A dozen Russian intelligence officers were on Friday charged with hacking former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the US Democratic Party in a stunning indictment just three days before US President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The charges were drawn up by special counsel Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who is looking into Russian interference in the November 2016 election and whether any members of Trump’s campaign team colluded with Moscow.
Democratic leaders immediately called for Trump to cancel tomorrow’s scheduled meeting with Putin in Helsinki, but the White House said that the summit would go ahead.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“It’s on,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
The 29-page indictment accuses members of the Russian military’s Main Intelligence Directorate, commonly known as the GRU, of carrying out “large-scale cyberoperations” to steal Clinton campaign and Democratic Party documents and e-mails.
“There’s no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result,” US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said as he announced the charges at a news conference in Washington.
“There’s no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime,” he said.
“[The] conspirators corresponded with several Americans during the course of the conspiracy through the Internet,” Rosenstein said, but added that “there’s no allegation in this indictment that the Americans knew they were corresponding with Russian intelligence officers.”
Rosenstein said he briefed Trump about the indictment before Friday’s announcement and that the timing was determined by “the facts, the evidence and the law.”
News of the indictment came as Trump was meeting Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and just 72 hours before his meeting with Putin.
“This indictment makes clear just how vast this operation was — including Russian intelligence officers’ intrusion into the website of a state election board and theft of information related to approximately 500,000 voters,” US Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman Tom Perez said on Twitter. “The Russian government attacked our democracy in 2016, and the DNC was a primary target of that attack.”
US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Trump to cancel the talks with Putin.
“These 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,” Schumer said in a statement. “President Trump should cancel his meeting with Vladimir Putin until Russia takes demonstrable and transparent steps to prove that they won’t interfere in future elections.”
Republican US 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.”
“If President Trump is not prepared to hold Putin accountable, the summit in Helsinki should not move forward,” McCain said.
Speaking in Britain before the indictments were unveiled, Trump said he would ask Putin about the allegations of election meddling.
“I will absolutely, firmly ask the question, and hopefully we’ll have a good relationship with Russia,” he told a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May.
However, he simultaneously denounced the Mueller investigation as a “rigged witch hunt,” saying that he has been “tougher on Russia than anybody.”
The White House highlighted that Rosenstein’s remarks that no Americans had been charged.
“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,” the White House said in a statement. “This is consistent with what we have been saying all along.”
NO HUMAN ERROR: After the incident, the Coast Guard Administration said it would obtain uncrewed aerial vehicles and vessels to boost its detection capacity Authorities would improve border control to prevent unlawful entry into Taiwan’s waters and safeguard national security, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday after a Chinese man reached the nation’s coast on an inflatable boat, saying he “defected to freedom.” The man was found on a rubber boat when he was about to set foot on Taiwan at the estuary of Houkeng River (後坑溪) near Taiping Borough (太平) in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), authorities said. The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) northern branch said it received a report at 6:30am yesterday morning from the New Taipei City Fire Department about a
IN BEIJING’S FAVOR: A China Coast Guard spokesperson said that the Chinese maritime police would continue to carry out law enforcement activities in waters it claims The Philippines withdrew its coast guard vessel from a South China Sea shoal that has recently been at the center of tensions with Beijing. BRP Teresa Magbanua “was compelled to return to port” from Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Shoal, 仙濱暗沙) due to bad weather, depleted supplies and the need to evacuate personnel requiring medical care, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesman Jay Tarriela said yesterday in a post on X. The Philippine vessel “will be in tiptop shape to resume her mission” after it has been resupplied and repaired, Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, who heads the nation’s maritime council, said
REGIONAL STABILITY: Taipei thanked the Biden administration for authorizing its 16th sale of military goods and services to uphold Taiwan’s defense and safety The US Department of State has approved the sale of US$228 million of military goods and services to Taiwan, the US Department of Defense said on Monday. The state department “made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale” to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US for “return, repair and reshipment of spare parts and related equipment,” the defense department’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a news release. Taiwan had requested the purchase of items and services which include the “return, repair and reshipment of classified and unclassified spare parts for aircraft and related equipment; US Government
More than 500 people on Saturday marched in New York in support of Taiwan’s entry to the UN, significantly more people than previous years. The march, coinciding with the ongoing 79th session of the UN General Assembly, comes close on the heels of growing international discourse regarding the meaning of UN Resolution 2758. Resolution 2758, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1971, recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the “only lawful representative of China.” It resulted in the Republic of China (ROC) losing its seat at the UN to the PRC. Taiwan has since been excluded from
RSS