National Security (13 Russian Trolls Indicted)

[libby]

The following hit the news here in the D.C. area about noon today!

The Washington Post   
Democracy Dies in Darkness

National Security

Russian troll farm, 13 suspects indicted for interference in U.S. election

Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein announces the indictment of 13 Russians linked to a troll farm as part of the special counsel investigation.

By Devlin Barrett, Sari Horwitz and Rosalind S. Helderman 

February 16 at 4:47 PM Email the author   

The Justice Department's special counsel announced a sweeping indictment Friday of a notorious Russian group of Internet trolls — charging 13 individuals and three companies with a long-running scheme to criminally interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The Internet Research Agency, based in St. Petersburg, was named in the indictment as the hub of an ambitious effort to trick Americans online into following and promoting Russian-fed propaganda that pushed 2016 voters toward then-Republican candidate Donald Trump and away from Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

The indictment charges that the Russian efforts began in 2014, when three of the Russian conspirators visited 10 states, gathering intelligence about U.S. politics. Officials say that as the operation progressed, the suspects also engaged in extensive online conversations with Americans who became unwitting tools of the Russian efforts. The indictment does not accuse the Russian government of involvement in the scheme, nor does it claim that it succeeded in swaying any votes.

Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein said the suspects "allegedly conducted what they called 'information warfare against the United States,' with the stated goal of "spread[ing] distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general."

The suspects, Rosenstein said, "took extraordinary steps to make it appear that they were ordinary American political activists."

How Russian operatives used social media to divide
American Lawmakers release social media ads that Russians used to influence the 2016 presidential election. (Joyce Koh/The Washington Post)

On Twitter, President Trump declared that he had been vindicated.

"Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President," he wrote. "The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong — no collusion!"

[Doubting the intelligence, Trump pursues Putin and leaves a Russian threat unchecked]

The 37-page indictment includes some startling accusations against the election trolls, including that when news broke in September that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III was investigating their activity, one of them wrote: "We had a slight crisis here at work: the FBI busted our activity (not a joke). So I got preoccupied with covering tracks together with the colleagues." The person, named as Irina Viktorovna Kaverzina, allegedly added: "I created all these pictures and posts, and the Americans believed that it was written by their people."

Such accusations suggest that Mueller's investigators were able to penetrate deep into the internal communications of the St. Petersburg troll farm, but the indictment does not spell out how they gained such access.

Friday's indictment provides the most exhaustive description to date of allegations about Russian interference in the election, describing an 80-person team with specialists in graphics, data analysis and search-engine optimization that set out to con Americans online.

At times, they paid people to engage in political theater, such as paying for the construction of "a cage large enough to hold an actress depicting Clinton in a prison uniform," according to the charges. It is against U.S. law for non-Americans to make expenditures or disbursements in an effort to affect the outcome of a U.S. election.

'It is spooky'

Prosecutors said the Russians, using fake identities, contacted Trump campaign staffers in Florida offering to hold rallies to support Trump. Susie Wiles, who was co-chair of the Trump campaign in Florida in August 2016 and later became the campaign's chief Florida staffer, said no campaign official was aware of the Russian effort.

"It's not the way I do the business; it's not the way the Trump campaign in Florida did business," she said. "It is spooky. It is awful. It makes you look over your shoulder. It shouldn't happen. I'm anxious for this to be uncovered so this never happens again."

In Congress, politicians in both parties condemned the alleged Russian interference.

"We have known that Russians meddled in the election, but these indictments detail the extent of the subterfuge," House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said in a statement. He accused the indicted Russians of "a sinister and systematic attack on our political system."

"Today's announcement underscores why we need to follow the facts and work to protect the integrity of future elections," he added.

But that very task — taking steps to prevent future election meddling — has thus far stymied the leaders and committees on Capitol Hill investigating Russian actions. In the House, the parties are openly accusing one another of prioritizing political attacks over taking real steps to protect the country.

