In a 37-page indictment issued by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team on Friday, we got our first detailed look at how Russian trolls working for an organization called the Internet Research Agency allegedly tried to throw the 2016 election to Donald Trump.
While the document is one of the first full articulations of that effort, it isn’t comprehensive. It’s an indictment, focused on a specific set of charges targeting a specific group of people – 13 in total. It doesn’t include, for example, any discussion of how Russia might have hacked the Democratic National Committee or the Hillary Clinton campaign. It doesn’t include evidence that senior Trump campaign officials colluded with Russia deliberately to affect the outcome of the race. It doesn’t show Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hand directly in the meddling.
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What it does include, though, is significant. It shows a concerted years-long effort by a group dedicated to undermining the American political system. It shows the scale of that effort, eventually involving 80 staff in St. Petersburg, a budget of more than a million dollars a month, hundreds of social media accounts, stolen identities of American citizens – and even visits into the United States by Russians traveling under visas obtained through misrepresentation.
Below, a timeline of what the indictment lays out. We’ve included other noteworthy events as well.
The Internet Research Agency gets to work
June, 2013. The Internet Research Agency (IRA) is registered with the Russian government.
October, 2013. Mikhail Leonidovich Burchik join.
Source : mercurynews
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