Mueller hands down indictments in Russian Federation probe

The charges brought by Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, are seen as a major development in his continuing probe into the United States 2016 election, the BBC reports. Marco Rubio, of Florida. The organization’s primary source of funding came from Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch and ally of President Vladimir Putin, who controlled Concord Management, Consulting LLC and Concord Catering. It also doesn’t identify the group.

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Rosenstein emphasized during a news conference that the indictment does not charge that any Americans knowingly assisted the Russians with their scheme.

These facts strongly indicate this was a Russian campaign to sow confusion in the United States and to undermine Clinton, who Russian officials expected to win the election.

Individuals also travelled to the U.S. posing as Americans to gather intelligence and used computer software to hide the company’s location in Russian Federation. But today, the “DAG” was front and center at the Justice Department.

The operation, which had a budget of $1.25 million per month for the USA and other countries, was allegedly funded by Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin, a Russian businessman who the country’s media has reportedly dubbed “Putin’s chef” because his businesses cater meetings with the Russian President and foreign diplomats.

The indictment, prepared by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, claimed that “operations to interfere with the USA political system” began in 2014, with Russians using fake social media accounts to target U.S. audiences and “traveling to the United States under false pretenses” to collect intelligence. Prigozhin is on the list of those sanctioned by the U.S. Earlier this week, the special counsel reportedly reached a cooperation deal with Rick Gates, partner to ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. That is: The Russians set up free, fake accounts and masqueraded as regular users who supported Donald Trump or hated Hillary Clinton. Only 13 people are named, but the indictment describes a wide-ranging and organized effort. Group members traveled to at least 10 states gathering information on US political advocacy groups while posing as grassroots activists.

All but one of the 13 individual defendants worked for the Internet Research Agency LLC, a company based in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Content created by the group was retweeted by the president’s two eldest sons, Don Jr and Eric, as well as other top campaign officials and members of Trump’s inner circle.

Last year, Mueller gained a guilty plea from Michael Flynn, Trump’s short-lived first national security adviser, as well as from campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, both for lying to investigators.

Mueller’s report also states that the original objective of the actions was to sow general discord among Americans beginning in 2014.

Trump has repeatedly denied collusion occurred. The indictment also revealed that after the election was over – and President Trump had been declared the victor – the Russians even went into the business of anti-Trump rallies in NY and Charlotte, North Carolina. One of the groups, “United Muslims of America”, is referenced in the indictment released Friday. By 2016, numerous groups had grown to hundreds of thousands of followers, the indictment said.