Thread by @Heidi_Cuda

INFORMATION WARFARE: Conspiracy to Interfere.

A page by page read of the Mueller indictments detailing Russian military campaigns to deprive America of its first woman President.

Thread.

1/ IRA Indictment.

“We had a slight crisis here at work: the FBI busted our activity.”

2/ First, familiarize yourself with the name: Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a businessman charged with funding information warfare against the U.S. Prigozhin is a close ally of Putin—a skier who’s career was derailed by a prison stint for teenage prostitution.
#wapowashingtonpost.com/news/worldview…

3/ 13 people, 3 companies indicted: a foreign influence campaign targeting U.S., dox say Prigozhin funded.

Defendants illegally posing as Americans to disrupt presidential election.

Traveling here to gain intel.

Strategic goal: cause discord.

Support Trump, bash Hillary.

4/ “SPREAD DISTRUST”: The Internet Research Agency employed hundreds, had millions of dollars and included mngt, data analysis, gfx, SEO, IT depts.

5/ INFORMATION WARFARE: The Translator Project.

By 2014, defendants’ goal was to sway U.S. election.

By 2016, 80 employees were dedicated to the “translator project,” which used Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter to conduct information warfare against the United States.

6/ THE MANAGEMENT: The Defendants Hierarchy.

The indictment details “Project Lakhta” dept heads and a monthly budget of $1,250,000 million dollars, plus bonuses.

That included paying an American to stand in front of the White House wishing the boss, Prigozhin, a happy birthday.

7/ OBJECT OF THE CONSPIRACY: “Defeating the lawful governmental functions of the United States by dishonest means in order to enable Defendants to interfere with U.S. political and electoral processes, including the 2016 presidential election.”

Defendants tracked and studied us.

8/ FRAUD AND DECEIT: Defendants traveled throughout America—a key takeaway from source in Texas: focus on purple states.

“Specialists” working day and night shifts, created 100s of social media accounts.

To mask fraud, Defendants used stolen identities to open Paypal accounts.

9/ DON JR. AND “TEN GOP”:

Take a moment to pay close attention to Page 15, which details a fake account retweeted by Don Jr. prior to election and on election day

The account had 100,000 followers. Don Jr. currently has 3.6 million.

Plz just take a moment to reflect on that.

10/ TARGETING U.S. 2016 ELECTION: “Use any opportunity to criticize Hillary.”

DECEPTION: The IT dept purchased server space inside U.S. to set up VPNs.

Meanwhile back on the troll farm, employees were rebuked if they didn’t criticize Hillary enough.

Just look at those hashtags

11/ 🤦🏼‍♀️It wasn’t long before the Russians were directly communicating with the Trump campaign.

😔Immeasurable damage was done by Russians posing as American ethnic groups, referring to Hillary as “Killary,” encouraging people of color to stay home, in ads bought with fake I.D.’s.

12/ Can you spot the difference between ads bought by Russians with fake I.D.’s and those of the Trump campaign. I can’t.

Can you spot the difference in themes promoted by Russians committing fraud and deceit and the Trump campaign. I can’t.

13/ FAKE TRUMP SUPPORT: So now the rallies start. Fake rallies, hosted by real Russians.

Real Americans, paid by real Russians, to trash Hillary or mislead her supporters.

They preyed on fear.
They preyed on the gullible.
They swayed an election.

14/ Let’s pause for a moment to hear from a man paid by Russians to build a cage for a fake Hillary paid by Russians at a fake rally hosted by Russians.
@CNN archivesmoney.cnn.com/2018/02/20/med…

15/ BUT THEIR EMAILS: As reporters/FBI close in, Defendants try to destroy evidence.

“We had a slight crisis here at work: the FBI busted (us)..preoccupied with covering tracks..I created all these pictures and posts, and the Americans believed it was written by their people.”

16/ “PAINT IT RED”: Just check out those “Overt Acts.”

Kinda poetic: Fake support for a fake president* who came to power with the aid of fake accounts, fake rallies, fake ads bought with fake I.D.’s.

Fake support by real Russians with real money to buy real people.

Oh America

17/ EMAIL TO TRUMP CAMPAIGN OFFICIAL: “We gained a huge lot of followers.”

Da.

Then Harry builds a cage.😔

18/ ‘MATT SKIBER’ GOES FISHING:

Fake personas used to gather intelligence on real Americans and list circulated to Defendants and co-conspirators with data on 100 people.

American actress playing Hillary in prison garb continues gig, as Russian ops commit wire fraud and deceit

19/ STOLEN IDENTITIES/STOLEN ELECTION: Title 18 violations.

😔

Cryptocurrencies pay for fraud and deceit.

Everything fake except the impact: that was real.

I don’t need to wait for a magical fairy to descend on the land and say Russia did not impact our election.

Plz see #9.

