WASHINGTON (CBS News) – Twelve Russians have been indicted by a grand jury in the special counsel probe for alleged hacking during the 2016 election, including for hacking emails of the Democratic National Committee, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced Friday. U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (C) holds a news conference at the Department of Justice July 13, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images) Rosenstein said the 12 defendants are all members of the Russian intelligence arm GRU, and attempted to interfere with the 2016 presidential election by spear phishing volunteers and employees of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. By doing this, according to the indictment, they were able to steal usernames and passwords, eventually hacking into the networks of the Democratic National Campaign Committee and Democratic National Committee. The GRU, Rosenstein said, created and controlled the groups D.C. Leaks and Guccifer 2.0., which in 2016, posted thousands of emails from Democratic party officials. READ HERE: The Mueller Indictment The indictment says that the alleged conspirators “spearphished individuals affiliated with the Clinton campaign throughout the summer of 2016,” and then goes on to say that “on or about July 27, 2016, the conspirators attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third-party provider and used by Clinton’s personal office. At or around the same time, they also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton campaign.” On that same day, July 27, 2016, Donald Trump expressed the hope that Russia would find Clinton’s missing emails. “I will tell you this — Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press,” the GOP presidential nominee said at a press conference in Miami. In another related allegation, the indictment claims Russian officers hacked a state election board’s website and stole the information of roughly 500,000 voters. The indictment also alleges the GRU officers hacked into computers belonging to a company that supplies software used to verify voter information, and targeted local and state election offices. Rosenstein made it clear that no Americans are accused of any wrongdoing. “There is no allegation in this indictment that Americans knew they were corresponding with Russian intelligence officers,” said Rosenstein, who also noted there is no evidence the alleged hacking had any impact on the election results. The indictment does mention that Russians provided opposition research to a congressional candidate, although that individual is not named. The indictment claims the conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, “received a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress. The Conspirators responded using the Guccifer 2.0 persona and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate’s opponent,” the indictment reads. The charges come just days before President Trump is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland. Rosenstein said he briefed Mr. Trump on the indictment earlier this week. “I’ll allow president to speak for himself,” Rosenstein said, asked for Mr. Trump’s response to the news. “Obviously it’s Important for the president to know what information we’ve uncovered because he’s got to make very important decisions for the country. So he needs to understand what evidence we have of foreign election interference.” The White House honed in on Rosenstein’s statement that the indictment does not include any Americans, or say the Russians influenced the election results. The statement did not condemn the Russians’ alleged behavior. ” Today’s charges include no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the campaign and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election result. This is consistent with what we have been saying all along,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Lindsay Walters said. Back in July 2016, Mr. Trump tweeted that the “new joke in town” is Russia leaked the “disastrous DNC emails.” “The new joke in town is that Russia leaked the disastrous DNC e-mails, which should never have been written (stupid), because Putin likes me,” he tweeted on July 25, 2016. Rudy Giuliani, the lawyer who is aiding Mr. Trump in the Russia investigation, used Rosenstein’s announcement as an opportunity to call on Mueller to end his investigation and declare Mr. Trump’s innocence. When a reporter in London asked Mr. Trump if he would bring up election meddling with Putin, Mr. Trump said he would. The charges come after Mueller’s investigation has already led to the indictment of 13 Russian nationals who were accused of manipulating social media. In the face of alleged foreign interference, Rosenstein urged unity and patriotism against foreign interference. “The partisan warfare fueled by modern technology does not fairly reflect the grace, dignity and unity of the American people,” Rosenstein said. © 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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12 Russian Officers Indicted For Hacking During 2016 Election