"Today's indictments should lay to rest any assertions by President Trump that the special counsel's investigation is a 'hoax' or a 'witch hunt,' " said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. "At this point, any step President Trump may take to interfere with the special counsel's investigation — including removing Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein or threatening to remove special counsel Mueller directly — will have to be seen as a direct attempt to aid the Russian government in attacking American democracy."

Prosecutors said the Internet Research Agency kept a list of real Americans whom its employees had contacted using false personas and asked to assist the effort. The list, which numbered more than 100 people by late August 2016, included the U.S. citizens' contact information, a summary of each person's political views and the activities the Russians had asked them to undertake.

None of those charged are in custody, according to Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel's office. Russia does not allow its citizens to be extradited to the United States to face trial, so it is unlikely the individuals will be turned over, but it probably will prevent them from traveling outside Russia.

Some of the Russians posed as Americans and, without revealing their Russian identities, "communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities," the indictment said.

By February 2016, the suspects had decided whom they were supporting in the 2016 race, according to the indictment, which said Internet Research Agency specialists were instructed to "use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except [Vermont Sen. Bernie] Sanders and Trump — we support them.)"

Prosecutors say some Russian employees of the troll farm were chastised in September 2016 when they had a "low number of posts dedicated to criticizing Hillary Clinton" and were told it was "imperative to intensify criticizing" the Democratic nominee in future pieces.

Stolen identities

The charges include conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Many of the charges center on the use of at least a half-dozen bank accounts to buy ads online or participate in political activism.

[Russian ads show sophistication of influence campaign]

In a related move, prosecutors announced that a Santa Paula, Calif., man had pleaded guilty Monday in Washington to identity fraud, admitting that he made tens of thousands of dollars by creating hundreds of bank accounts, often using stolen identities. Richard Pinedo, 28, sold the accounts to unidentified offshore users, apparently including suspects connected to the Russia probe.

Prosecutors released documents unsealed Friday that showed that Pinedo was charged Feb. 7 after entering a plea deal five days earlier in which he agreed to cooperate with investigators in exchange for an advisory sentencing guideline of 12 to 18 months in prison.

Pinedo attorney Jeremy Lessem said his client "had absolutely no knowledge" of who his purchasers were or what they did with the information he sold, adding that to the extent his actions may have assisted anyone in interfering with the presidential election, that "was done completely without his knowledge or understanding."

One of those indicted Friday was Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin, a well-known figure that the Russian news media has identified as the financial backer of the Internet Research Agency. He is a caterer who has been nicknamed "Putin's chef" because of his close ties to the Russian president. Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering, two Russian businesses also charged by Mueller's team Friday, previously have been identified as Prigozhin vehicles.

"The Americans are very impressionable people, and they see what they want to see," Prigozhin told Russia's RIA Novosti state news agency in response to the indictment. "I respect them very much."

Referring to the list of indicted individuals, he added: "I am not at all disappointed that I appear in this list. If they want to see the devil — let them."

The Internet Research Agency was at the center of Silicon Valley's investigation into Russian meddling during the 2016 presidential election. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google all found evidence that the private firm used social media to divide American voters across a range of polarizing issues, including race, religion, gun rights and immigration.

A Twitter spokesman said: "Russian efforts to disrupt the 2016 U.S. election, in part by abusing social media platforms, go against everything we at Twitter believe. Any activity of this kind is intolerable, and we all must do more to prevent it."

The Internet Research Agency is regarded as the most prominent part of the Russian disinformation campaign, although congressional investigators pushed for evidence of other operations, including from countries other than Russia, that shared the same purpose.

Anton Troianovski in Berlin and Craig Timberg, Spencer S. Hsu and Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.

Read more:

How Russian Facebook ads worked

The notorious Kremlin-linked 'troll farm' and the Russians trying to take it down

Twitter to tell 677,000 users they were had by the Russians. Some signs show the problem continues.
 

