Mueller Indicts 13 Russians, 'Putin's Chef,' Over 2016 Election Interference

Thirteen Russian operatives, including a man widely known as "Vladimir Putin's chef," and the shadowy St. Petersburg organization called the Internet Research Agency (IRA) were named today in a 37-page criminal indictment filed by Robert Mueller, the Russiagate special counsel. It's a bombshell that marks a major step forward in the investigation of Russia's 2016 meddling in the U.S. presidential election, providing important new details about who in Russia did what in the area of manipulating social media, including Facebook, Twitter and other platforms to support the election of Donald Trump.
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Mueller is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, and he's also looking into obstruction of justice charges against Trump, his aides and family members, and the White House. But these charges go to the heart of the actions by Russia itself in trying to affect the outcome of the 2016 vote.

Since last summer, of course, there have been widespread media reports, investigations and hearings before Congressional committees, and various statements by Facebook and Twitter about Russian involvement in social media activities around the 2016 election. Just this week, Jonathan Albright, a Columbia University researcher, published a new study showing how thousands of Russian Twitter accounts – some with more than 10,000 followers – tweeted and retweeted mainstream and right-wing news media stories as part of Russia's 2016 election meddling. But now, with Mueller's indictment, the Department of Justice has provided the names of particular Russian individuals involved and pulled back the curtain on how they did it.

Source :    rollingstone

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