Russian "hoax" is for real-- 13 indicted in Mueller probe

The Justice Department’s special counsel announced a sweeping indictment Friday of a notorious Russian group of Internet trolls — charging 13 individuals and three companies with a long-running scheme to criminally interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The Internet Research Agency, based in St. Petersburg, was named in the indictment as the hub of an ambitious effort to trick Americans online into following and promoting Russian-fed propaganda that pushed 2016 voters toward then-Republican candidate Donald Trump and away from Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

The indictment charges that the Russian efforts began in 2014, when three of the Russian conspirators visited 10 states, gathering intelligence about U.S. politics. Officials say that as the operation progressed, the suspects also engaged in extensive online conversations with Americans who became unwitting tools of the Russian efforts. The indictment does not accuse the Russian government of involvement in the scheme, nor does it claim that it succeeded in swaying any votes.

Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein said the suspects “allegedly conducted what they called ‘information warfare against the United States,’ with the stated goal of spread[ing] distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general.”

The suspects, Rosenstein said, “took extraordinary steps to make it appear that they were ordinary American political activists.”

On Twitter, President Trump declared that he was vindicated.

“Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President,” he wrote. “The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong — no collusion!”

The 37-page indictment includes some startling accusations against the election trolls, including that when news broke in September that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III was investigating their activity, one of them wrote: “We had a slight crisis here at work: the FBI busted our activity (not a joke). So I got preoccupied with covering tracks together with the colleagues.” The person, named as Irina Viktorovna Kaverzina, allegedly added: “I created all these pictures and posts, and the Americans believed that it was written by their people.”

Such accusations suggest that Mueller’s investigators were able to penetrate deep into the ­internal communications of the St. Petersburg troll farm, but the indictment does not spell out how they gained such access.

Friday’s indictment provides the most exhaustive description to date of allegations about Russian interference in the election, describing an 80-person team with specialists in graphics, data analysis and search-engine optimization that set out to con Americans online.

At times, they paid people to engage in political theater, such as paying for the construction of “a cage large enough to hold an actress depicting Clinton in a prison uniform,” according to the charges. It is against U.S. law for non-Americans to make expenditures or disbursements in an effort to affect the outcome of a U.S. election.

‘It is spooky’

Prosecutors said the Russians, using fake identities, contacted Trump campaign staffers in Florida offering to hold rallies to support Trump. Susie Wiles, who was co-chair of the Trump campaign in Florida in August 2016 and later became the campaign’s chief Florida staffer, said no campaign official was aware of the Russian effort.

“It’s not the way I do the business; it’s not the way the Trump campaign in Florida did business,” she said. “It is spooky. It is awful. It makes you look over your shoulder. It shouldn’t happen. I’m anxious for this to be uncovered so this never happens again.”

In Congress, politicians in both parties condemned the alleged Russian interference.

“We have known that Russians meddled in the election, but these indictments detail the extent of the subterfuge,” House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said in a statement. He accused the indicted Russians of “a sinister and systematic attack on our political system.”

“Today’s announcement underscores why we need to follow the facts and work to protect the integrity of future elections,” he added.

But that very task — taking steps to prevent future election meddling — has thus far stymied the leaders and committees on Capitol Hill investigating Russian actions. In the House, the parties are openly accusing one another of prioritizing political attacks over taking real steps to protect the country.

“Today’s indictments should lay to rest any assertions by President Trump that the special counsel’s investigation is a ‘hoax’ or a ‘witch hunt,’ ” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. “At this point, any step President Trump may take to interfere with the special counsel’s investigation — including removing Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein or threatening to remove special counsel Mueller directly — will have to be seen as a direct attempt to aid the Russian government in attacking American democracy.”

Prosecutors said the Internet Research Agency kept a list of real Americans whom its employees had contacted using false personas and asked to assist the effort. The list, which numbered more than 100 people by late August 2016, included the U.S. citizens’ contact information, a summary of each person’s political views and the activities the Russians had asked them to undertake.

None of those charged are in custody, according to Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel’s office. Russia does not allow its citizens to be extradited to the United States to face trial, so it is unlikely the individuals will be turned over, but the indictment probably will prevent them from traveling outside Russia.

Some of the Russians posed as Americans and, without revealing their Russian identities, “communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities,” the indictment said.

By February 2016, the suspects had decided whom they were supporting in the race, according to the indictment, which quoted an instruction to Internet Research Agency specialists to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump — we support them.)” Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was running for the Democratic nomination.

Prosecutors say some Russian employees of the troll farm were chastised in September 2016 when they had a “low number of posts dedicated to criticizing Hillary Clinton” and were told it was “imperative to intensify criticizing” the Democratic nominee in future pieces.

Stolen identities

The charges include conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Many of the charges center on the use of at least a half-dozen bank accounts to buy ads online or participate in political activism.

The hackers, he suggested, may have been Chinese. Or some 400-pound guy sitting on his bed. Again and again, he insisted, Russian interference was a hoax — a fiction created by Democrats as an excuse for losing an election they should have won.

When Donald Trump finally acknowledged publicly that Russians had hacked Democratic emails and interfered in the 2016 presidential election, the then-president-elect immediately regretted it. He confided to advisers that he did not believe the intelligence. The last thing Trump wanted to do was to endorse the notion that his victory may have been caused by any force other than his own strategy, message and charisma.

“Russia talk is FAKE NEWS put out by the Dems, and played up by the media, in order to mask the big election defeat and the illegal leaks!” Trump tweeted last Feb. 26.

Another tweet, this one from May 2017: “The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?”

But Trump’s own Justice Department has concluded otherwise. A 37-page federal indictment released Friday afternoon spells out in exhaustive detail a three-year Russian plot to disrupt America’s democracy and boost Trump’s campaign, dealing a fatal blow to one of the president’s favorite talking points.

The indictment — signed by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and announced by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, both of whom Trump has at times mused about wanting to fire — reveals that the scope of Russia’s alleged efforts to help Trump defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was extraordinary.

Even Trump seemed to partly concede the point Friday, acknowledging Russia’s election interference while still minimizing its effects.

“The results of the election were not impacted,” he tweeted. “The Trump campaign did nothing wrong — no collusion!”

John Brennan, who was CIA director at the time of the election, said on Twitter that the indictments reveal the extent of the Russian campaign. “Claims of a ‘hoax’ in tatters,” he tweeted. “My take: Implausible that Russian actions did not influence the views and votes of at least some Americans.”

According to the federal charges, Russian operatives spread pro-Trump and anti-Clinton propaganda. They posed as Americans to coordinate and infiltrate political activities. They organized grass-roots rallies. They paid for a cage large enough to hold an actress impersonating Clinton in a prison uniform. They stoked racial tensions and sowed social discord.

“We have known that Russians meddled in the election, but these indictments detail the extent of the subterfuge,” House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said in a statement. “These Russians engaged in a sinister and systematic attack on our political system. It was a conspiracy to subvert the process, and take aim at democracy itself. Today’s announcement underscores why we need to follow the facts and work to protect the integrity of future elections.”