Share on Facebook Share
Share on TwitterTweet 
Share via Email 

Devlin Barrett writes about national security and law enforcement for The Washington Post. He has previously worked at the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press and the New York Post, where he started as a copy boy.  Follow @DevlinBarrett

Sari Horwitz covers the Justice Department, law enforcement and criminal justice issues nationwide for The Washington Post, where she has been a reporter for 33 years.  Follow @sarihorwitz

[Exterminator]

"Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President," he wrote. "The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong — no collusion!"

While it's true he hadn't made any announcement by then, he was clearly already laying the groundwork.  For example, he applied to trademark, "Make America Great Again," in 2012 and registered Trump2016.com in 2014.

The timing could be completely coincidental but he held the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013.

[Henry Hawk]

Yeah, just like Obama in 2012 saying:


President Obama: "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility."
President Medvedev: "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir, and I stand with you."


Or


Bill Clinton receiving $500,000 to deliver a speech at a Russian bank that was promoting Uranium One stock....

[Exterminator]

Yeah, just like Obama in 2012 saying:


President Obama: "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility."
President Medvedev: "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir, and I stand with you."

So what?  In what way does that equate to undermining our democracy?

Bill Clinton receiving $500,000 to deliver a speech at a Russian bank that was promoting Uranium One stock....

FFS...still with the uranium BS?  How many times do you people need this explained to you?

[The Troll]

Yeah, just like Obama in 2012 saying:


President Obama: "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility."
President Medvedev: "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir, and I stand with you."


Or


Bill Clinton receiving $500,000 to deliver a speech at a Russian bank that was promoting Uranium One stock....

  George H. Bush got 1 million dollars for a speech in Japan.   

[Henry Hawk]

  George H. Bush got 1 million dollars for a speech in Japan.   

Japan is our friend. Russia is our enemy, RIGHT?
Yet, Trump is colluding?  18 months of witch hunt investigation and NADDA.

C'mon guys, get over it.

[Exterminator]

18 months of witch hunt investigation and NADDA.

Really?  Is Fox News not covering the growing number of indictments?

[Henry Hawk]

Really?  Is Fox News not covering the growing number of indictments?

Let's wait and see how many stick....then get back with me.

[Exterminator]

From The New York Times:

Whatever Trump Is Hiding Is Hurting All of Us Now
By Thomas L. Friedman

(emphasis mine)

Our democracy is in serious danger.

President Trump is either totally compromised by the Russians or is a towering fool, or both, but either way he has shown himself unwilling or unable to defend America against a Russian campaign to divide and undermine our democracy.

That is, either Trump's real estate empire has taken large amounts of money from shady oligarchs linked to the Kremlin — so much that they literally own him; or rumors are true that he engaged in sexual misbehavior while he was in Moscow running the Miss Universe contest, which Russian intelligence has on tape and he doesn't want released; or Trump actually believes Russian President Vladimir Putin when he says he is innocent of intervening in our elections — over the explicit findings of Trump's own C.I.A., N.S.A. and F.B.I. chiefs.

In sum, Trump is either hiding something so threatening to himself, or he's criminally incompetent to be commander in chief. It is impossible yet to say which explanation for his behavior is true, but it seems highly likely that one of these scenarios explains Trump's refusal to respond to Russia's direct attack on our system — a quiescence that is simply unprecedented for any U.S. president in history. Russia is not our friend. It has acted in a hostile manner. And Trump keeps ignoring it all.

Up to now, Trump has been flouting the norms of the presidency. Now Trump's behavior amounts to a refusal to carry out his oath of office — to protect and defend the Constitution. Here's an imperfect but close analogy: It's as if George W. Bush had said after 9/11: "No big deal. I am going golfing over the weekend in Florida and blogging about how it's all the Democrats' fault — no need to hold a National Security Council meeting."

