13 Russian Nationals Indicted by Grand Jury

[seemslikeadream]

Special counsel Mueller: Russians conducted 'information warfare' against US during election to help Donald Trump win
Special counsel Robert Mueller said a grand jury had indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The defendants allegedly conducted "information warfare" against the United States election process to help Donald Trump win.
The defendants used fake American personas, social media platforms, and other Internet media to advance their scheme, according to an indictment.
Mike Calia | Dan Mangan
Published 40 Mins Ago Updated 8 Mins Ago

13 Russian nationals indicted by grand jury on election interference 13 Russian nationals indicted by grand jury on election interference

A federal grand jury has indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for alleged interference in the 2016 presidential elections, during which they boosted the candidacy of Donald Trump, according to special counsel Robert Mueller.

The indictment says that a Russian organization called the Internet Research Agency sought to wage "information warfare" against the United States by using fictitious American personas and social media platforms and other Internet-based media.

By early to mid-2016, the indictment charges, the defendants were "supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump ... and disparaging Hillary Clinton."

The White House had no immediate comment on the indictments.

Robert Mueller

The indictment said that the Internet Research Agency was registered with the Russian government as a corporate entity in 2013.

"By in or around May 2014, the organization's strategy included interfering with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, with the stated goal of "spread[ing] distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general," the indictment said.

An announcement from Mueller's office said that the government accuses all the defendants of conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Three defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud.

Five defendants are charged with aggravated identity theft.

This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/16/russian ... probe.html

Mueller Charges Russians With Pro-Trump, Anti-Clinton Meddling
By
February 16, 2018, 11:53 AM CST Updated on February 16, 2018, 12:25 PM CST
13 Russian nationals, 3 entities indicted in sweeping case
Social media, contacts with campaign and staging rallies
Why Mueller Is Seen as the Perfect Man for the Job
U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller unveiled the details of a widespread and coordinated campaign by Russians to influence the U.S. presidential election in favor of Donald Trump, delivering on his initial mandate by the Justice Department.

[Click here to read the indictment]

In an indictment disclosed in Washington on Friday, Mueller describes a sweeping, years-long, multimillion-dollar conspiracy by hundreds of Russians aimed at criticizing Hillary Clinton and supporting Senator Bernie Sanders and Trump. He charged 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities and accused them of defrauding the U.S. government by interfering with the political process.

The Internet Research Agency, a Russian organization, and the defendants began working in 2014 to interfere in U.S. elections, according to the indictment. They used false personas and social media while also staging political rallies and communicating with “unwitting individuals” associated with the Trump campaign, it said.

Click here to read the indictment in full.

The documents point to a broader conspiracy beyond the pages of the indictment, saying the grand jury has heard about other people with whom the Russians allegedly conspired in their efforts.

Mueller’s office said that none of the defendants was in custody.

In a Feb. 10, 2016, planning memo, the Russians were instructed to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump -- we support them).”

The operations also denigrated candidates including Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, Trump’s rivals in the 2016 Republican primary, the indictment said.

The efforts included contact with “unwitting” Trump campaign officials, with the goal of “impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful government functions” including the election.

The group bought advertisements on U.S. social media, created numerous Twitter accounts designed to appear as if they were U.S. groups or people, according to the indictment. One fake account, @TEN_GOP account, attracted more than 100,000 online followers.

The Russians tracked the metrics of their effort in reports and budgeted for their efforts. Some traveled to the U.S. to gather intelligence for the surreptitious campaign, according to the indictment. They used stolen U.S. identities, including fake driver’s licenses, and contacted news media outlets to promote their activities.

In September 2016, the group ordered one worker to “intensify criticizing Hillary Clinton” after a review found insufficient anti-Clinton activity.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... g-election

Among the allegations -- Russians stole real Americans' Social Security numbers and dates of birth to open PayPal accounts, get fake driver's licenses and BUY SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING.

SethAbramson
7m7 minutes ago

We're today seeing the beginning, admittedly just the very beginning, of the sort of criminal prosecutions (and criminal charges) that Trump, Trump Jr., Manafort, and others may one day be charged with Conspiracy or Aiding and Abetting for having assisted.

Was trump aware of this coming down?

well he was made aware only this morning





Points on Mueller indictments:
1- Legal standard is much higher than standard for intel assessment.
2- These Russians worked for Internet Research Agency, funded by a close Putin ally.
3- Most of all, this blows up POTUS/right-wing doubts that Russia interfered in his election

plea agreement ...someone has already plead guilty

Indictments signed my Mueller himself

[stillrobertpaulsen]

It's a good start. I'm sure Mueller asked Bannon several questions about Cambridge Analytica in his interviews. Perhaps they are what the indictment is referring to where it reads "From in or around 2014 to the present, Defendants knowingly and intentionally conspired with each other (and with persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury) to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing and defeating the lawful functions of the government through fraud and deceit for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016."

Bolding added by me.

[seemslikeadream]

did you catch that guy's name that has plead guilty and is cooperating? Pinato?

he's been talking for 2 weeks?

and with persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury

Mueller has got trump boxed in now

the count is 5 have plead guilty and are now cooperating with Mueller


Gates

Zarrab

Flynn

Papadopoulos



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuZh_Arpn28

READ THE INDICTMENT
http://www.newsweek.com/read-full-text- ... ers-809576

This is called a speaking indictment ........there are details in this that are not necessary to case...they are put in there to send a message

[seemslikeadream]

to be clear these indictments have nothing to do with the hacking of the emails

Read: Robert Mueller also reached a plea deal with a California man in Russia probe
Richard Pinedo has agreed to cooperate with Mueller.
By Dylan Scott@dylanlscottdylan.scott@vox.com Feb 16, 2018, 2:45pm EST

Special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s office announced Friday it had reached a plea deal with a California man who committed identity fraud as part of the ongoing Russia probe. The deal was announced the same day as the blockbuster indictments of a dozen Russian nationals and three Russia-affiliated groups alleging interference with the 2016 presidential election.

