12 Russian Intelligence Officers, 0 Americans Indicted for Hacking DNC, Hillary Campaign
“There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime. There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result.”
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced today that a federal grand jury indicted 12 Russians, all officers with Russia’s intelligence agency GRU, for allegedly hacking into the DNC and Hillary’s campaign.
The most important part of Rosenstein’s speech: “There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime. There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result.”
So while people on the left and within the resistance may cheer these indictments, it’s just another announcement that has absolutely nothing to do with collusion, which is the main objective of Special Investigator Robert Mueller’s probe.
More than likely these 12 Russians will not even serve a day in jail.
Anyway, the indictment claims that these men leaked emails from the DNC and Hillary Clinton under the names of DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0. They accessed the emails through phishing, which involves tricking people “into disclosing their usernames passwords.” Once they had this information, they used it “to hack into computer networks to install malware and spy on users and capture information.”
Here is the White House response:
NEW: White House responds to Russian hacking indictments. pic.twitter.com/rtj16iq7yR
— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) July 13, 2018
Steve Brusk at CNN tweeted out the significant parts of Rosenstein’s press conference:
Rosenstein: “I want to caution you that people who speculate about federal investigations usually do not know all of the relevant facts. We do not try cases on television or in congressional hearings”
— Steve Brusk (@stevebruskCNN) July 13, 2018
Rosenstein: “When we confront foreign interference in American elections, it is important for us to avoid thinking politically as Republicans or Democrats and instead to think patriotically as Americans. Our response must not depend on who was victimized.”
— Steve Brusk (@stevebruskCNN) July 13, 2018
Rosenstein:”the blame for election interference belongs to the criminals who committed election interference. We need to work together to hold the perpetrators accountable, and keep moving forward to preserve our values, protect against future interference, and defend America”
— Steve Brusk (@stevebruskCNN) July 13, 2018
Rosenstein: “The Special Counsel’s investigation is ongoing. There will be no comments from the Special Counsel at this time.”
— Steve Brusk (@stevebruskCNN) July 13, 2018
Rnsenstein: “There is no allegation that the conspiracy altered the vote count or changed any election result.”
— Steve Brusk (@stevebruskCNN) July 13, 2018
Rosenstein, asked what the president’s reaction when told of the indictments, “I’ll let the president speak for himself”. Rosenstein said the timing was based on the grand jury
— Steve Brusk (@stevebruskCNN) July 13, 2018
Indictment by Fox News on Scribd
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Comments
Indicted based on what? Has someone finally looked at the DNC server? Initial finding, this is that same old same old Crowdstrike fraud coming around again.
And a DC Grand Jury would indict a ham sandwich, an innocent ham sandwich.
I need to know a lot more before I buy any of this. New this time out, I think, Guccifer 2.0 is Russian.
Really? Evidence?
Fancy Bear, Cozy Bear blah blah blah.
And no, I don’t trust Rosenstein.
Rosenstein is covering his butt because he knows how poorly he has been doing his deep state manipulations. He and Stzrok looked horrendous in their congressional hearings, and this comes across as making cover.
So, why is Mueller still bilking millions from the taxpayers for his Trumped up investigation? Rosenstein needs to be fired, and investigated, Mueller needs to be shut down.
Seth Rich was unavailable for comment…
They couldn’t have examined the DNC servers. The DNC wouldn’t let the FBI near them and the then-head of the DNC Donna Brazille said they were destroyed. Hillary Clinton tactics once again.
It’s not working out well for Mueller and his henchmen concerning their February indictment of 13 Russian citizens and a few Russian business entities for interfering with the election by posting “fake news” content on social media. Which I’m not even sure is a crime. Vladimir’s crony known as “Putin’s chef” Yevgeny Prigozhin, one of the named individuals and proprietor of two of the business entities named in the indictment, one of which didn’t exist during the time period covered by the indictment, hired counsel which demanded extensive discovery, and plead innocent to the charges of course.
Based on the sloppiness of the indictment and their panicky poo flinging delaying tactics it’s clear that Mueller team thought they could pull a clearly political stunt in the belief they could say anything in public because they would never have to prove it in court. So they didn’t even bother to do their homework. When Prigozhin’s counsel showed up you could smell the Mueller team’s panic over the internet. From the start they claimed the defense team wasn’t properly served, to which the defense team responded “We’re here, aren’t we?” to demanding the judge wave the speedy trial rule and grant the prosecution endless delays (since the right to a speedy trial belongs to the defense and not the prosecutor the judge dismissed that motion without comment) the Mueller team has been just pathetic. Including when they begged the judge to conceal the evidence from the defense because it’s “classified.” I never thought I’d see the day when I would cheer on a Russian v. U.S. prosecutors. But when U.S. prosecutors start acting like Stalin’s Potemkin show-trial enforcers in the Soviet Union and demand the right to convict people using secret evidence when an indicted person of any nationality simply insists on the rights we guarantee all defendants, I’m against the filthy, underhanded U.S. prosecutors.
