In his first public indictment of 2018, special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday announced charges against 13 Russian nationals and three organizations for conspiring in secret to destabilize America’s political institutions.
The indictment, signed by Mueller and approved by the special counsel’s grand jury, charges that beginning in 2014, Russians traveled to America under false pretenses, committed identity theft against real American citizens, and set up fraudulent bank accounts and payments in order to foment online and real-world political discord among the American people.
“The defendants allegedly conducted what they called information warfare against the United States, with the stated goal of spreading distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said Friday.
The indictment alleges that the defendants, organized under the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, created a plethora of social media groups, organized around a political, religious, or geographical theme, to support and advance what they perceived to be radical factions in American politics. In the early stages of the presidential election, that meant creating content denigrating candidates such as Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio, and cheerleading for Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
“On or about February 10, 2016, defendants and their co-conspirators internally circulated an outline of themes for future content to be posted to Organization-controlled social media accounts,” the indictment reads. “Specialists were instructed to post content that focused on ‘politics in the USA’ and to ‘use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump—we support them).’”
In the later stages of the election, the indictment alleges, the Russians pivoted to a full-fledged effort to get Trump elected, using their fraudulent social media pages both to encourage and excite populations likely to support Trump and to keep populations likely to support Clinton away from the polls.
“On or about October 16, 2016, defendants and their co-conspirators used the Organization-controlled Instagram account “Woke Blacks” to post the following message: “[A] particular hype and hatred for Trump is misleading the people and forcing Blacks to vote Killary. We cannot resort to the lesser of two devils. Then we’d surely be better off without voting AT ALL,’” the indictment reads.
Similar messages allegedly targeted Muslim voters, as in a November 2016 post from the organization-controlled page “United Muslims of America”: “American Muslims [are] boycotting elections today, most of the American Muslim voters refuse to vote for Hillary Clinton because she wants to continue the war on Muslims in the middle east and voted yes for invading Iraq.”
The indictment also alleges that some of the defendants, posing as U.S. citizens, had communications with members of the Trump campaign, though it seems those members were unaware they were communicating with foreign agents.
“There is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity,” Rosenstein told reporters. “There is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.”
The White House released a statement Friday afternoon, saying the president “is glad to see that the special counsel’s investigation further indicates that there was NO COLLUSION between the Trump campaign and Russia and that the outcome of the election was not changed or effected.” Reached by Politico, Trump’s attorney John Dowd said he was “very happy” about the indictments.
“It is more important than ever before to come together as Americans,” Trump said in the White House statement. “We cannot allow those seeking to sow confusion, discord, and rancor to be successful. It’s time we stop the outlandish partisan attacks, wild and false allegations, and far-fetched theories, which only serve to further the agendas of bad actors, like Russia, and do nothing to protect the principles of our institutions.”
Republicans and Democrats in the Senate applauded the indictment as a key step in combatting Russian online efforts to undermine American institutions, but cautioned that more most be done than simply catching and punishing last year’s insurgents.
“As we heard this week from the nation’s top intelligence officials, Russia is still using social media to attack our democratic institutions and sow division amongst Americans,” Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Mark Warner said in a statement. “I will continue pressing the nation’s intelligence leaders and the social media companies to be far more aggressive and proactive in responding to this threat.”
Sen. Rob Portman, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, agreed: “We must not forget that this is one small part of the larger process of understanding the extent of ongoing Russian disinformation and influence operations against the United States and our allies.”
House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, a stout presidential ally, blamed former president Barack Obama for failing to do more to curtail Russian efforts during his time in office.
“In 2014—the year the Russians began their operation targeting the 2016 elections—I warned about Russia’s worldwide influence operations. In April 2016 I stated that the United States’ failure to predict Putin’s plans and intentions is ‘the biggest intelligence failure that we’ve had since 9/11.’” Nunes said in a statement. “Although the Obama Administration failed to act on the Committee’s warnings, it’s gratifying to see that Russian agents involved in these operations have now been identified and indicted.”
Russian troll accounts continue to be a real problem on social media, with fake accounts allegedly stoking tensions around already heated political issues. Just this week, Russian bots reportedly flooded Twitter with inflammatory messages following Wednesday’s school shooting in Parkland, Florida, tweeting that, among other things, the National Rifle Association had “blood on its hands” and that the FBI could have prevented the tragedy if they weren’t too busy trying to take down President Trump.