The charges against Richard Pinedo of Santa Paula, California, state that he sold bank account numbers created using the stolen identities of US citizens to people or entities outside of the United States. The Russian groups indicted by Mueller used social media posts, online ads, and rallies in the US to create propaganda efforts “primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump,” according to Mueller’s other indictment released Friday. Pinedo’s charges appear related to that activity.

As part of his plea deal, Pinedo has agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation.

While the precise implications of Pinedo’s plea agreement were not immediately clear, the federal grand jury indictment against the Russians notably alleged that they had used the stolen identities of US citizens as part of their election interference campaign.

You can read the statement of Pinedo’s offenses and the plea agreement below.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... -plea-deal

[seemslikeadream]

All were charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, three were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and five defendants with aggravated identity theft


Mueller gets GUILTY plea by Richard Pinedo for identity fraud. Pinedo‘s “Auction Essistance” bought & sold bank account numbers to help users circumvent security for DIGITAL PAYMENTS‼️

Looks like he sold accounts to the Russians


Here is Pinedo’s Statement of Offense. He faced up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine massively reduced if he FULLY COOPERATES with Mueller.

And he IS cooperating

http://www.newsweek.com/who-richard-pin ... lty-809783

Renato Mariotti‏Verified account

THREAD: What does today's indictment of 13 Russians and three Russian entities by Mueller tell us?

1/ Today the Justice Department announced that Mueller obtained an indictment against 13 Russians and three Russian entities. You should read it yourself: https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download …

2/ This is an unprecedented indictment. I'm not aware of another case charging foreign agents with interfering in an election. One of the first things you should notice is that the interference itself is *not* charged as a crime.

3/ It is illegal for foreign nationals to contribute to a U.S. election, but the indictment charges three other crimes. First, a conspiracy to defraud the United States by undermining the ability of the federal government to disclose foreign involvement in our elections.

4/ For that conspiracy, the crime is hiding the foreign involvement from the federal government, not the foreign involvement itself. The second crime is fraud--using false names to open accounts to send money in and out of the United States to fund their operation.

5/ The third crime is aggravated identity theft--using the identities of Americans in connection with the fraud involving the accounts with false names. Why charge these crimes? It's less aggressive than charging the Russians with "contributions" in connection with the election.

6/ Fraud and identity theft are commonly charged, and there is no novel legal defense that could be brought against those claims. But the decision to charge these crimes has important implications for whether and how Americans can be charged in connection with these crimes.

7/ The Russians charged in this indictment will likely never be brought to the U.S., but an American could be charged if (1) the American knew of the criminal activity and helped it succeed ("aiding and abetting") or (2) agreed to be part of the criminal activity ("conspiracy").

8/ Because of the particular crimes Mueller chose to charge, an American would have had to know about the efforts by the Russian to hide their activities--not just the influence operation itself--to be criminally liable. Did any Americans help the Russians hide their operation?

9/ As I'm writing this thread, Mueller announced another charge--a single identity fraud count by a Florida man who appears to be cooperating. Is this the first American charged with helping the Russians commit a crime? We'll need to look at his plea agreement to be sure.

10/ Back when the Facebook search warrant was announced in September, I said that for the first time, it was possible for a Russian and an American to be charged in the same indictment:Renato Mariotti added,

THREAD: Why news that Mueller obtained a search warrant for Facebook content may be the biggest news in the case since the Manafort raid.

11/ In the months to come, this aspect of the Mueller investigation--the Russian influence piece--could be the most explosive. Did anyone in the Trump Campaign know what the Russians were doing and help the Russians succeed? Today's indictment leaves open that possibility.

12/ In this particular indictment, no American was charged, and the only Americans mentioned had no knowledge of the underlying activity. It remains to be seen whether there is more to come. A superseding indictment could add new charges and/or new defendants.

13/ As it stands, the most important impact of this current indictment could be political. Based on this indictment, the Russians had a clear preference as to candidates and took serious steps to help those candidates. The Russians also tried to suppress votes.

14/ Will this indictment create a nonpartisan consensus for Russian sanctions, or the need to protect our elections from foreign influence? That could be its lasting impact if Americans aren't charged down the line. /end

https://twitter.com/renato_mariotti/sta ... 5683703808

From at least April 2016 through November 2016, Russian defendants and co-conspirators began to produce, post and purchase these advertisements on U.S. social media, according to special counsel's indictment http://cbsn.ws/2EJrwhE

Pinedo pleaded guilty on February 12 to one count of identity fraud and is cooperating with the special counsel.

The documents state that “hundreds of bank account numbers” where involved and Pinedo personally collected tens of thousands of dollars.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/anothe ... stigation/

[BenDhyan]

Seems less likely now of Mueller Trump indictment for collusion with the Russians?

Mueller's latest indictment proves American voters are too smart for Russia

That hissing sound you're hearing may be the sound of the air coming out of the theory that the Trump campaign participated in some kind of conspiracy with the Russians to rig the 2016 election.

That's great news for President Trump, but there's much better news in this indictment for the American voters.

The news hit Friday afternoon that 13 Russian nationals were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

But a closer reading of special counsel Robert Mueller's charges include the crucial claim that no member of the Trump team was a knowing participant in the scheme, nor is there any allegation that the scheme affected the outcome of the election. According to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, "There is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity."

The indictment also claims that this Russian cabal of sorts was not entirely working to help Trump. Bernie Sanders was also an alleged beneficiary during the election. After Trump won, the group organized opposing rallies --- one supporting then President-elect Trump and one opposing him --- at the exact same time and place.

To sum up: Some Russians allegedly used illegal means to try to influence our elections. They contacted Trump campaign officials, who never wittingly aided them in that crime. They also made some efforts to help anti-Trump groups. And in the end, there is no allegation that these efforts had any effect on the election.

This is hardly "crime of the century" material.

As Harvard Law Professor Alex Whiting explained earlier this year, collusion requires some form of intent on the part of those allegedly participating in it. When prosecutors refuse to claim intent in their own indictment, you can feel relatively certain that any Trump campaign officials connected to this group of Russians can breathe easy.