22/ So if you voted Trump based on fear, I get it. TrumPutin Inc. are good at selling it. But understand we are being attack by Russia’s military, govt contractors and mercenaries. I make no distinction between biz & military when referencing ops. It’s war

23/ So take a closer look at #22: A Russian disinformation op run by an ex-con under U.S. sanctions who denies all but like his oligarch pals, had everything to gain if Hillary lost. And she did: by 77,000 votes.

Do the math: 130 million Americans reached by IRA

PART TWO: GRU💣

24/ CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE UNITED STATES: GRU Indictment.

12 members of Russian military intelligence—including high-ranking officers—indicted for committing cyber crimes to interfere with the 2016 U.S. election.

Their primary target: Hillary Clinton and the democratic party.

25/ SEEKING TO INTERFERE: GRU intelligence officers are divided into units and much like the IRA indictment, accused of using fraud and deceit to cyber invade Clinton campaign.

To attempt to cover their tracks, they create makebelieve hacker personas to distribute stolen goods.

26/ OBJECT OF THE CONSPIRACY: Hack and distribute stolen goods to influence 2016 election for Trump.

Let’s pause for a moment: imagine if the GRU did all this work to get Hillary elected, not Trump. The GOP would squawk for internity instead of pretending there’s no there there.

27/ CYBER-HOME INVASION: The indictment details how the GRU used cheap tricks to target hundreds of Clinton campaign members, ultimately stealing her campaign manager’s info, planting malicious software, breaking into the DCCC and DNC servers and stealing banking info from donors

28/ When I read these pages I feel a profound sorrow.

The GRU tricks so utterly base, tech-knuckledraggers leaving trails as they tried to wipe them, caught by Clinton campaign, tricking Americans to send money to fake accounts and using the media to further its criminal goals.

29/ The right wing disinformation machine spent decades trying to destroy Hillary Clinton so when the Russians do it, the GOP just shrugs.

A strong President, one like Hillary Clinton, would investigate Russia’s attacks.

A weak puppet president* obstructs and calls Roger Stone

32/ ORGANIZATION 1: Wikileaks muling for GRU, dumping stolen goods just in time to wreck shop on the DNC.

*Allegedly and by its own admission.*

Felonies all around for GRU conspirators charged with committing offenses against the U.S., as granularly detailed in this indictment.

33/ CRYPTO-LAUNDERING: Fraud, deceit, stolen identities, stolen goods, global servers—just like the IRA indictment. And there’s this...

“To facilitate their hacking, Defendants conspired to launder $95,000 through the perceived anonymity of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.”

34/ LEST WE FORGET: Indictment details GRU pulling B & E’s on our election systems, secretaries of states, U.S. state board of elections and voting systems.

Chk out pg 26, where we learn GRU stole personal data on 500,000 voters and hacked an election software vendor.

Just wow.

35/ JULY 13, 2018: Signed by Robert Mueller III.

You might ponder why these critical indictments have been buried by the Squirrels of Outrage, distractions craftily created each day by the right wing ministers of propaganda.

Could it be that the 2016 election was illegitimate.

36/ Here is a link to the IRA indictment:
justice.gov/file/1035477/d…

37/ Here is the link to the GRU indictment.
justice.gov/file/1080281/d…

38/ Here is my parsing of the indictment on the first Russian charged in the 2018 midterms. It’s critical.

39/ With the Russian indictments now under your belt, here’s more prep for “Mueller Live”.

40/ So we can wait for the Kremlin to come to the Potomac or we can get our facts straight.

41/ THEY’RE A ROTTEN CROWD: The most redacted sections in the Mueller Report were on Russia’s hacking and election interference. (See #1- #39).

The zebra lines at the end reveal the investigations, indictments and coming convictions—a story far from over.

44/ And because I’m an equal opportunity journo-activist, I felt it only fair to pick the brain of brilliant white collar crime expert @tracygreen on how Cohen should do his time. Her advice is practical, savvy and actually quite kind.

45/ BONUS ROUND: Plz zip back up the trail to #9 and then read this imaginary legal briefing with Don Jr. to further prep for #MuellerLive.

All distractions aside, we are dealing with a transnational crime syndicate. It ain’t cute.

46/ Spending millions to make billions. When calculating the upfront costs to steal a democratic nation’s election, always follow the oil.

47/ Deniers gonna deny💸.

48/ This disinformation war that we are fighting without any help from an administration* benefitting from its cover is ongoing. It doesn’t stop after elections. It will only get worse unless we fight.

49/ We fight disinformation by exposing it, by educating on what to look for and by vigilantly protecting truth. Neutralizing Putin is the first step.

50/ Information warfare is ongoing during peacetime.😳
@KeirGiles https://t.co/w2nV20FMfSkrypt3ia.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/fm_9.p…

51/ Keep going.

Thank you for supporting independent investigative journalism.
ko-fi.com/heidicuda15373

Update #2 in thread:

According to a reporting update, earlier reports that Prigozhin was incarcerated for “minor” “prostitution” was based on a poor translation and that the actual charges were related to violent theft.
meduza.io/en/feature/202…