Special counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for allegedly meddling in the 2016 presidential election, charging them with conspiracy to defraud the United States, the Department of Justice has announced.
In addition, three defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and five defendants with aggravated identity theft.
Mueller has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election as well as any connections between Russia and Trump campaign associates.
Beginning as early as 2014, the Russian organization Internet Research Agency began operations to interfere with the US political system, including the 2016 elections, according to the indictment, which was released by Mueller's office Friday.
The defendants allegedly posed as US persons, created false US personas, and operated social media pages and groups designed to attract US audiences, the indictment reads.
The Internet Research Agency had a "strategic goal to sow discord in the US political system" including the election, according to the indictment.
Russians posted "derogatory information about a number of candidates," and by mid-2016 they supported Trump and disparaged Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. They bought ads and communicated with "unwitting" people tied to Trump campaign and others to coordinate political activities.
And please note the indictment itself makes it very clear that this vast Russian information operation conspiracy supported Donald Trump in 2016.
This is massive, guys. For months we've been told that there's "no evidence of Russian interference" and that this was all a hoax. It's not.
After all, in order to establish that the Russians colluded to help Trump win, we have to establish the Russians were involved in election interference. This 37-page indictment does just that.
By the way, the NY Times Magazine had the Internet Research Agency outfit dead to rights back some 30 months ago.
“‘We have three major voter suppression operations underway,’ says a senior official,” the Businessweek report said. “They’re aimed at three groups Clinton needs to win overwhelmingly: idealistic white liberals, young women, and African-Americans.” https://t.co/c0GE9Jzv0w https://t.co/k84tZB3Zrw— Jesse Lee (@JesseCharlesLee) February 16, 2018
Now things get very, very real. Chuck Pierce sums it up:
Oh, they’re smart fellers, they are. The indictments were rolled out perfectly. It is now absolutely impossible for the president* to fire either Rosenstein or Mueller without the worst possible political consequences. By basing the indictments on federal election law, Mueller has framed the case so as also to include anyone who accepted this criminal help.
When the other shoe drops on this, as in we find out precisely "who accepted this criminal help" here, it's going to be roughly the size of a small moon (with roughly the same level of kinetic impact) when it lands squarely on Donald Trump's pea-brained head.
Stay tuned.
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