To be cautious, we don't know what Mueller and company will come up next. There could be more indictments connected to other attempts to collude with the Trump campaign that may include intent on the part of campaign officials. The many reports that Donald Trump Jr. attended a meeting with one Russian citizen to "get dirt" on Hillary Clinton in 2016 is one potential example of that.

While this is a bullet dodged for the White House for now, it's more importantly a solid vote of confidence in the American people. The most significant aspect of this story is not the political viability of the Trump presidency. Presidents come and go. This country has even survived and thrived in the wake of a presidential impeachment and another president's resignation just in the last 45 years alone.

Much more important is the viability of the American democratic process and the power of the voters to keep it viable. This indictment details a clever effort by the Russians to mislead the American public with millions of dollars to back it up. In the end, it failed because the American people simply didn't buy it.

This indictment isn't the only new piece of evidence to prove this. It comes on the heels of a scholarly article published by Joshua Kalla and David Broockman that shows the Russian ads meant to meddle in the election had no effect on voters' decisions.

So while this story seems to only be focusing on how it helps or hurts President Trump and his opponents, the real story is all about the voters.

The bottom line is the voters won.

Commentary by Jake Novak, CNBC.com senior columnist. Follow him on Twitter @jakejakeny.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/16/mueller-indictment-proves-american-voters-are-too-smart-for-russia-commentary.html

[seemslikeadream]

sorry but there a 5 people arrested/cooperating with Mueller he is far from done but his job is save now

one just starting talking a few days ago


Mueller’s core story today is

Russians meddled

It was illegal

They had some cooperation from inside the U.S.

That cooperation can be a crime by Americans

who are the actors in this country.... the contours of the conspiracy are starting to be detailed.....this is hugely significant.

Chris Sampson
‏
The indictment against 13 Russians names the Internet Research Agency with aka MEDIASINTEZ/GLAVSET/MIXINFO/AZIMUT/NOVINFO, Concord Management and Consulting/Concord Catering/Yevgeniy Prigozhin (aka Putin's chef)/Mikhail Bystrov/Mikhail Burchik/Aleksandra Krylova

Anna Bogacheva, Sergey Polozov, Maria Bovda, Robert Bovda, Dzheykhun Aslanov (aka Jayhoon Aslanov), Vadim Podkopaev, Gleb Vasilchenko, Irina Kaverzina, Vladimir Venkov are the defendents.

The indictment charges that the IRA "engaged in operations to interfere with elections and political process" and US law bars agents of foreign entity engaging in political activities within the United States without first registering with the AG.

The defendants are charged with "interference operations targeting the United States" starting in 2014 to present. The defendants interfered with the U.S. political and electoral processes including the presidential election of 2016

According to the indictment, the IRA were funded by Yevgeniy Prigozhin (aka Putin's chef) through his companies, Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering to pay the defendants for operation
Defendants created false U.S. personas, operated social media pages and groups designed to attract U.S. audiences along divisive U.S. political and social issues. Defendants used "stolen identities of real U.S. persons"


Some of the defendants traveled to the US "under false pretenses for the purpose of collecting intelligence", "used computer infrastructure, based partly in the" US "to hide the Russian origin of their activities" to avoid detection by U.S. regulators and law enforcement.

defendants used "derogatory information" to support Donald Trump and "disparaging Hillary Clinton", this included 'various expenditures to carry out those activities including buying political advertisements in the names of U.S. persons and entities

Defendants staged political rallies in the US, posing as US grassroots entities and US persons, solicited and paid US persons to promote Trump and disparage Clinton. Some defendants posed as US persons to communicate with unwitting individuals in the Trump Campaign

Defendants "conspired to obstruct lawful functions" of the US govt "through fraud and deceit" inc "making expenditures in connection with 2016 US presidential election without proper regulatory disclosure", failing to register as foreign agents

Additionally, the IRA sought to disguise its organization through various LLC registrations, MediaSintez, GlavSet, MixInfo, Azimut, and NovInfo. It was operated out of 55 Savushkina, St Petersburg, Russia.

the IRA employed hundreds of individuals for online ops, to create fictitious personas and manage technical and admin support. It had graphics dept, data analysis dept, SEO dept, info tech department, and finance dept.

the indictment alleges the IRA sought to conduct "information warfare against the United States of America" using fictitious personas on social media platforms and other internet-based media

The op was focused to use YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter as the "translator project", to "spread distrust towards candidates and the political system in general"

The IRA was funded under CONCORD, is primary source. CONCORD has "various Russian government contracts". CONCORD controlled funding, personnel and activities under the name "Project Lakhta", Project Lakhta had "multiple components" for domestic and foreign ops

The indictment details ops structure:
Yevgeniy Progozhin (owner of Concord)
Mikhail Bystrov (general director)
Mikhail Burchik (executive director)
Aleksandra Krylova (director)
Sergey Polozov (IT manager)
Anna Bogacheva (translator project data)

Maria Bovda (head translator project)
Robert Bovda (deputy head translator project)
Dzheykhun Aslanov (head of translator project) and ran financial cutout Azimut to move $ from Concord to IRA
Vadim Podkopaev (translator project analyst)
Gleb Vasilchenko (social media)

Vasilchenko-responsible for posting, monitoring, updating social media content-head of two subgroups focused on 2016 presidential elections.
Irina Kaverzina (translator project) operated multi U.S. personas
Vladimir Venkov (translator project) operated multi U.S personas

‏
The intelligence gathering began in 2014 with KRYLOVA and BOGACHEVA planning travel, equip purchases (cameras, SIM cards, drop phones) and 'evacuation scenarios', for defendants who traveled to the US. KRYLOVA/BOGACHEVA/R.BOVDA sought visas. R. Bovda was denied

KRYLOVA/BOGACHEVA traveled to US in June 2014 - Nevada, California, N Mexico, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Louisiana, Texas and New York to gather intel. They submitted intel report on trip. POLOZOV traveled US Atlanta in Nov 2014.


