The Russia Investigations: Mueller Indicts The 'Internet Research Agency'

[Dulcinea]

Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller prefers to let his work do the talking for him. On Friday, he delivered a stemwinder.

Thirteen Russians and three Russian entities were indicted by a federal grand jury in connection with the attack on the 2016 election. The indictment lays out a number of detailed allegations against the Internet Research Agency located in St. Petersburg and against individuals who owned, controlled, funded or worked for the organization.

Much of what Mueller's office charges — that influence-mongers used Facebook and Twitter to turn up the volume and pit American against American — was already public. But the 37-page indictment also includes a number of fascinating new insights.

https://www.npr.org/2018/02/17/586698361/the-russia-investigations-mueller-indicts-the-internet-research-agency

[Nitram]

1. Good article.

[JayhawkSD]

2. There's a problem with NPR's narrative in point #1

"... confirms the geopolitical context in which Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to place his chips on a major new influence campaign against the West."

I read the indictment in its entirety, more than once since it is difficult to wade through, and it does not link to Putin or the Russian government directly or by implication. It names and indicts persons and corporations, but does not even imply that Vladimir Putin himself played any role whatever.

I went ahead and read the rest of the article, despite knowing that the author was quite willing to engage in nonsense, and the rest was less nonsensical, but it does a lot of jumping to conclusions and claims that the indictment says several things that it does not say.

"The fact of the travel of Russian operatives also raises questions about other aspects of the influence campaign." Not in the indictment, it doesn't, and not in anything said by the FBI. The fact that I went to Disneyland last month does not raise questions about whether or not I also went to the Russian Embassy in Los Angeles. (There probably is no such thing, but I'm making a point.)

"They hired a person to buy a cage and paid another to stand in it pretending to be Hillary Clinton — part of the push to 'lock her up.'" They also paid a person to stand in front of the Obama White House holding a sign reading, "Happy Birthday Boss." What they hoped to accomplish with that buffoonery is unclear, and criminal charges require intent.

I'm not saying the indictment is a nothingburger, it's clearly more than that, but NPR is doing its usual job of making mountains out of molehills, and we sure as hell better get more out of Mueller than this, given all of the time and money he is spending.