Ever since Donald J. Trump was inaugurated as president 13 months ago, with his White House shrouded in a fog over its murky Russia ties from day one, Fridays have been the day that big news gets dumped, per venerable Washington tradition. Last Friday did not disappoint, and a week that was supposed to be about the White Houses big infrastructure plan instead wound up focusing on Russia, yet again.
After months of investigation, Special Counsel Robert Mueller issued indictments against 13 Russians and three Russian entities on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States. In addition, three Russians were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, while five were charged with aggravated identity theft. Boiled down, the indictments outline a complex conspiracy to clandestinely influence our 2016 election.
Beginning in 2014, the Kremlin began laying the groundwork for information warfare against the American electorate, collecting intelligence and establishing masked computer networks to employ social media in a weaponized manner against our democracy. The hub of this secret effort was the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, which functioned as a front for Russian intelligence; at its 2016 peak, it was spending $1.25 million per month on operations to influence our election with online disinformation and propaganda. This effort aimed to sow distrust among Americans, further poisoning our already polarized election, while boosting Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders at the expense of Hillary Clinton and Trumps rivals in the Republican primaries.
These indictments fundamentally shift the debate about what happened in 2016. Despite nonstop claims for more than a year by President Trump that Russian interference in his election is a Democratic hoax, an assertion that has been parroted virulently by his backers, its now glaringly obvious that Kremlin officials indeed did clandestinely interfere to help put Donald Trump in the White House. Here, the presidents repeated assurances that Moscow did not meddle in his electionbecause Vladimir Putin told him so!appear worse than merely unbelievable.
Predictably, the White House has latched on to the fact that Muellers indictments state that no members of Team Trump wittingly parlayed with Russian spies in 2016, who masked their identities. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosensteins statement, There is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity. There is no allegation in the indictment that the charge conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election, has been judged especially significant by the president and his defenders. However, Rosensteins careful parsing of his statement about this indictment implies that more may be coming.
In truth, this is just the first wave of Muellers indictments against Team Trump. More, and worse, is headed to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The special counsels efforts to rope White House staffers into obstruction charges now take on different coloration as what they were trying to hide is coming into focus. At a minimum, events like the Team Trump June 9, 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with the Russian attorney Natalya Veselnitskayain reality, a Russian intelligence officerostensibly to discuss adoptions, look more sinister when viewed against the backdrop of the broader Kremlin conspiracy against our election. As do pro-Kremlin changes to the Republican platform on Ukraine that were pushed by Team Trump at the partys mid-July 2016 convention in Cleveland.