Special counsel Robert Mueller has obtained a new indictment charging 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking Democrats during the 2016 presidential election, and stealing information about 500,000 American voters, the Justice Department announced Friday.
The indictment lodged in Washington, D.C., accuses the Russian spies of hacking into the Democratic National Committee and the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, and of releasing emails obtained from that cybersnooping with a a goal of influencing the election.
The accused also hacked into state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and into companies that provided software used to adminster elections, according to Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein.
Rosenstein said he briefed President Donald Trump about the case earlier in the week. Trump, who was meeting with Queen Elizabeth in England during Rosenstein’s press conference announcing the new charges, has repeatedly called Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling the election a “witchhunt.”
Mueller’s office in a prepared statement said, that a “federal grand jury in the District of Columbia returned an indictment today against 12 Russian nationals for their alleged roles in computer hacking conspiracies aimed at interfering in the 2016 U.S. elections.”
“The indictment charges 11 of the defendants with conspiracy to commit computer crimes, eight counts of aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to launder money. Two defendants are charged with a separate conspiracy to commit computer crimes,” Mueller’s office said.
Read the new indictment here: