Mueller Charges Thirteen Russians

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Mueller Charges Thirteen Russians

Postby blehblah » Fri Feb 16, 2018 10:05 pm

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/wo ... e38006035/

A Russian Internet agency and more than a dozen Russians interfered in the 2016 U.S. election campaign in a multi-pronged effort to support Donald Trump and disparage rival Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Special Counsel said in an indictment on Friday.

The charges by the office of Robert Mueller described a conspiracy that started in 2014 to disrupt the U.S. election by people who adopted false online personas to push divisive messages; traveled to the United States to collect intelligence; and staged political rallies while posing as Americans.

Russia's Internet Research Agency "had a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election," the indictment states.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told reporters in announcing the charges that the investigation was not finished.


From The Atlantic:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ap/553604/

A 37-page indictment filed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Friday lays out the most detailed picture of how the Russian government sought to interfere in the 2016 election, meddling with voters to sow division in American society, and encouraging the election of Donald Trump in what the defendants referred to as “information warfare against the United States of America.”

“The conspiracy had as its object impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful governmental functions of the United States by dishonest means in order to enable the Defendants to interfere with U.S. political and electoral processes, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” the indictment states. There are 16 defendants, including three organizations and 13 individuals, who are charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States by impairing enforcement of election law as well as wire fraud and bank fraud.

The document is the most complete set of allegations offered by the government yet about one subset of Russian interference, going far beyond an intelligence-community report released in early 2017. At its peak, the alleged conspiracy had a budget of more than $1.25 million per month for activities in the U.S. and elsewhere.
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Re: Mueller Charges Thirteen Russians

Postby Absentia » Fri Feb 16, 2018 10:09 pm

Glad they're going to jail, but unfortunately none of it points to any wrongdoing by Trump's people.
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Re: Mueller Charges Thirteen Russians

Postby blehblah » Fri Feb 16, 2018 10:15 pm

Absentia wrote:Glad they're going to jail, but unfortunately none of it points to any wrongdoing by Trump's people.


I'm going to go out on a limb and predict not a single person charged is going to go to jail.
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Re: Mueller Charges Thirteen Russians

Postby Absentia » Fri Feb 16, 2018 10:42 pm

Oh, I missed the part where they were already back in Russia. In that case this doesn't really mean anything that we didn't already know.
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Re: Mueller Charges Thirteen Russians

Postby IamNotCreepy » Fri Feb 16, 2018 10:55 pm

Even though these people will never face jail time, I think this will accomplish a few things:

It will help legitimize the investigation. The GOP (and Fox News) have been spending the last few months smearing the investigation, and they are not able to respond back. This will help the optics of the situation by showing there was indeed interference.

Second, I think like the other indictments, this is just serving to lay the groundwork for the rest of the investigation. To prove collusion or impropriety by the Trump administration, they will need to first establish that there was interference by the Russians.
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Re: Mueller Charges Thirteen Russians

Postby ghijkmnop » Sat Feb 17, 2018 12:20 am

Redacted
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Last edited by ghijkmnop on Thu Mar 14, 2019 3:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Mueller Charges Thirteen Russians

Postby iMURDAu » Sat Feb 17, 2018 1:04 am

13 so far, and that's also just who they're confident in bringing charges against. Doesn't mean others didn't participate but can't be identified or something along those lines.
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Re: Mueller Charges Thirteen Russians

Postby cmsellers » Sat Feb 17, 2018 2:39 am

I hope for his sake and ours that Mueller is polonium-proof.
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Re: Mueller Charges Thirteen Russians

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Sat Feb 17, 2018 4:26 am

Excerpts from the indictments:

Defendants' operations included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump ("Trump Campaign") and disparaging Hillary Clinton. Defendants made various expenditures to carry out those activities, including buying political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities. Defendants also staged political rallies inside the United States, and while posing as U.S. grassroots entities and U.S. persons, and without revealing their Russian identities and ORGANIZATION affiliation, solicited and compensated real U.S. persons to promote or disparage candidates. Some Defendants, posing as U.S. persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.

In order to carry out their activities to interfere in U.S. political and electoral processes without detection of their Russian affiliation, Defendants conspired to obstruct the lawful functions of the United States government through fraud and deceit, including by making expenditures in connection with the 2016 U.S. presidential election without proper regulatory disclosure; failing to register as foreign agents carrying out political activities within the United States; and obtaining visas through false and fraudulent statements.

Defendants and their co-conspirators used their fictitious online personas to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. They engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate 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. 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)."

From at least April 2016 through November 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators, while concealing their Russian identities and ORGANIZATION affiliation through false personas, began to produce, purchase, and post advertisements on U.S. social media and other online sites expressly advocating for the election of then-candidate Trump or expressly opposing Clinton. Defendants and their co-conspirators did not report their expenditures to the Federal Election Commission, or register as foreign agents with the U.S. Department of Justice. The political advertisements included the following:

April 6, 2016 "You know, a great number of black people support us saying that #HillaryClintonlsNotMyPresident"
April 7, 2016 "I say no to Hillary Clinton / I say no to manipulation"
April 19, 2016 "JOIN our #HillaryClintonForPrison2016"
May 10, 2016 "Donald wants to defeat terrorism ... Hillary wants to sponsor it"
May 19, 2016 "Vote Republican, vote Trump, and support the Second Amendment!"
May 24, 2016 "Hillary Clinton Doesn't Deserve the Black Vote"
June 7, 2016 "Trump is our only hope for a better future!"
June 30, 2016 "#Never Hillary #Hillary F orPrison #Hillary4 Prison #HillaryForPrison2016 #Trump2016 #Trump #Trump4President"
July 20, 2016 "Ohio Wants Hillary 4 Prison"
August 4, 2016 "Hillary Clinton has already committed voter fraud during the Democrat Iowa Caucus."
August 10, 2016 "We cannot trust Hillary to take care of our veterans!"
October 14, 2016 "Among all the candidates Donald Trump is the one and only who can defend the police from terrorists."
October 19, 2016 "Hillary is a Satan, and her crimes and lies had proved just how evil she is."
To pay for the political advertisements, Defendants and their co-conspirators established various Russian bank accounts and credit cards, often registered in the names of fictitious U.S. personas created and used by the ORGANIZATION on social media. Defendants and their coconspirators also paid for other political advertisements using PayPal accounts.