At a time when the special prosecutor Robert Mueller — leveraging several years of intelligence gathering by the F.B.I., C.I.A. and N.S.A. — has brought indictments against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian groups — all linked in some way to the Kremlin — for interfering with the 2016 U.S. elections, America needs a president who will lead our nation's defense against this attack on the integrity of our electoral democracy.

What would that look like? He would educate the public on the scale of the problem; he would bring together all the stakeholders — state and local election authorities, the federal government, both parties and all the owners of social networks that the Russians used to carry out their interference — to mount an effective defense; and he would bring together our intelligence and military experts to mount an effective offense against Putin — the best defense of all.

What we have instead is a president vulgarly tweeting that the Russians are "laughing their asses off in Moscow" for how we've been investigating their interventions — and exploiting the terrible school shooting in Florida — and the failure of the F.B.I. to properly forward to its Miami field office a tip on the killer — to throw the entire F.B.I. under the bus and create a new excuse to shut down the Mueller investigation.

Think for a moment how demented was Trump's Saturday night tweet: "Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign — there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!"

To the contrary. Our F.B.I., C.I.A. and N.S.A., working with the special counsel, have done us amazingly proud. They've uncovered a Russian program to divide Americans and tilt our last election toward Trump — i.e., to undermine the very core of our democracy — and Trump is telling them to get back to important things like tracking would-be school shooters. Yes, the F.B.I. made a mistake in Florida. But it acted heroically on Russia. What is more basic than protecting American democracy?

It is so obvious what Trump is up to: Again, he is either a total sucker for Putin or, more likely, he is hiding something that he knows the Russians have on him, and he knows that the longer Mueller's investigation goes on, the more likely he will be to find and expose it.

Donald, if you are so innocent, why do you go to such extraordinary lengths to try to shut Mueller down? And if you are really the president — not still head of the Trump Organization, who moonlights as president, which is how you so often behave — why don't you actually lead — lead not only a proper cyberdefense of our elections, but also an offense against Putin.

Putin used cyberwarfare to poison American politics, to spread fake news, to help elect a chaos candidate, all in order to weaken our democracy. We should be using our cyber-capabilities to spread the truth about Putin — just how much money he has stolen, just how many lies he has spread, just how many rivals he has jailed or made disappear — all to weaken his autocracy. That is what a real president would be doing right now.

My guess is what Trump is hiding has to do with money. It's something about his financial ties to business elites tied to the Kremlin. They may own a big stake in him. Who can forget that quote from his son Donald Trump Jr. from back in 2008: "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets." They may own our president.

But whatever it is, Trump is either trying so hard to hide it or is so naïve about Russia that he is ready to not only resist mounting a proper defense of our democracy, he's actually ready to undermine some of our most important institutions, the F.B.I. and Justice Department, to keep his compromised status hidden.

That must not be tolerated. This is code red. The biggest threat to the integrity of our democracy today is in the Oval Office.

[Henry Hawk]

Talk about an Amazing douche bag of a man.....he's the quack who compared the election of Trump to the attack on America with 9/11 and the attack on Pearl Harbor...

total douch bag....and of course the NY Times thinks he is good....that is enough to figure out what a quack he really is.

[Exterminator]

...who compared the election of Trump to the attack on America with 9/11 and the attack on Pearl Harbor...

Uh, no.  He is comparing the attack by Russians on our democracy and electoral process to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor.  Do you disagree with that?

[Henry Hawk]

Uh, no.  He is comparing the attack by Russians on our democracy and electoral process to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor.  Do you disagree with that?

Not even close...The FBI said it had NO EFFECT on our election.  It DID make a mockery out of our incompetent media...who has Russia laugh their asses off.

How, do you remotely come to a conclusion that the death and destruction of American Citizens compares to some idiotic Facebook posts?

[Exterminator]

The FBI said it had NO EFFECT on our election.

This is not true.  No intelligence agency has speculated on whether or not it had any effect on the outcome of the election.

