Robert Mueller just made it impossible for Trump to call the special counsel probe a 'total hoax' [View all]

[babylonsister]

Robert Mueller just made it impossible for Trump to call the special counsel probe a 'total hoax'
Chris Cillizza
Updated 2051 GMT (0451 HKT) February 16, 2018


(CNN)On Friday afternoon, the Justice Department announced that special counsel Robert Mueller had indicted 13 Russian nationals for their roles in attempted meddling in the 2016 election.

Most of these people do not live in the United States, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Russia won't be extraditing them any time soon. But that's not the point.

The point is this: The indictments of a baker's dozen of Russians gives us a very clear window into not only the depth and breadth of the Mueller investigation, but also makes crystal clear what the Russians wanted in the 2016 election and the elaborate measures they undertook to make it happen.

This paragraph stands out:

"Defendant ORGANIZATION had a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Defendants posted derogatory information about a number of candidates, and by early to mid-2016, Defendants' operations included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump ("Trump Campaign" ) and disparaging Hillary Clinton. Defendants made various expenditures to carry out those activities, including buying political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities. Defendants also staged political rallies inside the United States, and while posing as U.S. grassroots entities and U.S. persons, and without revealing their Russian identities and ORGANIZATION affiliation, solicited and compensated real U.S. persons to promote or disparage candidates. Some Defendants, posing as U.S. persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities."

OK. So what we know from that paragraph of the charging documents, which you can read in full here, is this:

By "early to mid-2016," Russians had decided to use whatever means at their disposal to help Donald Trump win.
The Russians bought political ads on social media sites and organized political rallies to achieve those goals.
Russians, disguising their identities, "communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign" in an attempt to "coordinate political activities."

snip//

That is not the stuff of witch hunts and hoaxes. Those are real-life charges which carry at least the possibility of real jail time.

And they all make a simple point: It's long past time for Trump to stop name-calling an investigation that has uncovered a massive effort for a foreign government to meddle in a US presidential election.



http://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/16/politics/mueller-indictments-special-counsel/index.html