Beginning in at least 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators used, without lawful authority, the social security numbers, home addresses, and birth dates ofreal U.S. persons without their knowledge or consent. Using these means of stolen identification, Defendants and their coconspirators opened accounts at a federally insured U.S. financial institution ("Bank I")

Defendants and their co-conspirators purchased credit card and bank account numbers from online sellers for the unlawful purpose of evading security measures at PayPal, which used account numbers to verify a user's identity. Many of the bank account numbers purchased by Defendants and their co-conspirators were created using the stolen identities of real U.S. persons. After purchasing the accounts, Defendants and their co-conspirators submitted these bank account numbers to PayPal.

On or about August 18, 2016, the real "Florida for Trump" Facebook account responded to the false U.S. persona "Matt Skiber" account with instructions to contact a member of the Trump Campaign ("Campaign Official l ") involved in the campaign's Florida operations and provided Campaign Official 1's email address at the campaign domain donaldtrump.com.On approximately the same day, Defendants and their co-conspirators used the email address of a false U.S. persona, joshmilton024@gmail.com, to send an email to Campaign Official 1 at that donaldtrump.com email account, which read in part:

"Hello [Campaign Official l], [w]e are organizing a state-wide event in Florida on August, 20 to support Mr. Trump. Let us introduce ourselves first. "Being Patriotic" is a grassroots conservative online movement trying to unite people offline. . . . [W]e gained a huge lot of followers and decided to somehow help Mr. Trump get elected. You know, simple yelling on the Internet is not enough. There should be real action. We organized rallies in New York before. Now we're focusing on purple states such as Florida." The email also identified thirteen "confirmed locations" in Florida for the rallies and requested the campaign provide "assistance in each location."

On or about August 24, 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators updated an internal ORGANIZATION list of over 100 real U.S. persons contacted through ORGANIZATIONcontrolled false U.S. persona accounts and tracked to monitor recruitment efforts and requests. The list included contact information for the U.S. persons, a summary of their political views, and activities they had been asked to perform by Defendants and their co-conspirators.
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Re: Mueller Charges Thirteen Russians

Postby Windy » Tue Feb 20, 2018 11:30 pm

Is it time to pretend we're outraged about how fake society is again?
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Re: Mueller Charges Thirteen Russians

Postby Doodle Dee. Snickers » Tue Feb 20, 2018 11:42 pm

It seems both sides are, rather predictably, pointing to this as evidence that Trump is guilty as fuck/innocent as fuck, when it's really neither. Mueller was given a pretty wide scope in this investigation, and part of it is trying to figure out how the Russians involved themselves in this election, what they did, and how to stop them from trying it again. Since Congressional Intelligence Committees seem pretty unconcerned with finding answers to what's a pretty fucking important question, this is absolutely something that Mueller should be finding out.

I still stick to my guns with Trump: I don't think he was on a phone with Putin trying to manipulate the election, I think he's just a useful moron who either didn't know or didn't care that people who had been paid by Russia were overrunning his campaign--although Trump Jr's little meeting tread pretty close to that line. It should bother Republicans that he's an easily manipulated dipshit, but I suspect they don't really care.

That said, as for the obstruction angle, firing Comey certainly was obstruction of justice. It doesn't matter if he thinks the investigation is bullshit, interfering with someone with the intent of stopping them from investigating you is absolutely obstruction of justice. Do I think that will be something the public will care about? No, I think it will break down on partisan lines, as with damn near everything else these days. Obstruction of justice is something we cared about with Nixon in a less tribal time, and something that the slow degradation of governing moors from Johnson to Reagan to Clinton to Dubya (with an assist from outlets like Fox) have kinda driven from public concern.

So with the obligatory Trump section over, I do hope that Mueller continues digging like no tomorrow on this portion of the investigation, because the House Intel Committee stopped giving a fuck roughly two seconds after their investigation started and nothing seems to be happening in the Senate investigation. I do wonder, since Mueller's investigation only ever seems to leak when it's something you'd think he'd want people to know (so many people says his investigation never leaks, but there have been so many leaks from "someone close to the investigation" that are so opportunely timed that it has to be literally him ordering the leaking), if he timed this to counter Republicans clamoring for his resignation, to point out that there actually are quite a few important things he's pursuing that don't necessarily involve the president.
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Re: Mueller Charges Thirteen Russians

Postby NathanLoiselle » Wed Feb 21, 2018 2:50 am

I charged thirteen Russians once. They were so surprised that they didn't even get out of the way.
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Re: Mueller Charges Thirteen Russians

Postby SandTea » Wed Feb 21, 2018 7:48 am

I'm astounded. Probably dating myself but this current situation is confusing to me. republicans are pro russia and Democrats are pro FBI? What the hell happened? Liberals hate on Israel but conservatives love it? Children are acting like adults and adults are acting like children. Is this just the pendulum swinging or am I actually insane and imagining all of this like some solipsism shit?

This has to be some sort of cosmic joke or evidence of a god... that hates us.

About the charges, good. They hopefully will nudge some people towards the truth but I'm not holding my breath. Facts suck when you don't like them. I'm just going to sigh for 40 years and find a nice comfy cave somewhere.
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