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.”
This is one of the key points of Mueller's investigation: Finding out if the Russians actively interfered in our nation's 2016 election cycle, and if they did find out who, where, when, and how badly.
trump and his handlers/ family members/ faithful lapdogs/ toadies kept arguing there "was no collusion" and that the investigation is all a "hoax" and a "witch hunt." Well, Mueller's mic drop says otherwise:
“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.
The indictment also stands as an implicit rebuke to President Trump, who has repeatedly refused to acknowledge the Russian role in the election...
For all that Mueller had done up to this point - charges on Manafort and Gates, plea deals for Papadopolous and Flynn - none of it directly referred to Russia and any ties to trump. No more.
Friday’s indictment contains far more detail, and while its contents are allegations, not claims proven in a court, they are bolstered by extensive documentary evidence, including emails and messages. Much of the material has been reported in various news outlets, but the indictment puts it all in one place for the first time...
The Russian effort to meddle in the election began way back in 2014, long before anyone viewed Trump as a serious candidate for the presidency, much less a likely nominee. The goal was simply to create division and chaos by exploiting existing cleavages in American society—or as the indictment puts it, operators were instructed to create “political intensity through supporting radical groups, users dissatisfied with [the] social and economic situation and oppositional social movements...”
In other words, use Fox Not-News to rile up an anger-driven conspiracy-obsessed Republican base.
Vladimir Putin’s government has long detested Hillary Clinton, and as Trump rose, the IRA seems to have concluded that he was a useful vector for grievances. Employees sought to boost Trump and Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s principal primary opponent, while also attacking GOP candidates who were more hawkish on Russia: “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...”
The Russians at some point really focused on trump as their primary weapon to shatter the American electoral process:
Even if the conspiracy did not set out to boost Trump, it jumped into the task with gusto once latching on to him. There was a distinctly pro-Trump bent in its social-media presence... Certain ORGANIZATION-produced materials about the 2016 presidential election used election-related hashtags, including: “#Trump2016,” “#TrumpTrain,” “#MAGA,” “#IWontProtectHillary,” and “#Hillary4Prison”" Defendants and their co-conspirators also established additional online social media accounts dedicated to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, including the Twitter account “March for Trump” and Facebook accounts “Clinton FRAUDation” and “Trumpsters United.”
Just remember: this is the stuff Mueller and his team can prove in open court. They're still dealing with sensitive national-security level intel, a lot of which they can't share for the next 20-50 years without getting declassified.
One of the more shocking things in this indictment are the bits about how Russia committed criminal acts during the campaign:
The rallies produced criminal activity, according to the government. First, in order to organize rallies, the defendants were required to register with the U.S. government, which they did not. Second, they allegedly committed wire and bank fraud while attempting to move money under false pretenses. On Friday, the government also unsealed a guilty plea from Richard Pinedo, an American who acknowledged selling bank accounts to the Russians to assist them in circumventing financial laws...
These aren't fantastical charges, products of a deluded mind, or fake news. These are actual legal findings, things that have to stand up in a court of law, things that have gone through rigorous scrutiny and can't be denied nor ignored. Guys like Pinedo and Flynn are pleading out as they're caught dead to rights (and one of the indicted, Gates, is reportedly close to getting a plea deal himself). trump and his ilk can't lie about this, no matter how hard they try.
There's still other elements of this investigation - the more direct ties between trump and Russia that have come out focusing on trump's campaign actively digging for dirt on Hillary, such as the infamous June 2016 meeting at trump Tower - that aren't detailed in these indictments. Those elements may be covered in other parts of Mueller's probe... and may yet come out when possible indictments for trump, trump junior, and Kushner get dropped.
That last part has always been one of the serious conundrums of this ongoing scandal. The long-standing realization that trump - having committed acts of Obstruction in firing the likes of Yates and Comey who were digging too close to trump's Russian ties - is bound to try and shut down the investigation before it directly touches him (or those closest).
There's an argument now that by revealing Russia's involvement like this, Mueller and Rosenstein have insulated themselves from any reprisal: If trump tries firing either one of them now, it would be such a blatant act to protect Russia that trump (and his Republican backers) loses all remaining shreds of credibility left to them.
That's never an issue with trump, though: His voting base will never accept the facts that Mueller uncovers.
My argument is that trump can't remove Mueller or Rosenstein now because doing so creates a major schism in both domestic and foreign affairs. If he tries to shut this investigation down, he loses any control over the Intel agencies tasked with protecting our nation, and he runs the risk of having large swathes of our military refusing to obey any orders from what they'll view is an illegal Presidency. Another thing to consider: Our foreign allies and neighbors will go from barely-concealed loathing to open hostility, treating trump and his Republican allies as criminal usurpers on the Russian payroll.
trump is in the unenviable place of "damned if he does. damned if he doesn't". He can't shut the investigation down without paying a high price... and Mueller's investigation is getting closer to the point of revealing direct ties with Russia and all the criminal charges that would entail.
Then again, it's his own damn fault he's in this predicament. he's the one who decided to run in order to mock his rival Obama's legacy... he's the one who refused to play by the election rules... he's the one breaking every ethical and legal practice on the books.
trump deserves the punishment - one form or another - aiming his way. It's called KARMA and he's earned every piece of pain and humiliation that's coming.
It's just gonna be messy for all of us when it hits.
3 comments:
Dear Unknown:
1) I hate anonymous posters. You're trolls and cowards.
2) You can't spell for shit.
3) I'm not a liberal. I'm an ex-Republican Moderate.
4) You're accusing Hillary and Obama of being the Russian colluders, which is essentially you being the bank robbers accusing the security guards of actually pulling the heist.
Done. Blocked.
So now, with the wire fraud, non-disclosure of foreign operations inside the US, and most of all the identity theft from US persons, Mueller has established the criminal nature of the operation.
This does away with the denials that Russia was the perpetrator, that nothing done was illegal, and that it was insignificant to the actual election.
Now there is something concrete to tie Fergus' campaign's Russian involvement to.
Also, the staggering detail of the descriptions of the operation will at the very least, scare the bejeesus out of everyone else being investigated, which is likely to motivate them to cooperate.
-Doug in Oakland
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