(THREAD) BREAKING NEWS: This thread is a *live reading* of the new Mueller indictments against 12 Russians connected to Russian intelligence (the GRU) for hacking into the DNC, DCCC, and Clinton campaign. I hope you'll follow along and share with any others who may be interested. 
1/ The indictment names 12 names, some of which we may have come across before in the Russian investigation. All will now be researched by major media and independent digital journalists to see if they intersect with the Steele dossier or anyone connected to the Trump campaign.
2/ Count 1 is Conspiracy to Commit An Offense Against the US and lists the defendants and mentions *unindicted co-conspirators*, which of course leaves open the possibility that some of these were American—and connected to the Trump campaign—though the indictment does not say so.
3/ It says some of the unindicted co-conspirators are "known" to the grand jury and some are "unknown," so that suggests there are others who could be indicted or will be indicted for this conspiracy and, again, we do not know their nationalities yet.
4/ Trump will falsely say these indictments have nothing to do with him. Per usual, he's wrong—it's that we don't *know* if the grand jury has found those connections yet. They may well have. But we know his phrase "rigged witch hunt" is henceforth GRU propaganda—and he knows it.
5/ The fact that GRU began planning to release intel it netted from "monitoring" Democratic computers/employees in April 2016—at the conclusion of which month Trump publicly offered a "good deal" to Russia on sanctions at the Mayflower Hotel—means the effort started long before.
6/ The indictments confirm "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0" were GRU front operations, meaning top Trump aide Roger Stone was in communication with Russian intelligence (and praised them) during the presidential campaign. One wonders if Stone is one of the unindicted co-conspirators.
7/ The indictments confirm "Organization 1"—which is clearly WikiLeaks—acted as an agent of GRU, which means that Donald Trump Jr. was in contact with Russian agents (besides those at Trump Tower) during the presidential election and (like Stone) praised/encouraged their efforts.
8/ The indictments imply *both* the named conspirators *and* the unindicted co-conspirators "made false statements about [the] identities" of DCLeaks/Guccifer. Many will miss that if Stone/Don Jr. are found to have known these entities were GRU, they *are* the co-conspirators.
9/ Many of us—but yes, me quite loudly—have been saying that Trump Jr., Trump Sr., Stone, and others could be found to have "aided and abetted" the Russian conspiracy by deliberately "making false statements about the identities" of the criminals in public after they knew better.
10/ POTUS is actually in this respect in *more* danger than others—as his private briefings confirmed for him the Russians were involved in cyberattacking America as *late* as August 2016. Yet he continued misidentifying the attackers after that—which I've said could be criminal.
11/ The indictments lay out a command-and-control structure by which different GRU generals were in control of different facets of the attack on America—i.e., the attack was laid out, in all respects, as a military operation, which makes sense as it was a modern-warfare invasion.
12/ This detailed description of the command-and-control structure—establishing a military-style operation—will be critical in the coming months, as we learn that Trump campaign staff or even Trump himself were aware of this effort before, during or after the main Russian attack.
13/ I *cannot* stress this enough: every time Trump uses the phrase "rigged witch hunt" going forward he is knowingly misidentifying the perpetrators of a military-style cyber-invasion of America by Putin's Russia—in order to knowingly aid and abet Russian crimes against America.
14/ Moreover, there is evidence from Rosenstein that Trump was informed of these indictments *before today* and *nevertheless* used the phrase "rigged witch hunt" in an official presidential declaration to tens of millions of Americans (as the WH confirms his Twitter feed to be).
15/ It is fine for us to keep debating if Trump coordinated with Russia—by aiding and abetting by any of various means before, during or after the Russian attack on America—while in-campaign, but from this day on, any more "witch hunt" talk is OPEN AND PUBLIC AIDING AND ABETTING.
16/ The indictments underscore this fact by noting that part of the Russians' criminal conspiracy was "making false statements" about the identities of perpetrators. Aiding and Abetting statutes don't require Trump to know crimes were committed—only a "high likelihood" they were.
17/ Trump had in August '16—and has now—a "high likelihood" knowledge of who those who attacked America were/are, yet he has *continued* to attempt to taint the U.S. jury pool in public statements to tens of millions of people in an attempt to ensure these men don't meet justice.
18/ The indictments list many of the fake names these Russian military officers used in their spear-fishing efforts. This is a good place to note (again) that this many Russian military officers could never engage in a coordinated campaign of this sort without Putin's knowledge.
19/ What this means is Trump is about to meet with the mastermind of Russia's attack on us and has called that meeting "easy"—already offering up *concessions* to that mastermind without asking anything in return. He's also made preparations to have much of their talk be secret.