Mueller is still threatening to flood the court by dumping thirty thousand documents, all in Russian, as a further delaying tactic when the trial resumes on schedule on 28 August. Apparently while they may have thirty thousand documents in Russian they can’t connect those to the defendants and they activity they allege the defendants engaged in. If they could they should be eager to get to trial as opposed to fighting tooth and nail with sweat running down the cracks of their asses to delay, delay, delay.
I have a feeling this latest PR stunt is going to be much the same thing. Are they really going to rely on a third party they deem reliable again to pass them information they can’t independently verify? Not Christopher Steele but in this case Crowdstrike.
Although I’m not a lawyer, in this case, unlike with the FISA court, there’s an opposing side to contest the evidence and since there’s no valid chain of custody I think the defense has a good chance of getting the evidence thrown out.
Putin is an old KGB thug. This is the kind of thing where he’d have the successor to his old outfit, the FSB, take the lead. Besides, political dirty tricks aren’t really the GRU’s strong point since they’re military intelligence while it’s right in the SVR’s and FSB’s wheel house. But as I said Putin favors the FSB over the SVR.
Actually Mueller claimed that the defendants hadn’t been properly served via the DoS/Russian government conduit. But the defense teams response was still sufficient.
I was in a trial where the prosecutor did that once. The defense quickly stipulated that foundation was waived, with objections for relevance remaining. The court never saw a single piece of paper and the defendant acquitted. The stunt was a complete disaster.
“Well, you know it proves — this indictment proves that we never needed a special counsel,” Dershowitz said, when asked about what the indictments mean for the special counsel.
“This indictment could have been brought by ordinary prosecutors, ordinary FBI agents. There’s no conflict here. It’s Russians they are going after. There is no president; There’s no people around the president,” he added.
Dershowitz doesn’t go far enough. Rosenstein broke the law when he appointed Mueller as special counsel. You can’t appoint a special counsel to oversee a counterintelligence investigation. You have to have a reason to believe a crime has been committed, you have to be able to articulate what that crime is, who committed it, and what statute they violated.
The fact that when it comes to Trump-Russia collusion the Mueller crew keeps indicting Russians in absentia, and Rosenstein has to keep telling the TV cameras that no Americans are charged with committing crimes and there is no evidence of collusion, is tantamount to him making public announcements that he never had any legal basis to appoint Mueller in the first place.
The House may begin impeachment proceedings against Rosenstein as early as tomorrow. I wish them well.
Yahoo is quite the cesspool today with all this “beginning of the end for Trump!!!!” hysteria. What a bunch of rubbish.
Everything is the beginning of the end for PDT!
LOL
Virginia42…
If you think yahoo is bad check out the comments on the Hill…
Echoing Titan28 comments…
I suppose if one of the indicted Russians did appear and pled not guilty, the Russians could use that analysis that was done by that group of ex-NSA/CIA/FBI folks that “proved” that technically, there was no way the DNC server could have been remotely hacked and transferred the data based on the internal timestamps in the server. If their work is submitted as evidence and proven to be accurate, not only do these indictments blow up. but also the entire case of Russian meddling. Maybe that is the hidden strategy. Trump will convince Putin to contest the charges in court for one (or all) of the persons named. Then force discovery and either win the case based on the lack of the FBI/DOJ ever examining the server, or by introducing the aforementioned group’s technical evidence. Either way, the indictments would likely not hold up in trial, and as the case proceeds through the court, a massive amount of public and MSM attention will be paid, so when it all blows up, the Russiagate ends.
The previous Russian indictments are crashing and burning even now. Mueller has requested, and received, delays in providing materials under discovery already. There does not appear to be any foundation for any of the Russian indictments. I doubt that there are any for these either.
This is all about cover for the Strzok appearance yesterday. When the Russian collusion investigation wraps up, Rosenstein is history, probably along with Sessions.
Isn’t the real reason for a special counsel to make indictments of collateral personnel while waiting to the ‘statue of limitations’ to run out on everybody else ?
…and the attorney’s for the accused show-up in court to answer the charges in, 3…2…1
More. Faster.
So these are Russian military officers. Aren’t our cyber warfare operators doing the same kinds of things to the Russkies? I’d be disappointed if we weren’t.