Appearing as US persons, defendants contacted US groups including grassroots groups. Ex: June 2016 contact with Texas org, real US person told RU defendants to focus on "purple states like Colorado, Virginia and Florida". Defendants updated their directives

Organization "specialists" created socmedia accounts appearing to be U.S. persons. Specialists were divided into day-shift, night-shift, know US holidays to post "appropriate account activity" and told to focus on "political intensity" "radical groups, users dissatisfied"

Defendants created meta-narratives on immigration, Black Lives Matters, religion, and regional issues. They purchased ads, spending thousands of US $ each month then submitting IRA budget to Concord.

Defendants ran "Tennessee GOP" account (@TEN_GOP) that amassed over 100,000 followers on Twitter.
Defendants tracked their socmedia results and the data of the digital useful idiots who passed their info along and submitted metrics reports.

Defendants purchased US computer servers to disguise origin of ops and used VPN to conduct ops, inc open accounts, communicate with US persons and purchase services. They controlled hundreds of email accounts from US email providers, to contact US persons inc media

Defendants stole SS#s and DOB info on real US persons without knowledge or consent, used info for ID to open Paypal accts, make fake drivers licenses, and purchase socmedia ads.

Defendants discussed efforts to interfere in 2016 election in May 2014. This included attacking Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio while defending Sanders and Trump. Feb 10, 2016, memo: "except Sanders and Trump-We support them"

Defendants ordered employs to attack Hillary Clinton harder and to use hashtags (#Trump2016, #TrumpTrain, #MAGA, #IWontProtectHillary, #Hillary4Prison) and to operate Twitter account (March for Trump) and FB page "Clinton FRAUDation" and "Trumpsters United"

Defendants use false US personas communicated with "unwitting members, volunteers, and supporters of Trump Campaign involved in local community outreach, as well as grassroots groups that supported then-candidate Trump" who then distributed IRA materials

Defendants then monitored the echoed materials passed through the Trump camp along with IRA activity.
Defendants activity included discouraging minority voting or voting for 3rd party including @DrJillStein

Fake accounts under "Woke Blacks" and "Blacktivists" encouraged voters to not vote or "choose peace and vote for Jill Stein" - "United Muslims of America" called for "boycotting elections today" then promoted voter fraud Democratic Party incl purchasing ads

To further promote rallies, defendants contacted admins of other social media groups to advertise the rallies. Rallies included anti-Muslim events, rallies for/against candidates in New York, Florida, Texas, and DC. Defendants offered $ to cover expenses.

Defendants (bizarre) asked and paid US person to build a cage on flatbed truck and another to dress as Clinton in prison uniform.

Defendants deleted, destroyed data including emails, socmedia accts and other evidence. After story became public related to socmedia accts, defendants destroyed evidence, These actions to destroy were noted in memos by KAVERZINA in Sept 13, 2017

KAVERZINA-9/13/2017: We had a slight crisis here at work: the FBI busted our activity (not a joke). So, I got preoccupied with covering tracks together with colleagues."-"I created all these pictures and posts and the Americans believed that it was written by their people"
https://twitter.com/TAPSTRIMEDIA/status ... 5523474432

[BenDhyan]

Russia rejects 'absurd' US charges of election manipulation

A Russian foreign ministry spokesperson ripped the U.S. Justice Department's decision Friday to indict 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for attempting to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

"13 people intervened in the elections in the US?! 13 against billion-dollar budgets of special services? Against intelligence and counterintelligence, against the latest developments and technologies? Absurd? Yes. But this is a modern American political reality," Maria Zakharova, director of the foreign affairs' department of information and press, wrote in a Facebook post following the Friday afternoon announcement in Washington.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/russia-rejects-absurd-us-charges-of-election-manipulation/article/2649333

[seemslikeadream]

Mueller Indicts 13 Russians For Election Meddling To Help Trump

By Allegra Kirkland and Sam Thielman | February 16, 2018 1:07 pm
WASHINGTON - JUNE 25: FBI Director Robert Mueller speaks during a news conference at the FBI headquarters June 25, 2008 in Washington, DC. The news conference was to mark the 5th anniversary of Innocence Lost initiative. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Alex Wong/Getty Images North America
Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Friday announced that a grand jury has indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for violating U.S. criminal laws in connection with the campaign to interfere with the 2016 presidential election in support of Donald Trump.

“The indictment charges all of the defendants with conspiracy to defraud the United States, three defendants with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and five defendants with aggravated identity theft,” a statement from the special counsel’s office said.

The 37-page indictment lays out in extensive detail how, prosecutors say, Russia’s Internet Research Agency in 2014 initiated an effort to systematically interfere “with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016.”

The elaborate, multi-million-dollar project involved staging on-the-ground protests in the United States, creating hundreds of social media accounts pretending to be American citizens, trying to suppress minority voter turnout, and even promoting false claims that Democrats committed voter fraud.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the Mueller probe, announced in a Friday press conference that there was “no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this activity.”

According to the indictment, the defendants posed as Americans — and in some cases stole the identities of real U.S. citizens — to operate social media pages and hold political rallies intended to sow distrust of the U.S. political system and influence Americans’ votes. As part of the Internet Research Agency’s so-called “translator project,” the defendants used YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other online platforms to conduct what they referred to as “information warfare.”

“By early to mid-2016, Defendants’ operations included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump (“Trump campaign”) and disparaging Hillary Clinton,” the indictment reads.

“They engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump,” it adds later.

Starting in 2015, the defendants also spent “thousands of U.S. dollars every month,” on paid advertisements to promote social media group pages they created that were devoted to hot-button issues like immigration and Black Lives Matter, the indictment says. Their social media accounts achieved significant online followings, with Donald Trump even responding to a tweet from their account @TEN_GOP, which pretended to be the official account for the Tennessee Republican Party.

The Russians took elaborate steps to hide their fingerprints. Some visited the U.S. under false pretenses to obtain intelligence, and “procured and used computer infrastructure” that would “hide the Russian origin of their activities,” according to the indictment.

