Mueller Indicts 13 Russian Nationals for Interfering in the Election
February 16, 2018Just minutes after I published the post earlier today about Russian bots sowing discord, I saw that 13 Russian nationals were indicted by Robert Mueller.
Prosecutors allege that the Russian Internet Research Agency and others spread messages on social media to promote Trump’s candidacy and to criticize his political rival Hillary Clinton. They also alleged that some of the Russian operatives organized rallies supporting Trump and traveled to the United States to gather information.
I’m going to quote that again: “spread messages on social media to promote Trump’s candidacy and to criticize his political rival Hillary Clinton.”
This was exactly what I was seeing nearly two years ago and that various sources have written up. I’ve always felt that the scope of this was under appreciated. What the impact was, who can really say? It certainly was pervasive and often extremely obvious, but it’s hard to measure the impact.
Let’s wait until we get a statement claiming those involved did it of their own accord.
