Great Britain’s intelligence service, MI6. According to an NPR story from today’s “All Things Considered” program, the memo undercuts that argument. “Instead, it says, overtures by Russian operatives to a junior campaign adviser are what sparked the FBI's counterintelligence investigation. George Papadopoulos — who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about those contacts — ‘triggered’ the opening of the investigation, the memo says.” Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in October 2017 of lying to the FBI about his contacts with agents of the Russian government. The “All Things Considered” story can be found here. https://www.npr.org/2018/02/02/582713363/memo-russian-overtures-to-trump-aide-triggered-fbi-investigation While some GOP lawmakers have asserted that the FBI’s interest in Trump campaign aide Carter Page began with the Steele dossier, it is important to note the Page was a focus of FBI attention at least as far back as 2013, when Russian agents in the United States attempted to recruit him for their government. A federal Intelligence Surveillance Court granted the FBI a surveillance warrant on Page in October 2016. Three 90-day extensions were granted. Five senior Justice Department and FBI officials signed off on the three requests for extensions. The memo released today states that all the requests for extension were approved by a federal judge. This would not have occurred unless the warrant was yielding information useful to counterintelligence or a criminal investigation. A Washington Post article explains the issues surrounding the FBI surveillance of Carter Page. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/memo-points-to-fbis-ongoing-interest-in-trump-adviser-carter-page/2018/02/02/89bfdee2-077c-11e8-8777-2a059f168dd2_story.html?utm_term=.eeb1adfeedba Photo source: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
 Photo source: NPR
The New York Times reported Tuesday: “Attorney General Jeff Sessions was questioned for several hours last week as part of the special counsel investigation, the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday, making him the first member of President Trump’s cabinet to be interviewed in the inquiry.” Special Counsel Robert Mueller is increasingly focusing on potential obstruction of justice by President Trump in relation to the firing of FBI director James Comey in May 2017. Mueller’s team has informed the President’s lawyers that he will likely interview him in person. As a strong supporter of Trump during the campaign, and his foreign policy advisor, Sessions was close to the Trump team throughout the campaign, while he was a sitting U.S. Senator. Several articles about Sessions and his interview with the Mueller team can be found here, including the New York Times article which originally reported the story. https://www.npr.org/2018/01/23/579948614/sessions-interviewed-by-special-counsel-robert-mueller-as-part-of-russia-inquiry https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/us/politics/jeff-sessions-special-counsel-russia.html https://www.axios.com/mueller-interviews-sessions-report-1516719103-3c0cc7a1-51a3-40b8-85aa-604739153148.html During the transition between the election and Inauguration, Sessions was one of a number of prominent Republicans who served as vice chairs: Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie, former House Speaker (and current spouse of the U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican) Newt Gingrich, retired neurosurgeon (and current Housing and Urban Development Secretary) Ben Carson, retired Lieutenant General (and briefly serving National Security Advisor) Michael Flynn, and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (whose son currently works in the White House). An article about the transition team, written a few days after the election, can be found here. http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/11/sen_jeff_sessions_leading_trum.html |
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