They also made use of a web of LLCs to conceal the source of their funding, which was controlled by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch and ally of President Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin’s companies Concord Management and Consulting LLC and Concord Catering were the “primary source of funding” for interference operations, per the indictment.

Prosecutors say the Internet Research Agency’s budget requests to Concord amounted to some $1,250,000 per month as of September 2016.

The Russians also organized on-the-ground rallies to boost Trump, according to the indictment, suggesting the elaborate nature of the Russian effort to influence American voters.

The Kremlin’s operation conducted outreach to grassroots Trump campaigners in Florida over the internet in the summer and fall of 2016, saying they hoped to hold rallies for Trump across the state. On August 15, the Russian operators got an email from an unnamed Trump campaign worker identified as the “Chair for the Trump Campaign” in a particular Florida county, suggesting two more sites for rallies. The indictment does not allege that anyone on the Trump campaign knew they were working with Russians.

According to the indictment the Russians wired an American money to build a cage for a fake Hillary Clinton for a Florida rally on August 5, which made national news; it also wired one group money for another event in Florida in September and took out advertising for a rally organized for 9/11 in New York City. The group paid the same actor—an American—who had played Clinton in the Florida rally to reprise the role on September 11.

The group also reached out to a Texan pro-Trump grassroots organization that was already advising the Russian team to focus on swing states; the American said he or she would provide social media contacts for yet more outreach. By August 24, the Russian group had a list of 100 Americans they had contacted, along with a summary of each person’s political views and what they had been asked by the Russian group to do.

As soon as Trump was elected, the Russians began working to undermine him and sow further discord, the indictment says. On Nov. 12, two groups held rallies, one to “show your support for President-Elect Donald Trump,” another through a group called “Trump is NOT my President.” The Kremlin organized both of them.

This elaborate conspiracy was made possible in part by the theft of the social security numbers, home addresses, and birth dates of real U.S. persons, which allowed the defendants to open U.S. bank and PayPal accounts.

Once the defendants got wind that U.S. investigators were on to them, they began destroying evidence, including emails and social media accounts, according to the indictment.

In one Sept. 2017 email cited by prosecutors, defendant Irina Kaverzina wrote to a family member: “We had a slight crisis here at work: the FBI busted our activity (not a joke). So, I got preoccupied with covering tracks together with the colleagues.”

Kaverzina added: “I created all these pictures and posts, and the Americans believed that it was written by their people.”

Read the full indictment below:

This post has been updated.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker ... on-hacking

[seemslikeadream]

THESE INDICTMENTS DO NOT VINDICATE ANYONE


3 TRUMP CAMPAIGN PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THIS

Seth Abramson
‏
15/ Fortunately, there's no evidence Rykov and Klyushin worked together to help elect you.

Actually, let's scratch that—as before the Buzzfeed dossier ever came into the public sphere, Rykov bragged publicly, on social media, that he and Klyushin worked together to elect you.

16/ Rykov's specific boast—which included facts that would later end up in the dossier, but which he couldn't have known at the time unless he had access to classified U.S. intelligence—was that the plan to aid you in becoming president began, in Russia, sometime in 2011 or 2012.

17/ All this is just the "Cliffs Notes" version of a mountain of documentary evidence suggesting the Russians knew you were running for president well before Americans formally did—and that they began their operations in 2014 fully aware that by mid-2015 you would announce a run.

18/ It's fortunate you only watch Fox News—as from watching that media outlet you would've had no idea that these events have been traced by both major media *and* independent journalists. And it's from within that ignorance that you claim Russia's 2014 actions are exculpatory.

19/ Neither Bob Mueller nor major-media journalists like Luke Harding are tracing your involvement with the Russians as beginning in 2015—when you announced your presidential run. They are seeing evidence that in 2013—and even before—you had let Russia know your political plans.

20/ It will be found—as it's the only theory of the case consistent with the facts—that it was your statement to Russian nationals that you'd run for president in 2016 that was the proximate cause of their decision to wage a massive cyber-campaign explicitly directed to aid you.

CONCLUSION/ *No one* in the intel community confirms your claim—or Pence's—that the election results weren't affected by Russia. And we already *know* from macroanalysis that your hijinks with Giuliani to coerce Comey into re-opening Clinton's case *did* affect the results. {end}

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status ... 3070416897

[2012 Countdown]

Wait. I thought this was all a hoax, "perpetrated by the democrats because they lost an election'.

What is this, the 5th or 6th time that 'the air has been let out' of the Agent Orange conspiracy w/Russia?

Okay, sounds more and more desperate, but okay, comrades.


Maybe western democracy will be saved. Lets hope so gang.

[seemslikeadream]

the shit is gettin real

Old and busted: "THERE WAS NO RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE!!!!!11!!!!!"

New hotness: "THERE WAS RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE AND TRUMP IS INNOCENT!!!!!"!!1!!!!"

(((DeanObeidallah)))
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One of the groups in Robert Mueller's indictment today was United Muslims of America- As I wrote about for the @thedailybeast these Russian hackers used my image as part of this account

INSTAGRAM THIS, COMRADE
How Russian Hackers Used My Face to Sabotage Our Politics and Elect Trump

The Daily Beast’s big scoop about Russian hackers setting up a fake Facebook page of pretend pro-Trump Muslims featured one character very interesting to me: me.

Dean Obeidallah

09.27.17 8:00 PM ET
In today’s climate in America, few people would pretend to be Muslim who aren’t. Unless, of course, you are a Russian hacker trying to help Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election.

As The Daily Beast has uncovered, Russian government hackers set up a fake Facebook page during the 2016 election campaign pretending to be a Muslim American grass roots organization known as United Muslims of America (UMA) to help Trump win the presidency. Beyond that, these Kremlin-backed trolls also set up an Instagram account under the name “muslim_voice” that boasted over 77,000 followers. In fact, one of the images they shared on Instagram was of me—created by the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, an organization I have worked with—that featured my photo together with my quote, “It’s not Islam versus the West. It’s all of versus ISIS.”


