President Trump has not yet publicly condemned the hacking allegedly committed by Russian intelligence officials
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Trump responds to Russian hacking indictment by blaming Obama
President Trump has not yet publicly condemned the hacking allegedly committed by Russian intelligence officials
Read the original:
Trump responds to Russian hacking indictment by blaming Obama
President Trump has not yet publicly condemned the hacking allegedly committed by Russian intelligence officials
Read the original:
Trump responds to Russian hacking indictment by blaming Obama
WASHINGTON (AP) — Twelve Russian military intelligence officers hacked into the Clinton presidential campaign and Democratic Party and released tens of thousands of private communications in a sweeping conspiracy by the Kremlin to meddle in the 2016 U.S. election, according to an indictment announced days before President Donald Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The indictment represents special counsel Robert Mueller’s first charges against Russian government officials for interfering in American politics , an effort U.S. intelligence agencies say was aimed at helping the Trump campaign and harming Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. The case follows after a separate indictment that accused Russians of using social media to sow discord among American voters two years ago. More From CBS News The 29-page indictment lays out how, months before Americans went to the polls, Russian officers schemed to break into key Democratic email accounts, including those belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Stolen emails, many politically damaging for Clinton, appeared on WikiLeaks in the campaign’s final stretch. The charges allege the Russian defendants, using a persona known as Guccifer 2.0, in August 2016 contacted a person who was in touch with the Trump campaign to offer help. And they say that on the same day Trump said in a speech, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Russian hackers tried for the first time to break into email accounts used by Clinton’s personal office. Rosenstein: The defendants accessed computers of volunteers and employees of the U.S. Presidential campaign including the campaign chairman, and also hacked computer networks of a congressional campaign committee, and a national political committee https://t.co/Nm7a7FCOlG pic.twitter.com/HV3DUnF2zm — CBS News (@CBSNews) July 13, 2018 Mueller did not allege that Trump campaign associates were involved in the hacking effort or that Americans were knowingly in touch with Russian intelligence officers, and the indictment does not allege that any vote tallies were altered by hacking. The White House seized on those points in a statement that offered no condemnation of the alleged Russian conspiracy. It was unclear whether the indictment might factor into Trump’s meeting with Putin on Monday. He has repeatedly expressed skepticism about Russian involvement in the hacking and has been accused by Democrats of cozying up to the Russian president. Trump complained about the Russia investigation before the indictment, saying the “stupidity” was making it “very hard to do something with Russia.” Rosenstein: When we confront foreign interference in American elections, it's important for us to avoid thinking politically as Republicans or Democrats, and instead to think patriotically as Americans. Our response must not depend on which side was victimized pic.twitter.com/yeyjLUOqFb — CBS News (@CBSNews) July 13, 2018 The Kremlin, meanwhile, denied anew that it tried to sway the election. “The Russian state has never interfered and has no intention of interfering in the U.S. elections,” Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said Friday. The indictment identifies the defendants as officers with Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, also known as GRU. If that link is established, it would shatter the Kremlin denials of the Russian state’s involvement in the U.S. elections given that the GRU is part of the state machine. The Russian defendants are not in custody, and it is not clear they will ever appear in American court, though the Justice Department has recently seen value in indicting foreign hackers in absentia as public deterrence. The indictment accuses the Russian hackers, starting in March 2016, of covertly monitoring the computers of dozens of Democratic officials and volunteers, implanting malicious computer code known as malware to explore the networks and steal data and of phishing emails to gain access to accounts. One attempt at interference noted in the indictment came hours after Trump, in a July 27, 2016, speech, suggested Russians look for emails that Clinton said she had deleted from her tenure as secretary of state. “Russia, if you’re listening,” Trump said, “I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” That evening, the indictment says, the Russians attempted to break into email accounts used by Clinton’s personal office, along with 76 Clinton campaign email addresses. By June 2016, the defendants, relying on fictional personas like DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0, began planning the release of tens of thousands of stolen emails and documents, the indictment alleges. The hack displayed the private communications of the campaign in harmful ways, including deliberations about messaging that played into attacks that Clinton was calculating and a political flip-flopper. Private speeches she gave to financial industry firms were particularly damaging within the left wing of the Democratic party and among independents frustrated with the influence of Wall Street in politics. The indictment alleges that Guccifer 2.0 was in touch with multiple Americans about the pilfered material, including an unidentified congressional candidate who requested and then received stolen information On Aug. 15, 2016, the indictment says, Guccifer 2.0 reached out to someone in regular contact with the Trump campaign and asked the person if he or she had seen anything “interesting in the docs I posted?” Guccifer 2.0 offered help and said it would be a “great pleasure.” The indictment doesn’t identify the person, though longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone acknowledged through his lawyer Friday a “24-word exchange with someone on Twitter claiming to be Guccifer 2.0.” “This exchange is now entirely public and provides no evidence of collaboration or collusion with Guccifer 2.0 or anyone else in the alleged hacking of the DNC emails,” said lawyer Grant Smith. In addition, someone at Wikileaks contacted Guccifer 2.0 weeks before the Democratic National Convention asking for material on Clinton in advance, to prevent her from solidifying support from rival Sen. Bernie Sanders, court papers show. The charges come as Mueller continues to investigate potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign to influence the election. Before Friday, 20 people and three companies had been charged in the Mueller investigation. Defendants include four former Trump campaign and White House aides, three of whom have pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate, and 13 Russians accused of participating in a hidden but powerful social media campaign to sway U.S. public opinion in 2016. Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said on Twitter that it was time to end the Mueller investigation since “no Americans are involved” in Friday’s indictment. But with Mueller still investigating, it’s not known whether further indictments are taking shape or will. At the Justice Department, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein called for a unified approach to foreign meddling. “When we confront foreign interference in American elections, it is important for us to avoid thinking politically as Republicans or Democrats and instead to think patriotically as Americans,” he said. “Our response must not depend on who was victimized.” The Trump-Putin meeting is scheduled for Monday in Finland. Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer urged Trump to cancel the meeting until Russia takes steps to prove it won’t interfere in future elections. He said the indictments are “further proof of what everyone but the president seems to understand: President Putin is an adversary who interfered in our elections to help President Trump win.” (© Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
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12 Russians Accused Of Hacking Democrats In 2016 US Election
The White House is responding to the indictment of 12 Russian officials by pointing out that no Trump campaign officials were involved. The statement does not condemn the hacking or Russian President Putin, who’s scheduled to meet with President Trump on Monday. AP White House correspondent Zeke Miller joins CBSN with more.
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White House responds to indictment of 12 Russians for hacking
The White House is responding to the indictment of 12 Russian officials by pointing out that no Trump campaign officials were involved. The statement does not condemn the hacking or Russian President Putin, who’s scheduled to meet with President Trump on Monday. AP White House correspondent Zeke Miller joins CBSN with more.
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White House responds to indictment of 12 Russians for hacking
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