Deputy Attorney General Rod “Mr. Limpet” Rosenstein needs to look into the DNC’s collusion with the MSM. However, we’ve been told forever that there is no fear of anything illegal that occurs during elections and no need for voter ID. Yet we joke about Chicago’s election motto of “Vote early, vote often”. What a weasel 🙂
so, Russia retains US lawyer to rep one of the indicted people.
lawyer demands discovery.
hilarity ensues.
“Your Honor, we would like to have our experts examine the server we supposedly hacked, with a complete chain of custody.”
Case dismissed.
Next indictment: a reuben sandwich.
Didn’t Rosie, near the end beg for evidence from Hillary and the DNC? IANAL, but Without the servers, and a chain of custody, I don’t think any judge would allow testimony of the victim in as the only collaboration of the accused actions. Crowdstrike being a DNC contractor is the DNC – paid to say what the DNC wants. DOJ bought the “Russians did it” hook line and sinker with zero evidence. The defendant will have to be allowed to have his expert examine the server (in its original condition). The portions of these indictments regarding the DNC and Hillary server breaches are toast if this ever gets to court.
If true, the Russians should be given an award for releasing those emails and thereby exposing those D’Rat scoundrels and criminals. And by the way, compare the Russians to the Chinese, who have hacked a large percentage of our greatest military and technological secrets. Not a peep from the D’Rats.
What a load!
More than likely these 12 Russians will not even serve a day in jail.
More than likely no Russian had anything at all to do with it.
Kid stuff. Charge someone who will never even appear in a US courtroom. No appearance, no trial, no need to present a case, so it’s never revealed that there is no case. The Swamp can continue to pretend that Russians “hacked” the election, so … er … ahh … Trump must be guilty of … ummm … something-or-other.
This case has gone from merely ridiculous to elementrary-school Class Play level. Even as fakes, these guys are not earning their salaries.
These people cannot be prosecuted unless they volunteer and if they do volunteer they cannot be allowed discovery. I am willing to accept that the indictments provide an outline of what actually happened. I think the motivation for what they did was to undermine and discredit the person they thought would win. Is anybody really surprised?
It makes no sense to commission a special prosecutor to do a counter-intelligence investigation into the actions of foreigners that don’t require the cooperation of Americans. It is time for Mueller to hand over Cohen, Manafort and Flinn to career prosecutors and retire.
Connivin Caniff:
“If true, the Russians should be given an award for releasing those emails and thereby exposing those D’Rat scoundrels and criminals.”
The Russians did expose Hillary and the DNCs attempts to subvert Socialist Senator Sanders.
Maybe the Russians are not as free of Socialism as we are led to believe.
Good point. But if the betrayal of Bernie is the motivation, does that not also bring Seth Rich back into the picture as someone else possibly seeking revenge? That really makes the whole thing fun to think about.
This, truly, is a joke. It would be a joke under any administration. These acts were conducted from Russian soil by uniformed Russian soldiers working for military intelligence, and the US is indicting them in absentia? It’s not a matter of what they deserve – that is, if it can be conclusively proven they did this hacking, which no one seems to expect will ever need to be put to the test – but rather, the United States does not permit its soldiers to be put on trial by foreign nations, and it is an international farce that Russia would allow its soldiers to have the same done to them.
On top of that, it’s ridiculous to have such a transparent attempt at affecting the foreign policy of the President through well-timed public relations by the Department of Justice. I noted Democratic Party Senators (Schumer and Warner are the ones I know of) saying Trump shouldn’t meet with Putin at all – the leader of the world’s #2 nuclear power – to conduct diplomacy of any kind, one of his main constitutional duties. I can’t even put into words what people would say if this was done to Obama.
So the DOJ–or maybe Mueller–has gone before a Grand Jury and indicted 12 soviet officials—who presumably live and work in Moscow. Now that you’ve caught your rabbit with an indictment, how are you going to “cook” them with a trial at which they won’t appear. And just how do you get service of the indictment or criminal complaint in Moscow? This may make Rosenswine look good–or maybe put lipstick on the Mueller investigation pig. But what’s the Russian saying that means “Sod off you little schmuck-sky”. I don’t think the Russkis are impressed.
So a week after Rosenstein gives unconvincing testimony and a day after Strzok turns out to be one of the worst witnesses in all of history, Rosenstein announces indictments of 12 people, who if past history is any indication, are not guilty, and who are defintely never going to spend a day in jail.
Sounds like someone desperate to protect his job.
