The White House on Friday issued a statement saying that the indictment of the 12 Russians accused of hacking Democratic officials during the 2016 election is “consistent” with President Donald Trump’s claim that his campaign did not collude with Moscow’s election meddling, ABC News reported.
“Today’s charges include no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the campaign and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election result,” White House spokesperson Lindsay Walters said in a statement. “This is consistent with what we have been saying all along.”
The indictments are expected to complicate Trump’s planned summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday.
“The indictment charges 12 Russian military officers by name with conspiring to interfere with the 2016 presidential election,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told a news conference.
Rosenstein also added that there is no proof that U.S. citizens were involved in the alleged crimes described in the indictment.
A Justice Department news release said that officers of Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, “in their official capacities engaged in a sustained effort to hack into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee and the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton and released that information on the internet under the names DCLeaks and Gufficer 2.0.”
Since Mueller took over the investigation he has indicted several former Trump campaign aides, including campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former White House national security advisor Michael Flynn.
Mueller in February also indicted 13 Russians and three Russian companies in an elaborate conspiracy to interfere in the election. The indictment said the Russians adopted false online personas to push divisive messages, traveled to the United States to collect intelligence and staged political rallies while posing as Americans.
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