{UAH} Special Counsel Issues Indictment Against 13 Russian Nationals Over 2016 Election
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WASHINGTON — The special counsel investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election charged 13 Russian nationals and three Russian organizations on Friday with illegally trying to disrupt the American political process, including efforts designed to boost the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump and hurt that of his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
The indictment represents the first charges by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, for meddling in the 2016 presidential election — the fundamental crime that he was assigned to investigate.
In a 37-page indictment filed in United States District Court, Mr. Mueller said that the 13 individuals have conspired since 2014 to violate laws that prohibit foreigners from spending money to influence federal elections in the United States.
The indictment charges that the foreigners falsely posed as American citizens, stole identities and otherwise engaged in fraud and deceit in an effort to influence the U.S. political process, including the 2016 presidential race.
[Read the full text of the indictment as a PDF, 37 pages, 8.2MB]
"The nature of the scheme was the defendants took extraordinary steps to make it appear that they were ordinary American political activists," Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general overseeing Mr. Mueller's inquiry, said in a brief news conference on Friday afternoon at the Justice Department.
Though the Russians are unlikely to be immediately arrested, they are now wanted by the United States government, which will make it hard for them to travel or do business internationally. All were charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, three with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud and five with aggravated identity theft.
President Trump emphasized in a tweet and a statement that the indictments accused neither him nor his campaign of wrongdoing and said that the partisan rancor that dominates politics made room for "bad actors, like Russia," to sow discord.
"We must unite as Americans to protect the integrity of our democracy and our elections," he said in the statement.
In the midafternoon tweet, he wrote that Russia began its operation before he even announced his candidacy and that its efforts did not affect the election results. "The Trump campaign did nothing wrong — no collusion!" he wrote.
Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President. The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong - no collusion!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Feb. 16, 2018
The indictment lays out a highly sophisticated, well-funded, three-year-long scheme designed in part to put President Trump in The White House.
The Internet Research Agency, operating out of St. Petersburg, was described in the indictment as a hub for a sophisticated operation designed to reach millions of Americans to disrupt the political process in the United States. Its annual budget was millions of dollars; its stated goal was to "spread distrust toward the candidates and the political system in general."
[Read our 2015 profile of the Internet Research Agency »]
The goal of the Russian operation was "information warfare against the United States," the indictment alleges. Some of the Russians, posing as Americans and working on what was dubbed "the Translator Project," "communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign and other political activists."
They communicated with members of the campaign, volunteers, supporters and grass-roots workers, court papers show. Those individuals — none of whom are named in the indictment — sometimes spread the Russian-created political messages through retweets, reposts and other means. The Russian conspirators then monitored how far their messages carried, the indictment states.
Individuals involved in the conspiracy traveled to and around the United States, visiting at least eight states, court papers show, and worked with an unidentified American. That person 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 cites a series of political advertisements paid for by the Russians, all of them against Mrs. Clinton and in favor of Mr. Trump. "Hillary is a Satan, and her crimes and lies had proved just how evil she is," one advertisement created by the Russians stated.
After the election, still striving to sow discord, Russians began staging political rallies both for and against President-elect Trump, sometimes on the same day, Mr. Rosenstein said.
While the indictment does not directly accuse the Russian government of running the operation, American intelligence agencies have said that Russian President Vladimir V. Putin authorized a multipronged campaign to boost Mr. Trump's political chances and damage Mrs. Clinton. The indictment points out that the two Russian firms involved in financing it hold various Russian government contracts.
Specialists, divided into day teams and night teams, created hundreds of social media accounts in the United States — accounts that eventually attracted hundreds of thousands of online followers. Separate divisions of the Internet Research Agency were in charge of graphics, data analysis and information technology, according to the indictment.
How Russian Bots Invade Our Elections
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By NATALIA V. OSIPOVA and AARON BYRD on October 31, 2017. Photo by Aaron Byrd/The New York Times. Watch in Times Video »The Kremlin's spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov told the RBC news website that Russian officials haven't familiarized themselves with the document yet.
Mr. Rosenstein said repeatedly that the indictment does not allege that the Russian operation changed the outcome of the presidential election.
Even though the Russians recruited and paid Americans to help them stage political rallies and promote political candidates, he said, the indictment also does not allege that any of the Americans knowingly conspired with the Russian operation.
"There is no allegation in this indictment that any American had any knowledge," he said.
In a separate indictment filed by Mr. Mueller on Friday, Richard Pinedo, of Santa Paula, Calif., was charged with identity fraud, involving bank account numbers sold over the internet. According to court papers, some of Mr. Pinedo's customers are foreigners who are targets of Mr. Mueller's inquiry.
Mr. Pinedo has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with Mr. Mueller, court documents show.
The individuals charged were mainly directors or financiers of the "translator project," according to the indictment. In May 2016, the defendants arranged for an American to stand in front of the White House holding a "happy birthday" sign for a man who controlled the two Russian firms that funded the operation. Other defendants were in charge of creating or updating the social media content.
The involvement of some defendants was masked behind various business entities. Two traveled to the United States under false pretenses in order to collect intelligence that would guide the project, court papers show; at least one was unable to obtain a visa.
Their plans included "evacuation scenarios" — presumably in case they were discovered. On Sept. 13, after news media reports that Mr. Mueller's team was investigating evidence that Russians had used fake social media accounts to interfere with the 2016 election, one defendant allegedly wrote: "We had a slight crisis here at work. The F.B.I. busted our activities. So I got preoccupied with covering tracks."
The indictment accuses the Russians of conspiring to obstruct enforcement of American laws, including campaign finance laws administered by the Federal Election Commission that bar foreign spending to influence elections. The F.E.C. launched its own probe into the Internet Research Agency last year, after Facebook revealed that the firm had paid more than $100,000 for politically-themed ads, including ones promoting "Down With Hillary" rallies.
The Russians are charged with orchestrating a wide variety of political activities, including using Facebook and Instagram to promote pro-Trump rallies in Florida, Pennsylvania and New York while organizing anti-Clinton rallies in the District of Columbia and elsewhere. They gave some American citizens specific tasks at those rallies, such as wearing a costume portraying Mrs. Clinton in a prison uniform or building a prison-style cage on a flatbed truck.
After the election, they allegedly kept up their efforts to foment dissent. In November, they staged two rallies in New York on the same day. One had the theme: "Show your support for President-Elect Trump." The other was called: "Trump is NOT my president."
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