DOJ Announces New Indictment of 12 GRU Officers in Mueller Probe

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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