Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel accused the Obama administration of losing “sight of Russia,” after special counsel Robert Mueller unveiled the indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for seeking to interfere in the 2016 election.
“These indictments are very telling that the Obama administration lost sight of Russia during their tenure,” McDaniel told Fox News host Neil Cavuto on Friday.
“I look back at 2012 when Mitt Romney said, ‘Hey, our biggest geopolitical foe is Russia,’ and President Obama laughed at him,” McDaniel added. Mitt Romney is her uncle.
McDaniel said the Russians were seeking to undermine American democracy and that it was necessary to “get to the bottom” of what happened so it could be prevented in the future.
.@GOPChairwoman on Russians indicted for election meddling: “These indictments are very telling that the Obama administration lost sight of Russia during their tenure.” @TeamCavuto pic.twitter.com/aCOzxAxp0L
— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 16, 2018
Mueller’s office revealed that the 13 Russian national were indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Additionally, three defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and five were charged with aggravated identity theft.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced Friday afternoon that the meddling started in May 2014 and that the Russian groups created posts, ads, and organized events on social media platforms by using names of Americans and other entities.
The ads primarily were primarily opposed to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, but at times were against President Trump.
Mueller is investigating if collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin occurred during the 2016 election.
Trump has historically called Mueller’s probe a “witch hunt” and, in light of the Russian indictments, has continued to reiterate that “no collusion” ever happened.
“Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President,” Trump tweeted on Friday. “The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong — no collusion!”
