US indicts 12 Russians for hacking DNC emails during the 2016 election

guardian

A dozen Russians were criminally charged on Friday with hacking and leaking the emails of senior Democrats during the 2016 presidential election campaign.

Grand jury indictments against the 12 alleged Russian intelligence officials were announced by Rod Rosenstein, the deputy US attorney general, at a press conference in Washington.

The indictment says Clinton’s personal office was targeted for the first time on 27 July 2016 – hours after Trump called on Russian hacker

US intelligence agencies concluded that the accounts were hacked as part of a wide-ranging operation ordered by Putin to damage Clinton’s bid for the presidency and assist Trump’s campaign.

Trump has consistently tried to cast doubt over the conclusions of the intelligence agencies that he now controls, and highlighted denials from Putin about the election interference. He continued on Friday to dismiss Mueller’s inquiry as a “witch-hunt”.s to find her emails.

The indicted Russians were on Friday also accused of hacking into the computer systems of American state election authorities and of companies that produced software used by states for running elections. Rosenstein said there was no evidence of any vote tallies being affected.

The Russians used techniques including “spearphishing” and spying software, before publishing the emails through well-known online accounts including Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks, which purported to be independent American and Romanian hackers. Rosenstein said both personas were in fact operated by the GRU.

Russians tried to hack Clinton server on day Trump urged email search

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In February this year, Mueller’s team filed criminal charges against 13 Russians and three Russian companies for interfering in the presidential campaign, using social media and coordinating with low-level Trump campaign activists.