The White House on Friday said the latest round of indictments against 12 Russian nationals as part of the special counsel investigation is “consistent” with President Trump’s claim that his campaign did not collude with the Kremlin during the 2016 election.
[READ HERE: Mueller’s indictment against 12 Russians for hacking Democrats in 2016]
“Today’s charges include no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the campaign and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election result,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said in a statement. “This is consistent with what we have been saying all along.”
Friday’s charges against a dozen Russian intelligence officers include a laundry list of offenses related to Moscow’s involvement in the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails and state election operations in 2016. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who told reporters he briefed Trump on the charges earlier this week, said the Russians involved worked for the military intelligence agency GRU.
Rosenstein’s announcement occurred just as Trump was meeting with Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle in England, and two days before he is scheduled to participate in his first bilateral summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Some Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have called on Trump to cancel his meeting with Putin “until Russia takes demonstrable and transparent steps to prove that they won’t interfere in future elections.”
But the White House gave no indication that any schedule changes were underway in its statement. Instead, Walters pointed to several comments Rosenstein made in his press conference earlier Friday afternoon as further proof that the president has done nothing wrong and that the 2016 election outcome was accurate.
“As deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said today: ‘There is no allegation in this indictment that Americans knew that they were corresponding with Russians. There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime. There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result,'” Walters quoted the top Justice Department official as saying.
Fourteen Russians, five Americans, and one Dutch citizen have already been charged as part of the ongoing special counsel into Russia election meddling.
[Also read: Rudy Giuliani on Mueller indictments: ‘The Russians are nailed’]