If your head is shaking back and forth in disbelief, think about how I and other Muslim Americans feel hearing this! Just when I thought I had heard it all in regard to the Russian government’s efforts to help Trump win and hurt our nation, this cut alarmingly close to home. (Add to that a few months ago I had the Neo Nazis at The Daily Stormer fabricate tweets that made it look like I was involved in the Manchester bombing. Between these Russians and Nazis I feel like I'm living in a Tom Clancy novel.)

What’s interesting is that UMA is an actual Muslim American organization that had held events in the past with the goal of fostering interfaith alliances and encouraging Muslim Americans to become more active in U.S. politics. But as the Beast learned, the group has been dormant in recent years.

Consequently, this was a perfect organization for Russian hackers to pose as on Facebook. The Russians had the cover of a bonafide Muslim American organization that had actual board members—a friend of mine from the Muslim community knew at least one. But since they weren’t active, they hoped that the organization’s leaders wouldn’t notice the fake Facebook page set up in the organizations name. And they were right.


So what did the Russians post in name of the UMA on Facebook to help Trump? Well if there were actually sending out pro-Trump messages I can assure you that I and my Muslim American friends would have heard about that and would’ve slammed them on social media. (Given Trump’s despicable demonization of Muslims, our community overwhelmingly opposed him in the 2016 election.)

Say what you want about the Russian hackers, they apparently were aware of that.

So to help Trump, they simply started slamming Clinton in ways they believed would turn American Muslims off to her as well as rile up Trump supporters by playing to their anti-Muslim sentiments. One meme they pushed, as Beast reporting noted, was that Clinton “created, funded and armed” al Qaeda and ISIS. This parroted one of Trump’s lies during the campaign.

But another post on the fabricated Facebook page in June 2016 was far more sinister. After the Orlando terrorist attack at the Pulse nightclub that left 49 dead, the Russian-run Facebook page praised Clinton and even created an event titled, “Support Hillary. Save American Muslims!” that was to take place outside of the White House.

If you think that the goal of that post was to help Clinton’s campaign you simply don’t get how this works. In the days after the Orlando attack—as I can personally attest—the exclusive focus of the American Muslim community was making it clear that we absolutely denounced the terror attack and that we stood with our fellow Americans. No American Muslim group would have been planning a political event in the days after that attack to support any candidate. Not only would it have been horribly insensitive to politicize a tragedy, we fully get that would’ve caused a backlash against our community and the candidate. (UMA officials confirmed to The Daily Beast that they did not plan any such event.)

That Facebook event— and any ads they ran to publicize it—were not intended to support Clinton but to rile up Trump supporters. Keep in mind 65 percent of 2016 Republican primary voters supported Trump’s call for a total ban on Muslims coming to America. These people would surely read that Muslims were praising Hillary in the aftermath of a horrible ISIS related terror attack and say “Look at these damn Muslims supporting Hillary!” The Russian hackers’ goal was clearly intended to further the narrative that Trump is tough on Islam while Clinton was palling around with Muslims.

The Russian government-linked operatives certainly understood how Trump’s base would respond to Muslim bashing. No doubt they had seen how Fox News, Breitbart and many in the GOP openly demonized Muslims and it had yielded ratings and votes. And that’s undoubtedly why Russian bots peddled other anti-Muslim views on Facebook apart from this fabricated account that would further Trump-championed themes, as they did in August 2016, supporting an Idaho rally demanding, “We must stop taking in Muslim refugees!”

Having Kremlin-linked hackers pretend to be Muslims and use anti-Muslim bigotry to help Trump win is despicable. But they didn’t create the climate where anti-Muslim bigotry could be weaponized to help a candidate attract votes. That was all the work of people on the right from media outlets like Breitbart to politicians like Trump. And to me the latter is just as un-American and just as vile—if not worse—than the Russian hackers who posed as Muslims.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-russi ... lect-trump

[stillrobertpaulsen]

Internet Research Agency and Concord Management sounded very familiar. Look what popped in my GD search:

Putin's Chef Financed St. Petersburg Troll Factory
NEWS | OCT 17, 2017

U.S. officials believe Russian oligarch and chef Yevgeny Prigozhi is the main financier behind the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Kremlin-linked troll factory that spread fake news during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Prigozhi has close ties to Vladimir Putin:

Prigozhin has a colorful past. He spent nine years in prison in the 1980s for fraud and robbery, according to Russian media reports. After his release, he went into the catering business -- renovating a boat and opening New Island, one of a half-dozen upscale restaurants he owns in St. Petersburg. Putin turned to him to cater his birthday parties as well as dinners with visiting leaders, including President Bush and Jacques Chirac of France. A headline in The Moscow Times referred to Prigozhin as Putin's "Personal Chef."

Prigozhin subsequently won lucrative catering contracts for schools and Russia's armed forces. He escorted Putin around his new food-processing factory in 2010. By then he was very much a Kremlin insider with a growing commercial empire.
CNN says internal IRA documents show the troll factory had a "Department of Provocations' dedicated to sowing fake news and social divisions in the West."

The United States Treasury Department sanctioned Prigozhin personally in December 2016 for providing financial support for Russia's military occupation of Ukraine. Treasury added two of his companies to the list of sanctioned operations in June 2017.

Read more: Exclusive: Putin's 'chef,' the man behind the troll factory (CNN)
https://investigaterussia.org/media/201 ... ll-factory

Putin's 'chef,' the man behind the troll factory

Exclusive: Putin's 'chef,' the man behind the troll factory
(CNN)Yevgeny Prigozhin is a Russian oligarch dubbed "chef" to President Vladimir Putin by the Russian press. In 2002, he served caviar and truffles to President George W. Bush during a summit in St. Petersburg. Before that, he renovated a boat that became the city's most exclusive restaurant.

But his business empire has expanded far beyond the kitchen. US investigators believe it was Prigozhin's company that financed a Russian "troll factory" that used social media to spread fake news during the 2016 US presidential campaign, according to multiple officials briefed on the investigation. One part of the factory had a particularly intriguing name and mission: a "Department of Provocations" dedicated to sowing fake news and social divisions in the West, according to internal company documents obtained by CNN.

