Trump said this past week during his trip to Europe that he would "absolutely, firmly" raise the election-meddling issue with Putin at their meeting, though he added, "I don't think you'll have any 'Gee, I did it, I did it".
Bitcoin was the currency of choice among the Russian intelligence officers indicted for hacking offenses related to the 2016 presidential campaign, the USA said Friday.
Rosenstein, who said he had briefed President Donald Trump on the indictment, said there was no allegation that the hacking altered any vote count or that any Americans were knowingly in communication with any of the Russian officers.
Days after the G-7, the Treasury blacklisted five Russian companies and three individuals, some of whom are accused of directly supporting Russia's intelligence agency in its efforts to carry out cyberattacks, including intrusions into America's energy grid and threats to underwater cables that transmit much of the world's communications data. The Kremlin has denied that the Russian state interfered in the election.
While no American is charged in today's indictment, there is nothing in it about precluding any eventual charges against a USA citizen.
Sergey Aleksandrovich Morgachev was a lieutenant colonel in the Russian military who oversaw Unit 26165's department in charge of developing and managing malware, including the hacking tool X-Agent used by the GRU, according to the indictment.
PHOTO: President Donald Trump inspects the guard of honour formed of the Coldstream Guards during a welcome ceremony at Windsor Castle on July 13, 2018 with Britain's Queen Elizabeth II on the second day of Trump's United Kingdom visit.
It was the most detailed U.S. accusation yet that Russian Federation meddled in the election with the eventual aim of trying to boost Republican Trump's campaign.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday that the indictment aimed to damage the atmosphere before the summit. He was asked to respond to a tweet from Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump's lawyer, opining that the special counsel investigation needs to be shut down.
The inquiry is looking into USA intelligence findings if the Russians conspired to favour the election in Trump's victory, and whether any of his campaign associated were involved in the conspiracy.
The deputy attorney general said all 12 defendants were in the Russian intelligence service, the GRU.
Read the ‘very nice’ letter Kim Jong-un sent Trump last week
Several days previously, Pyongyang had slated the USA for seeking unilateral and forced denuclearization from North Korea . President for the improvement of relations between the two countries", Kim wrote, according to the letter , dated July 6.
There is also no allegation in Friday's charges that "any American was a knowing participant in the alleged unlawful activity", the indictment says. Trump ally Roger Stone told CNN he "probably" was the person referred to in the indictment.
They allegedly exploited these identities to release thousands of stolen emails and other documents beginning as early as in June 2016.
"I have a lot of faith in President Trump", he said.
A former federal prosecutor, Renato Mariotti, raised the question of the next steps in the probe. "You can certainly imagine a subsequent indictment in the future of an American of being part of this conspiracy", Mariotti said. "At or around the same time, they also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton Campaign".
Was Russia listening, after all? The case follows a separate indictment that accused Russians of using social media to sow discord among American voters.
But, there is the little matter of Trump directly asking Russian Federation to hack into Hillary Clinton's emails.
The court papers also say that an unidentified organization - which matches the description of Wikileaks - coordinated the release of DNC emails with Guccifer 2.0 in July 2016 with an eye toward disrupting the party's convention.
Trump was dismissive of the Mueller probe in remarks yesterday in Britain, saying, "We do have a - a political problem where - you know in the United States we have this stupidity going on".
"It proves - this indictment proves that we never needed a special counsel", Dershowitz said. No Americans are involved.
Mueller has secured indictments against several former Trump campaign aides, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn. Given that we are mere months away from a massively important state and local midterm election, you'd think people would be more concerned about protecting us from the continuing threat of Russian interference.