Here's a thought experiment: would companies and political campaigns pump a ton of money into ads if they didn't work?

Here's another: given a budget of a million dollars a month, the backing of the Russian government, support from the Russian state media, the presence of media companies like Facebook where people do your advertising work for you, a half century of practice in sophisticated international propaganda and the tacit endorsement of an American political party, do you think it's possible that the Russians would have been able to slightly shift 80,000 votes in three swing states?

Either way, the question isn't whether or not they affected the outcome of the election but whether or not they tried and we are 100% certain of that.The point of the article, since you clearly missed it, is that the administration is doing absolutely nothing to retaliate or to prevent it from happening again.  Protecting our democracy is their most fundamental responsibility.

How, do you remotely come to a conclusion that the death and destruction of American Citizens compares to some idiotic Facebook posts?

This is not simply the death of American citizens, it is the death of our very way of life and people like you are facilitating it because your political ideology is more important to you than the country is.

[Henry Hawk]

The point of the article, since you clearly missed it, is that the administration is doing absolutely nothing to retaliate or to prevent it from happening again.  Protecting our democracy is their most fundamental responsibility.

What did Obama do about it?  Nadda


"There is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election."...Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein

Obama was even quoted in 2016...."There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even you could even rig America's elections there's no evidence that that has happened in the past or that there are instances in which that will happen this time,"

Mueller's indictment clearly lays out that this Russian attempt to influence the election started in 2014 under Obama's watch, and he was warned and he did nothing to stop it. In fact, by the way, go back to 2012, during a presidential debate. Remember Obama mocking Mitt Romney for saying Russia still posed a very serious foreign policy threat? Looks like Romney was right, Obama was wrong...

What makes you think Trump won't do something about it?

This is not simply the death of American citizens, it is the death of our very way of life and people like you are facilitating it because your political ideology is more important to you than the country is.

Man, it is clearly the liberal ideology that is causing this mess.....they want nothing more than to destroy Trump at ANY cost...if he found a cure for cancer, the liberals would be pissed because he didn't find a cure for heart disease.

Ex, we are just flat out NEVER going to agree with one another...

[Exterminator]

What did Obama do about it?  Nadda

It wasn't discovered until the 11th hour and had he mentioned it before the election, he would have been accused of trying to affect the outcome.  After the election, he imposed sanctioned and expelled several dozen diplomats.

"There is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election."...Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein

Correct and there is also no claim that it didn't.  It's impossible to know.

Obama was even quoted in 2016...."There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even you could even rig America's elections there's no evidence that that has happened in the past or that there are instances in which that will happen this time,"

And that statement is absolutely correct.  "Rigging" the election would be attempting to hack into the voting systems to change the outcome in favor of one candidate.  There is no evidence that that has ever happened.  Attempting to affect the outcome of the election by influencing voters and undermining the democratic process is not the same thing.

Mueller's indictment clearly lays out that this Russian attempt to influence the election started in 2014 under Obama's watch, and he was warned and he did nothing to stop it.

Just because it started then, doesn't mean we knew about it.  Prove that they knew about it then and did nothing and we'll have that conversation then.  And please, don't insult my intelligence by posting bullshit proof from Fox news as your proof.

What makes you think Trump won't do something about it?

Why hasn't he imposed the sanctions overwhelmingly approved by the House and Senate in bipartisan votes?

Man, it is clearly the liberal ideology that is causing this mess.....they want nothing more than to destroy Trump at ANY cost...if he found a cure for cancer, the liberals would be pissed because he didn't find a cure for heart disease.

How is expecting the POTUS to do his fucking job and protect our democracy trying to destroy him?  And quit with the cancer bullshit...it'll never happen so why talk about how people may see it?

Ex, we are just flat out NEVER going to agree with one another...

No, because I love my country and you're willing to flush it down the toilet to protect your clown in the oval office.