Twitter gives profile names of Russian-linked accounts to Senate investigators
Prigozhin is one of the Kremlin's inner circle. His company is believed to be a main backer of the St. Petersburg-based "Internet Research Agency" (IRA), a secretive technology firm, according to US officials and the documents reviewed by CNN. Prigozhin was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in December of 2016 for providing financial support for Russia's military occupation of Ukraine. Two of his companies, including his catering business, were also sanctioned by Treasury this year.

CNN has examined scores of documents leaked from Prigozhin's companies that show further evidence of his links to the troll factory.

One contract provided IRA with ways to monitor social media and a "system of automized promotion in search engines."

House intel committee to release Russia-linked Facebook ads
Other documents show that the monthly budget for IRA was around $1 million in 2013 -- split between departments that included Russian-language operations and the use of social media in English. The "Department of Provocations" offers this mission: "how do we create news items to achieve our goals."

Another document shows a 2013 contract drawn up by an employee at Concord Management and Consulting, Prigozhin's main business, based in St. Petersburg. The contract was for 20 million rubles (then $650,000) for construction work at the IRA and was signed by the director general of IRA.

Additionally, company records reviewed by CNN show that an employee at Concord Consulting subsequently joined IRA.

Several emails and calls from CNN to Concord Consulting went unanswered. The IRA no longer exists.

Exclusive: Russian-linked Facebook ads targeted Michigan and Wisconsin
Prigozhin is notoriously image-conscious. Last year, he filed 15 lawsuits against the Internet company Yandex, using a Russian law that obliges online search engines to remove "illegal, inaccurate, or irrelevant information." The case was subsequently dropped.

The Internet Research Agency has long been in the crosshairs of US investigations. A declassified assessment by the US intelligence community published in January concluded that the "likely financier of the so-called Internet Research Agency of professional trolls located in Saint Petersburg is a close Putin ally with ties to Russian intelligence," though it did not name Prigozhin.

Prigozhin has a colorful past. He spent nine years in prison in the 1980s for fraud and robbery, according to Russian media reports. After his release, he went into the catering business -- renovating a boat and opening New Island, one of a half-dozen upscale restaurants he owns in St. Petersburg. Putin turned to him to cater his birthday parties as well as dinners with visiting leaders, including President Bush and Jacques Chirac of France. A headline in The Moscow Times referred to Prigozhin as Putin's "Personal Chef."
Prigozhin subsequently won lucrative catering contracts for schools and Russia's armed forces. He escorted Putin around his new food-processing factory in 2010. By then he was very much a Kremlin insider with a growing commercial empire.

Origins of IRA


The Internet Research Agency was based at 55 Savushkina Street in St. Petersburg before it officially ceased operations on December 28, 2016. But investigative journalist Andrei Zakharov, who works for the business media group RBC, says its work continues.

"They have a lot of legal entities," Zakharov says, "and they still, I think, change it every year or every two years."

Company registrations retrieved by CNN appear to confirm that. Another company at 55 Savushkina Street is Glavset, whose director general has the same name as the boss of IRA. The name matches that of a former regional police chief in St. Petersburg.

CNN has also tried to reach Glavset's management without success.

Glavset lists the "creation and use of databases and information resources" as well as the "development of computer software, advertising services and information placement services" among its activities. It was listed as a company in the Russian legal entities registry in February 2015.

Yahoo: Russian trolls watched 'House of Cards' to learn about US politics
A short time later, it began advertising for staff on a headhunting site (hh.ru). One post looking for a copywriter says the job involves "writing diverse texts for the Internet and content for social networks." The posting offered a salary of 30,000 rubles a month (then a little over $500) and said experience was unnecessary. Recruits would work with a team of "young and enthusiastic colleagues" in "a comfortable and stylish office," according to the posting.

That's not how Ludmila Savchuk remembers IRA, where she worked for two months in 2015. She told CNN a card system restricted access to other floors and employees were always under camera surveillance.

"Employees are not really allowed to talk to each other," she said.

Savchuk says she estimates that now "there are about 1,000 people working at Savushkina Street. And this is just one building." She believes other employees work remotely.

Another former employee, interviewed anonymously by the independent Russian TV network RAIN this week, said: "There was a goal -- to influence opinions, to lead to a discussion. ... There was a strategy document. It was necessary to know all the main problems of the United States of America. Tax problems, the problem of gays, sexual minorities, weapons."

The former employee said the mission was to "get into the dispute yourself to fire it up, try to rock the boat." He gave an example: "It was necessary to write that sodomy is a sin. This would always get you a couple of dozen likes."

He said IRA made its employees watch the US TV series "House of Cards" to improve their English.

Not unlike the fictional White House of Frank Underwood, Savchuk says, "The atmosphere there reminded me of some anti-utopian Gulag."
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/17/politics/ ... index.html

Nice work, slad!

[seemslikeadream]

damn now if you can only get her to stop linking to Bill Palmer



sometimes I amaze myself...."Department of Provocations"

[seemslikeadream]

Betsy Woodruff

We reported in October that Kellyanne Conway and Don Jr pushed messages from the newly indicted Russian troll operation.

Trump Campaign Staffers Pushed Russian Propaganda Days Before the Election

Kellyanne Conway and Donald Trump Jr. pushed messages from an account operated from Russia’s ‘troll farm’—including allegations of voter fraud a week before Election Day.


Some of the Trump campaign’s most prominent names and supporters, including Trump’s campaign manager, digital director, and son, pushed tweets from professional trolls paid by the Russian government in the heat of the 2016 election campaign.

The Twitter account @Ten_GOP, which called itself the “Unofficial Twitter account of Tennessee Republicans,” was operated from the Kremlin-backed “Russian troll farm,” or Internet Research Agency, a source familiar with the account confirmed with The Daily Beast.

The account’s origins in the Internet Research Agency were originally reported by the independent Russian news outlet RBC. @Ten_GOP was created on Nov. 19, 2015, and accumulated over 100 thousand followers before Twitter shut it down. The Daily Beast independently confirmed the reasons for @Ten_GOP’s account termination.