Setting up an obstruction claim. An insurance policy. Hurriedly called, because Strzok testimony made the nation cringe.
12 Russian Intelligence Officers, 0 Americans Indicted for Hacking DNC, Hillary Campaign
… and every American involved is a Democrat
Not only is this consistent with what the WH has been saying all along, it is also consistent with what the intelligence community witnesses have been saying all along in their testimony.
The DOJ is definitely improving; where they use to be able to indict a ham sandwich, now they can indict a dozen will o’ wisps in one fell swoop!
This is quite an accomplishment given the the FBI was refused access to the DNC server. However the DNC called in Crowdstrike to investigate the alledged hack.
Dmitri Alperovitch, the Russian co-founder of Crowdstrike is certainly a reliable source for the FBI/DOJ.
Does anyone think our CIA/NSA guys might be doing the same stuff to Russia and other governments?
If they aren’t, they aren’t doing their job.
What a bunch of B/S.
Distraction. Not even a serious intent. The matter was referred to the national security desk of the DOJ. Name Ohr mean anything to anyone? This is the office that concocted the Russian collusion hoax.
THIS- is incredibly stupid. You don’t indict uniformed officers of another country for breaking your laws WHILE IN THEIR COUNTRY. Their actions, actually, are perfectly legal under their laws, just as what the NSA does to them is legal under ours. If they showed up here, which they won’t, they could demand to be tried by court martial. Since we have people doing the exact same thing to them, it would be an extremely bad precedent to find them guilty of anything. What you do if they’re effective in such matters is- you go to your special operators and say-“We’ve identified these people as threats. Take care of them.” And before you even do that, you make sure they actually are effective at their jobs, and that their targets didn’t make it easy for them by doing things like using “P@ssword” as a password. Which, BTW, Democrats who were hacked did.
If they were doing it while here, then it’s a clear crime called “Spying”. Doing it in the country you’re spying on had always been a capital crime. In that country. I don’t think there’s a lot of precedent for hanging people spying from inside their own country.
Don’t forget that when Obama had the DoS pass hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to the Israeli opposition to Netanyahu in their most recent election, and a goodly portion of Obama’s 2008/2012 campaign staff including that Messina freak went to help the opposition unseat Netanyahu, the Congressional committees that investigated Obama’s actions concluded that our interference in the Israeli election was legal UNDER OUR LAWS.
Who cares if the interference was legal under Israel’s laws. And the money was essentially flowing out of our embassy in Tel Aviv. Of course, John f’n Kerry’s DoS lied and said the grants to the opposition group was really intended to help with their outreach to the Palestinians to foster peace. Too bad the group informed key personnel at the US embassy well in advance exactly how they were going to use the money; to fund their anti-Netanyahu political campaign. And American citizens who still have ties to Obama-connected political organizations were involved with the effort while in Israel.
I personally would enjoy seeing the defendants admit to receiving the information and releasing it. Which they can say is legal under Russian law and no US court has jurisdiction over their intelligence operations inside Russia unless US courts are stupid enough to claim they have universal jurisdiction to outlaw foreign intelligence operations and only the US can legally spy on other countries.
And then claim they’re not the ones who actually may or may not have hacked the DNC servers, they simply received it from a source they refuse to identify in the name of Russian national security. And demand the US prove otherwise in open court after they exercise their right to examine the evidence against them.
One of the things that galls me is that the Soviets interfered in our elections probably since the 1920s. Definitely at the very least since the 1930. Before the age of the internet they primarily did this through willing accomplices in the press. Communist sympathizers, if not actual card carrying communists, were only too happy to help the Soviets. Walter Duranty who lied through the pages of the NYT that there was no Holodomor, the genocidal and deliberate starvation of millions of Ukrainians, and that everything in the USSR was per their Chamber of Commerce (hint: there was no USSR Chamber of Commerce) everything was all skittles and beer and coming up roses and the economy was racing along on all eight cylinders, meeting and exceeding all centrally planned goals, wasn’t the only one willing to sell out the country to help commies. Exhibit A: the NYT refuses to give up his Pulitzer. They’re still proud of it even though he simply provided Soviet propaganda verbatim.
There were lots of willing and eager reporters and editors who were willing to kill or simply not report stories that didn’t serve Soviet interests, and print whatever propaganda the Soviets wanted Americans to see. Think Eason Jordan’s CNN carrying Saddam Hussein’s water, willingly prostituting themselves for the tagline, “This is CNN, Baghdad.”
