Special counsel Robert Mueller released the most significant indictment yet in his investigation into Russian election meddling Friday morning, accusing 12 Russian intelligence officials by name of conspiring to steal information from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The criminal charges are Mueller’s first move against Russian nationals since February, and his first indictment to explicitly accuse agents of the Russian government.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the indictment at a press conference Friday morning, telling reporters that the Russians had conspired to “hack into computers, steal documents, and release those documents with the intent to interfere in the election.” Eleven of the defendants have been charged with identity theft, conspiracy to launder money, and conspiracy to commit computer crimes.
The indictment does much to confirm what has long been the assessment of the U.S. intelligence community: that the Russian government deliberately moved to disrupt the 2016 election in multifarious ways, including by hacking operations targeting Democratic organizations and state election boards. But it also demonstrates that the government has learned enough about the Russian efforts to indict specific Russian intelligence officers for specific criminal acts and believes their proof of those efforts will hold up in a court of law.
As in the February indictment, the new filing charges that the accused Russians had contact with American citizens, but not that any Americans were aware they were in contact with Russian intelligence officers.
“There’s no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime,” Rosenstein said. “There’s no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result.”
Rosenstein told reporters he had briefed President Trump on the pending indictment earlier this week, and that “the president is fully aware of the Department’s actions today.” Trump is set to meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Monday; Trump offhandedly told reporters on Thursday he would tell Putin to stay out of U.S. elections in the future.
Although the indictment was filed by Mueller’s team, Rosenstein said that the special counsel was handing over the case to the Justice Department’s national security division for prosecution. In the meantime, he cautioned observers and pundits not to indulge in undue speculation until all the relevant facts had been revealed.
“I want to caution you, the people who speculate about federal investigations usually do not know all of the relevant facts,” Rosenstein said. “We do not try cases on television or in congressional hearings. Most anonymous leaks are not from the government officials who are actually conducting these investigations. We follow the rule of law, which means that we follow procedures and we reserve judgment. We complete our investigations, and we evaluate all of the relevant evidence before we reach any conclusion. That is how the American people expect their Department of Justice to operate, and that is how our department is going to operate.”