The discovery of the now-unavailable tweets presents the first evidence that several members of the Trump campaign pushed covert Russian propaganda on social media in the run-up to the 2016 election.

A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment, “for privacy and security reasons.”

Two days before election day, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway tweeted a post by @Ten_GOP regarding Hillary Clinton’s email.

“Mother of jailed sailor: ‘Hold Hillary to same standards as my son on Classified info’ #hillarysemail #WeinerGate” the tweet reads.

Three weeks before the election, Brad Parscale, the Trump campaign’s digital director, retweeted a separate post from @Ten_GOP.

“Thousands of deplorables chanting to the media: ‘Tell The Truth!’ RT if you are also done w/ biased Media!” the tweet read.

President Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. followed the account until its closure on Aug. 23 of this year. Trump Jr. retweeted the account three times, including an allegation of voter fraud in Florida one week before the election.

“BREAKING: #VoterFraud by counting tens of thousands of ineligible mail in Hillary votes being reported in Broward County, Florida Please, RT,” the tweet read.

Trump Jr. also retweeted the account on Election Day.

“This vet passed away last month before he could vote for Trump.. Here he is in his #MAGA hat.. #voted #ElectionDay,” the account wrote.

Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn retweeted the Russian-backed troll account at least once. His son, Michael Flynn Jr., retweeted the account 34 times before it was removed from Twitter in August for its ties to Russian propaganda.

The account notably pushed for Flynn’s reappointment as Trump’s national security adviser, a job Flynn lost after press revelations that he’d lied about his telephone discussions with the Russian ambassador after the election hacks. It also repeatedly pushed Breitbart-backed talking points, including a fake news story about a gang rape in Twin Falls, Idaho, that merited dozens of articles from Breitbart News.

Flynn Jr. will likely receive a Senate subpoena after he refused to be interviewed for the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation, ABC News reported on Tuesday.

Former Trump campaign advisor and longtime confidante of the president Roger Stone retweeted the account three times in 2017, twice to rail against commentators on CNN.

On the same day as the account’s permanent ban, @Ten_GOP was caught passing a photo of the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers NBA Championship parade in Cleveland as a picture of the crowd gathered outside a Trump rally in Phoenix.

Last March the account was one of the most active in promoting WikiLeaks’ first big release of CIA documents, using the occasion to float the false claim that the so-called Vault 7 documents acquitted Russia in the hack of the Democratic National Committee. “BREAKING: Obama’s CIA posed as RUSSIAN HACKERS to disguise their dirty work,” read one of the tweets. “The ‘Russian hacking’ was a false flag by the CIA. It was done to give Obama a reason to spy on Trump!” read another.

Overt Russian propaganda outlets Sputnik and RT frequently used @Ten_GOP’s tweets in their news stories, including a story titled “Russia has no compromising info on Trump or Clinton, report is ‘total bluff’—Kremlin.”

Far right news sites The Gateway Pundit and InfoWars quoted the account in articles several times.

Fox News cited @Ten_GOP as its sole example of a “Trump fan” in an article titled “Trump fans call for Kellogg’s boycott after brand pulls Breitbart ads” last December.

Former FBI counterterrorism agent Clint Watts, who testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Russian cyberattacks, told The Daily Beast that this is “exactly what I was talking about” in his testimony in March.

“If what you said is true, I’d say, ‘My job is done,’” said Watts. “If this account is definitely an (Internet Research Agency) account, it proved Russian Active Measures (like the 2016 propaganda campaign) works, because Americans will use it against other Americans.”

Watts said the content of these pages is “made to look organic” so that “Americans will use it against their political enemies.”

“If you take rumors, false information, plants, and just repeat them, you’re doing the job of a foreign country. They are seeding out information or narratives they know candidates or partisans will use. They were so effective, they had the very top people in the campaign using it,” said Watts.

“Basically, Russia loaded the gun. The Trump team fired.”

Mike Hasson, chief strategist of the Republican data analytics firm Red Metrics, said he remembered seeing the account as far back as the primaries, but became skeptical of the account due to a “couple odd things that stood out.”

“I remember seeing it in late primary season, showing up in my timeline, retweeted by ordinary grassroots people. Some of the stuff was conspiracy theorist and inflammatory, but other times the content was intended to be inspiring and heartwarming,” said Hasson.

Hasson said he became more confident of Ten_GOP’s origins after the account stopped tweeting about Tennessee and started tweeting about nationalist French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, then tweeted several links from Russian propaganda network RT.

“For it to jump from Tennessee-related stuff and national stuff to Le Pen, that was probably the trigger point—like, ‘OK, maybe there is something here that’s a lot worse,’” said Hasson.

“At that point, it was much more than just suspicion. That was more of a confirmation,” he said, of Russia Today’s frequent citation of the account. “By that point, it had accumulated enough red flags that I felt pretty sure that this was one of the bad guys.”

The account was retweeted 15 times by far-right agitator Ann Coulter, who also posted one of its tweets to her Twitter account.

Last month, after the account’s closure, someone launched a petition on the White House’s “We The People” site complaining about “a war on conservatives on Twitter.” The petition demanded the reinstatement of several alt-right Twitter accounts that had been suspended from the service, adding “My own account, @Tennessee_GOP, was banned on August the 23th.”

The petition misstates the name of the @Ten_GOP account, but came at around the same time as two more White House petitions protesting Facebook’s deletion of fake African American and progressive political accounts linked to the Russian active measures campaign. None of the petitions received enough signatures to qualify for a White House response.

Others in Trump’s inner circle, including former deputy national security advisor Sebastian Gorka, also retweeted Russian-tied Twitter accounts.

Despite posing as Tennessee Republicans, the account never hesitated to push the Kremlin’s talking points on issues like Syria and the French election. In May, the anonymous operator of a Twitter account called AltCyberCommand used Twitter’s password reset process to try and prove Russia’s involvement. A video of the hack appeared to show that TEN_GOP’s Twitter account was set up with a phone number in country code 7, indicating the Russian Federation, not Tennessee.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-cam ... e-election