13 Russians indicted over effort to subvert election
Mueller reveals operation to aid Trump campaign.
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department charged 13 Russians and three companies Friday in a sprawling indictment that unveiled a sophisticated network designed to subvert the 2016 election and to support the Trump campaign. It stretched from an office in St. Petersburg, Russia, into the social feeds of Americans and ultimately reached the streets of election battleground states.
The Russians stole the identities of U.S. citizens, posed as political activists and used the flash points of immigration, religion and race to manipulate a campaign in which those issues were already particularly divisive, prosecutors said.
Some of the Russians were also in contact with “unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign,” according to court papers. Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading the investigation, made no accusation that President Donald Trump or his associates were knowingly part of the conspiracy.
“The indictment alleges that the Russian conspirators want to promote discord in the United States and undermine public confidence in democracy,” Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general overseeing the inquiry, said in a brief news conference. “We must not allow them to succeed.”
The 37-page indictment— handed up by a federal grand jury in Washington — amounted to a detailed rebuttal of Trump, who has sowed doubts that Russia interfered in the election and dismissed questions about its meddling as “fake news.”
The Justice Department said Mueller’s work was not complete. The indictment does not address the hacking of Democratic email systems or whether Trump tried to obstruct the FBI investigation into Russian interference. Mueller is negotiating with the president’s lawyers over the terms of a possible interview.
The Russian operation began four years ago, well before Trump entered the presidential race, a fact that he quickly seized on in his defense. “Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President,” he wrote on Twitter. “The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong - no collusion!”
But Trump’s statement ignored the government’s conclusion that, by 2016, the Russians were “supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump” and disparaging Hillary Clinton, his opponent. Working out of the office in St. Petersburg, the Russians described waging “information warfare against the United States of America,” according to court documents.
Mueller has gathered extensive evidence of contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign: Trump’s eldest son met with a Russian lawyer in hopes of receiving political dirt on Clinton; one adviser has admitted being tipped off in advance to Russian hacking of Democratic emails; another was in contact with a Twitter account used by Russian hackers; a federal judge found probable cause that a third adviser was an unlawful Russian agent. And the Trump campaign repeatedly and falsely denied any contacts with Russia.
Whether any of that violated federal law is the weightiest question facing Mueller, and Friday’s indictment did not answer it. But it painted a picture of a Russian operation that was multipronged, well-financed and relentless.
Russian operatives traveled across the United States to gather intelligence and foment political discord. They worked with an unidentified American who advised them to focus their efforts on what they viewed as “purple” election battleground states, including Colorado, Virginia and Florida, the indictment said.
The indictment does not explicitly say the Russian government sponsored the effort, but U.S. intelligence officials have publicly said that President Vladimir Putin of Russia directed and oversaw it. The indictment notes that two of the Russian firms involved hold Russian government contracts.
None of the defendants were arrested — Russia does not generally extradite its citizens to the United States. But prosecutors use such indictments to name and shame operatives, making it harder for them to work undetected in the future. If they travel abroad, they risk capture and extradition.
The indictment does not say that Russia changed the outcome of the election, a fact Rosenstein noted repeatedly. U.S. intelligence officials have said they have no way of calculating the effect of the Russian influence.
Mueller also revealed Friday that Richard Pinedo, of Santa Paula, California, had pleaded guilty to identity fraud in a case involving the sale of bank accounts over the internet. According to court papers, some of Pinedo’s customers are foreigners who are targets of Mueller’s inquiry. Pinedo has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with Mueller, court documents show.