Justice Dept. Indicts 12 Russian Military Intelligence Officers for Election Interference
*By Alisha Haridasani*
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation on Friday indicted 12 Russian military intelligence officers for interfering with the 2016 presidential election.
The defendants “used a variety of means to hack the email accounts of volunteers and employees of the U.S. presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, including the email account of the Clinton campaign manager” with the intent to “stage releases of the stolen documents to interfere” with the election, the [indictment](https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download) stated.
All 12 defendants were identified as officers of GRU, an intelligence agency that functions within the Russian military, making this the first time Mueller’s probe has gone after the Kremlin. Previous indictments have been directed at Russian nationals and companies, as well as several former Trump campaign aides, including Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn.
The Russian-orchestrated plan disclosed Friday stopped short of altering the vote count, said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in a news conference, reiterating a point that has been repeated by the agency and other intelligence committees multiple times during the drawn-out investigation.
"But what this gets to is that this was a misinformation campaign," said Louis Nelson, breaking news reporter at Politico. "Whether minds were changed, whether they were able to sway public opinion, that's the thing that's hard ー maybe impossible ー to quantify."
The news dropped just days ahead of Trump’s controversial one-on-one with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Finland, timing that's unusual for the typically nonpartisan agency.
"The Justice Department generally, typically, tries very hard to avoid even the appearance of doing anything that might be seen as politically motivated," said Nelson.
Mueller's "by-the-book" reputation also adds to the intrigue around the timing of the announcement.
"Frankly, it was a bit unexpected for him to have come out today with indictments today against Russian military officials," said Nelson. "Certainly, it changes the context of that meeting in Helsinki."
The indictments have prompted some Democrats to call for Trump to cancel the meeting.
"There should be no one-on-one meeting between this president and Mr. Putin. There needs to be other Americans in the room," said [Sen. Mark Warner,](https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/mueller-rosenstein-russia-indictments/h_4f0157a3b47ba1bed6b19ce61e38869a) a Democrat from Virginia who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Hours before Rosenstein’s announcement, the president was asked whether he would press Putin about the election meddling.
“I will absolutely bring that up,” said Trump, during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May in the UK. “I don’t think you’ll have any, ‘Gee I did it, I did it, you got me.’ There won’t be a Perry Mason here.”
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/mueller-indicts-12-russian-military-officials-and-what-it-means-for-the-trump-putin-summit)
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