By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
The Indictments obtained by special counsel Robert Mueller on Vladimir Putin’s alleged attempts to create discord in the 2016 election still keeps us in stitches with a number of questions that have not been answered. That said, the indictments say that the Russians involved were pretending to be Americans, so if true, it could be good news for the Republicans and Trump’s supporters because that would mean that any Americans contacted by the 13 charged Russians, including Trump campaign associates, did not know they were dealing with Russians, or at least did not know they were dealing with Russians actively operating to disrupt the American Election.
The thirteen defendants indicted are not in custody. They are Russians who will likely never actually be brought into any American courtroom. The grand jury’s charges against the 13 Russians and three organizations mark a change in the investigation, because it changes the conversation from whether or not there was Russian meddling to “who” the Russians were colluding with.
The special counsel is stating interference happened, and Mueller says he can prove the existence of the Russian operation in court beyond a reasonable doubt, using only admissible evidence, and that the operation violated U.S. federal criminal law – note that the allegations in this indictment do not deal with computer or email hacking. The operation described in this indictment did not relate to the hacking of the DNC network, Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with Russians in Trump Tower, nor to the theft or distribution of Podesta’s or the DNC’s emails in the summer and fall of 2016.
The goal of the Russian meddling operation had nothing to do with Trump. As I wrote before, it didn’t even match history, which has seen the Democrats colluding with Russia for dang-near the entire last 100 years. Russia has always preferred a Democrat in office, because the left-wingers institute weaker foreign policies, and policies that are more favorable for Russia’s favorite endeavors of expansion and geo-political meddling.
The indictment’s first count charges 16 defendants with conspiring to defraud the United States (18 U.S.C. §371), alleging a conspiracy that “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.” In particular, the indictment alleges the defendants interfered with the Federal Election Commission’s administration of the Federal Election Campaign Act (prohibiting foreign nationals from certain kinds of political spending during elections); the Justice Department’s administration of the Foreign Agent Registration Act (requiring agents of foreign principals working within the United States on political matters to register as such); and the State Department’s program for issuing visas to foreign individuals entering the United States.
The indictment’s second count charges the Russian Internet Research Agency and two of its employees with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud (18 U.S.C. §1349). According to the special counsel, these defendants opened U.S. bank and PayPal accounts under false names in order to receive and send money into and out of the United States—both to support the Internet Research Agency’s operations in the U.S. and for self-enrichment. The indictment alleges that in furtherance of this conspiracy, the defendants unlawfully used the Social Security numbers, home addresses and birth dates of real U.S. persons, without their knowledge or consent, to fraudulently open at least four bank accounts and six PayPal accounts. The defendants and their co-conspirators also allegedly purchased credit card and bank account numbers using the stolen identities of real U.S. persons obtained online.
Counts three through eight charge the Internet Research Agency and four of its employees with aggravated identity theft (18 U.S.C. §1028A) for knowingly transferring, possessing and using, without lawful authority, a means of identification of six different real persons during and in relation to the wire fraud and bank fraud alleged in count two.
No American was a knowingly participant in the operation.
As the Russians were doing their thing, Steele continued to work on behalf of the Clinton campaign in the hopes of undermining any confidence in the Trump presidency. He was leaking the contents of his fictional dossier to the press and took it to the FBI. It was believable because Russian meddling was believed to be true. While no American was knowingly participating, it was much more sexy to accuse Trump of being head-deep into the conspiracy as an agent working with them. It was believable because the part about Russian meddling was true (as it likely has been in every American election since the Russian Revolution).
Then why does the indictment reveal that after Donald Trump carried the State of North Carolina, Russian conspirators posing as grass-roots activists helped arrange a November 19 rally in Charlotte called “Charlotte Against Trump”?
But, let’s not jump onto the “they wanted Hillary to win” train, just yet, either. The indictment says similar rallies in support of Trump were staged by the group in other U.S. cities.