It was and still is laugh out loud funny for Hillary Clinton to claim that some Americans (cough, cough, Trump, cough, cough, Cough, COUGH, COUGH, OMFG, COUGH, COUGH! COUGH!! [SOMEBODY DRAG ME OFF STAGE AND THROW ME INTO THE SCOOBY VAN LIKE A SACK OF FERTILIZER] COUGH!!!, COUGH!!!!…) had to have colluded with the Russians because otherwise the Russians wouldn’t have know the intricacies of our electoral system and wouldn’t have know where concentrate their efforts. She claims that’s what the intel people told her.
I don’t doubt those partisan hacks Brennan and Clapper told her to use that lie. But the Soviets and the heirs to the Soviet corporate database the Russians know how our system works better than any of the politicians and their consultants could possibly know. They don’t need anyone’s help since they’ve been meddling in it for close to one hundred years.
They probably know our legal system far better than Rosenstein and Mueller. In any case, we may be about to find out.
Oh, and BTW, the Soviets/Russians have been meddling in our elections for close to one hundred years, the Obama administration detected it even before Trump was nominated, and for the first time in US history since the October Revolution of 1917 we had and administration fail to do its duty and lift a finger to stop or at least interfere and diminish the meddling.
This corrupt a-hole has no more credibility than the corrupt lox (Sessions) he’s supposed to be working for.
Where is the hillary clinton indictment?
We live in a banana republic.
So… do they get Discovery this time?
Yes, or no.
A guy is sitting in jail for phishing Podesta. Does he get out?
Yup! Only the #gruberstupid go for this farce. Indict a dozen Russians who can never be tried so there is no need for evidence to ever be presented.
Corrupt FBI Agent: “There is no allegation that the conspiracy altered the vote count or changed any election result.”
Corrupt FBI Agent: “The blame for election interference belongs to the criminals who committed election interference.”
But… you just said there wasn’t any effect. How can you have interference if there isnt any effect?
(any else hearing Pink Floyd? How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?)
I’m confused.
Wife. Coffee. Stat.
I’m still too twitchy to focus on the PDF legalise. Can anyone tell what proof they have that the Russians hacked the DNC.
My information to date is predicated on two things:
1) Russian hack kits are as prevalent as AK47s. We don’t confiscate an AK in Los Angeles and automatically blame Russian 5th Columnists.
2) According to experts, the data download speed was too fast to be over their internet connection, but matches the download speeds of a USB thumb drive, which requires physical contact with the computer. And is why most conspiracy guys believe it was a leak by someone like Seth Rich, not a hack.
Are their any facts in the indictments that dispute these two points? Or is it normal that such details would only come out at a trial that is not expected to take place?
“Are their any facts in the indictments…”
🙂 That made me laugh.
No, Fen, not really. By that I mean I don’t read anywhere in the indictment where the accused ever use anything distinctly Russian at all. There’s nothing about download speeds.
It’s a very strange indictment in that it mentions the Russian Federation, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (that would be the GRU) and then speicific units within the GRU such as Unit 26165.
But then it goes on to indict GRU officers as individuals. For instance one of the individuals indicted on count one, conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, is the commanding officer of Unit 26165, then a department head of unit 26165, his assistant department head, and then a couple of members of the department.
,
This is like trying to fight WWII by indicting the individual members of the ships and squadrons of Imperial Japanese Navy that attacked Peal Harbor.
“In or around 1941 the Empire of Japan operated a Naval unit known as the First Air Fleet (Kido Butai), The Kido Butai had multiple associated units such as the Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, Soryu, Shokaku, and Zuikaku with embarked aviation squadrons. These units conducted large scale air operations against the US Pacific Fleet in order to disrupt future combat operation in WWII.
The going on to indict the flight operations officer, the ship’s chief engineer, surgeon, a squadron commander, two section leaders, four pilots, and a maintenance chief with havint conspired to sink the USS Arizona.”
It’s bizarre because essentially it reads as if Mueller is dropping the whole idea that this was Russian government meddling in the 2016 election. Instead Mueller is charging 12 rogue individuals with “knowingly and intentionally conspiring with each other, along with individuals known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to commit an offense against the United States.”
The more I read this indictment the more of a joke it becomes. Nobody could have possibly intended it to ever be used except to impress the #TheResistance reporters at CNN, MSNBC, etc.
So the belief is that Putin conspired with uniformed Russian military officers to commit hacking using the Internet, based within their own country. Leaving aside the question of whether it is proper or customary to indict soldiers of another country under such circumstances, and leaving aside the question whether intelligence personnel of the United States, who did not have Clinton’s server, must have hacked Russian computers to learn details of the Russian intrusion (if it in fact took place), the obvious question is why Putin is not among the individuals charged.