United States: 12 Russian agents indicted for piracy of the Democratic Party in 2016

United States: 12 Russian agents indicted for piracy of the Democratic Party in 2016
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AFP / File
/ Alex Edelman

Three days before the summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, the special prosecutor in charge of investigating a Kremlin interference in the 2016 US presidential election on Friday charged twelve Russian intelligence agents for hacking computers

Prosecutor Robert Mueller's investigation, which also investigates suspicions of cooperation between Moscow and Donald Trump's team, has been poisoning the US president for more than a year. The latter denies any collusion and denounces a "witch hunt" led by a FBI in the pay of the Democrats, while Moscow denies any interference in the election.

The Democrats immediately called for the cancellation of the head-to-head Monday's head between MM. Trump and Putin in Helsinki, but the White House has confirmed that it would take place.

"Great Scale"

The accused, all members of the intelligence services of the Russian Army (GRU), are accused of 'have conducted' large-scale IT operations' between March and November 2016 to break into the computers of volunteers and Democratic leaders, steal internal documents and "organize" their publication "to interfere in the election", according to the indictment.

None of the defendants seem to have a prominent reputation in Russia.

The agents allegedly used a fake website, DCLeaks, and a fake hacker named Guccifer 2.0 to broadcast the stolen documents on the internet. They also allegedly transferred documents "to another unnamed organization", presumably WikiLeaks.

But these operations had no impact on the November poll and the indictment file did not show any collaboration. intentionally between Americans and Russian agents, said Friday the number 2 of the Department of Justice, Rod Rosenstein.

This announcement, however, puts pressure on Donald Trump meeting Vladimir Putin on Monday to try to warm up tense relations. 19659003] "I absolutely and firmly ask the question" of the Russian interference during the summit, said Friday the American president, who was having tea with the Queen of England in London when the charges were made public. [19659003] The latter "show how vast this operation was", reacted the chairman of the National Democratic Committee (DNC) Tom Perez in a tweet, denouncing "your l information related to nearly 500,000 voters. "

" The Russian government attacked our democracy in 2016 and the DNC was the main target, "he added.

The malaise was also palpable in some Republicans. The influential senator John McCain thus suggested to the American president to cancel the meeting "if he is not ready to hold Putin accountable."

"Very important decisions"

Rod Rosenstein denied any link between the announcement of the indictments and the Helsinki Summit.

The date of this announcement "is that of facts, evidence and the law that determines what is sufficient to present a charge at this time," he said at a press conference, highlighting that Mr. Trump had been informed of these charges

"It was important for the President to know what information we had discovered because he must make very important decisions for the country," Rosenstein said.

White House spokeswoman welcomed the case dismissed collusion.

Lindsay Walters pointed out "the lack of allegation of intentional involvement of anyone in the campaign (Trump) and the absence allegation that this piracy affected the outcome of the election, which is what we have always said. "

In this vast investigation, 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies were charged in February for to have Attempted from Russia to destabilize the campaign by using social networks

Four Donald Trump advisers have been prosecuted for their links with Russian officials, but no evidence of collusion has been established.

In June 2017, Democrat Hillary Clinton accused Trump's team and Russia of co-ordinating to derail his campaign and favor the victory of his Republican opponent.

She had taken the For example, his campaign team's John Podesta, which had been leaked by WikiLeaks in October, had been hacked into the news after the press had leaked a video of Donald Trump making obscene remarks about women.

In July 2016, shortly before the Democratic convention, WikiLeaks also published nearly 20,000 messages from Democratic Party officials containing internal secrets.

14/07/2018 08:25:09 –
Washington (AFP) –
© 2018 AFP