We're closely monitoring the consequences of the report the US Ministry of Justice published last night. It focuses not just on the Russian interference in the US elections but on a specific list of 13 people.
Valentin Bogdanov will share the details about the list.
The recent controversy with the federal agents who were playing into Hillary's hands during the election campaign didn't leave the FBI space for maneuver. For almost a year, Special Counsel Mueller has been investigating the possible Russian interference in the US elections. Something had to be published. And it was. The excerpts from the first indictment were presented by the investigation supervisor the Deputy Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice Rod Rosenstein.
Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General: "The Grand Jury of the DC returned the indictment presented by the Office of the Special Counsel. 13 Russian citizens and 3 Russian companies are charged with committing federal crimes involving attempts to interfere in the political system of the United States including the 2016 presidential elections. They were allegedly conducting what they called the "information war" against the US trying to spread distrust of candidates and the political system as a whole."
13 Russian citizens and 3 companies. It's fewer than the aggregate number of the US intelligence services — 17. Here's the comment of the official representative of our Foreign Ministry on her Facebook (запрещена в РФ) page:
"According to the US Ministry of Justice, there were 13 of them. 13 people were interfering with the US elections? 13 against billions in their intelligence budgets? Against both intelligence and counterintelligence? Against the latest developments and technologies..? Absurd? Sure. But it's the contemporary political reality in the US. By the way, why 13? Perhaps other numbers don't evoke negative associations that are necessary in this case".
The indictment portraits those 13 as some omnipresent superhumans. They not only had time to create and maintain fake accounts on the Internet rocking American democracy pitting the candidate supporters against each other but also regularly cruised across the ocean to post on Facebook directly from America leaving no traces speculates the Ministry of Justice. In the US, as if it was a lousy spy movie they were traveling around the swing states initiating heated debates pretending to be Americans.
Rod Rosenstein: "Russians also recruited the US citizens and paid them to take part in the political activities. They promoted political campaigns and held political rallies. Together with their accomplices, they pretended to be activists from the common people. According to the indictment, Americans didn't know that they were communicating with the Russians After the election, they presumably organized rallies in support of the elected president. while organizing protests against his election".
He basically means that during the US elections the Russians were first fighting against Clinton and after the elections were over they started fighting each other. Everything for Trump's sake who still managed to win fairly without any external assistance. This fact was stressed by Rosenstein giving the President another argument in his defense. Apparently, Mueller mixed up some dates.
Donald Trump, Twitter: "Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014 long before I announced that I would run for President. The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong — no collusion!"
However, Mueller didn't resign after that Tweet. According to Bloomberg the Special Counsel and his commission plan to work a couple months more.
Regarding the names on the list all those people are outside of the US which means they might get detained in some third countries. It's the way those 17 US intelligence services work regardless of who won the elections.
Valentin Bogdanov and Ivan Utkin Vesti from New York.
