United States indicts 12 Russian spies on 2016 election meddling charges

Yet Trump, briefed in advance about the indictment and knowing that it was about to be unsealed in a few hours, could not summon the palest imitation of Rosensteinian outrage at Russian interference with – attack on, really – a US election. In fact, he’s raised doubts about USA demands for Russian Federation to return to Ukraine the territory of Crimea it annexed in 2014, and has suggested a bargain could be in the works for Russia’s ally Bashar Assad to remain in power indefinitely in Syria.

Republican Senator John McCain said the summit should be called off if Trump is not ready to warn Putin there is a “serious price to pay for his ongoing aggression towards the United States and democracies around the world”. “I would hope so”.

On Feb. 16, his prosecutors charged 13 Russians and three Russian entities they said were part of a broader effort to sow discord among USA voters through social media – which they used to impersonate Americans, coordinate with unwitting US activists and even plan rallies.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump on the tarmac during their arrival on Air Force One at Glasgow Prestwick Airport in Scotland, July 13, 2018. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press”. He’s a competitor. You know, somebody was saying, ‘Is he an enemy?’ No, he’s not my enemy.

After the Justice Department announced Friday that a federal grand jury indicted 12 Russian government officials for hacking the computer networks of Clinton and the Democratic Party, Washington Post reporter Christopher Ingraham tweeted a screenshot of a portion of the indictment, claiming that Russia’s hacking attempts began the very evening Trump made his remarks. The investigation, which is being carried out by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, has already indicted 20 people and three companies.

Officers of Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, covertly monitored computers of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Democratic campaign committees, and stole large amounts of data, the indictment said.

Was Russia listening, after all?

Netanyahu was in Moscow on Wednesday where the situation in Syria and Palestinian relations were on the agenda of his meeting with Putin.

It was the most detailed U.S. accusation yet that Russian Federation meddled in the election with the eventual aim of trying to boost Republican Trump’s campaign.

Graham said May’s approval of the Putin meeting is still important since Britain is America’s closest ally as well as similarly a rival of Russian Federation.

The DOJ says the Russians meant to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, and all 12 defendants are members of the GRU, a Russian intelligence agency. Fifty-one percent responded they would like to see more cooperation with the US, while 9 percent wanted to reduce ties and 27 percent wanted relations to remain unchanged.

It was only after he won the election, at a news conference shortly before his inauguration, that Trump stated publicly that Russian Federation committed the hacking, though he has waffled in his public statements since then.

“We have this stupidity going on, pure stupidity, but it makes it very hard to do something with Russian Federation, because, anything you do, it’s like: ‘Russia, oh He loves Russian Federation'”.

The head of the Department of Homeland Security warned state officials on Saturday that the threat from Russian Federation targeting USA elections has not dissipated.

Finnish National Defense University security policy expert Lt. Col. Jyri Raitasalo told VOA the Trump-Putin summit will be largely “symbolic”. The indictment references a spoof email it says the Russian agents sent to more than 100 election-managing customers of the vendor to try to get more information.