20/ Trump is having this secret chat with the mastermind of the Russian conspiracy against the U.S.—which conspiracy is now confirmed in public filings by DOJ—at a time when either he or agents of his or both may well be the unindicted co-conspirators in the Mueller indictments.
21/ If, in the opinion of Mueller's grand jury, any acts Trump and/or his agents have previously taken have aided or abetted the Russian conspiracy, the secrecy of the meeting coming up in Helsinki may well mark it as an "act in furtherance" of the conspiracy Trump is a party to.
22/ But this is speculation—we don't know, but will eventually learn, what role the grand jury thinks Trump and/or his associates did/didn't play in helping the Kremlin cover up this conspiracy or receive unilateral financial benefits (like an end to sanctions) in payment for it.
23/ The indictment makes clear the *latest* the attack started was March '16—right as it was clear Trump would be the nominee, and as new Trump hire and direct/indirect Putin agent Manafort began hiring the men (Page and Papadopoulos) who'd act as intermediaries with the Kremlin.
24/ No investigator would find it random that Trump's pro-Putin Campaign Manager started hiring Trump-Russia intermediaries right as the Kremlin was launching the cyberattack whose fruits it'd try to give to the Trump campaign as part of talks with those very same intermediaries.
25/ One of the spearphishing emails was sent to Clinton's campaign just 4 days after—in what looks like a planned encounter—Kremlin agent Joseph Mifusd met Trump agent George Papadopoulos in Italy as part of a campaign trip Trump had (based on what we know) sent Papadopoulos on.
26/ The day the Russians stole 50,000 emails from Clinton's Campaign Chairman was the day Trump announced George Papadopoulos as a member of his national security team. 10 days later Papadopoulos would—face to face with Trump at the TIHDC—tell Trump he was a Kremlin intermediary.
27/ So by the time Papadopoulos told Trump—in person—that he'd been cleared to negotiate Trump-Russia meetings by a Kremlin agent (Mifsud), the Russians already had the emails that Mifsud would discuss with Papadopoulos just a few days later. All these events are aligned in time.
28/ But understand this, too: per the indictments, the Russians began the main thrust of their attack *within two weeks* of pro-Putin foreign agent Paul Manafort coming aboard the campaign of Donald Trump. Criminal investigators *do not believe* in time-coincidences of this sort.
29/ Timeline: Manafort hired; Papadopoulos hired; Russian attack starts; Russia gets Clinton dirt; Russia opens negotiations via Papadopoulos (Papadopoulos tells Trump this); Trump offers Russia a "good deal" on sanctions at the Mayflower (with Kislyak in the front row as a VIP).
30/ The indictment says the second major Russian attack on Clinton occurred less than a week after Papadopoulos told Trump he was acting as a Russian intermediary and—per accounts of those at the meeting—Trump was engaged and interested. It appears that after the second attack...
31/ ...Trump made Papadopoulos part of the editing team of his Mayflower speech, at which he said he'd be good to Russia if Russia was good to "us" and offered Russia a "good deal" on sanctions. He had Richard Burt—an anti-sanctions Russian-pipeline advocate—co-write the speech.
32/ What I'm saying is that the timeline laid out in the indictments strongly suggests at least some of the unindicted co-conspirators are American.
33/ Now here comes a bombshell.
34/ The Kremlin DIRECTLY RESPONDED to Trump's public call to try to get Clinton's "missing" emails WITHIN HOURS of him making the request—WITHIN HOURS. Either Trump was coordinating OR he KNEW he had sufficient pull with the Russians that his words could have this sort of effect.
35/ How would Trump know he had this pull with the Kremlin? Because by this time EIGHT OR MORE of his top aides had had DIRECT contact with the Russians, during which contacts it was made CLEAR how much Russia wanted to help Trump's campaign. He knew what he was doing on July 27.
36/ But here's what really matters here: Mueller is firing across Trump's bow. He knows, we know, the *world* knows what Trump did on July 27—so to use the phrase "after hours" and "for the first time" would *seem* to be Mueller beginning to draw a direct Trump-Russia connection.
37/ And Mueller *also* notes that a *second* new, massive attack on Clinton *directly* followed Trump asking Russia for help. This is astounding news—and the major media better pick up on it immediately, because you can be certain Trump's criminal defense team will. And Congress.
38/ (IMPORTANT) Rosenstein said Trump *knew before today* that this was coming. What are the chances Trump's *stooges in Congress* also knew this was coming—and that the way they conducted themselves with Strzok yesterday was an attempt to blunt the blow from today's indictments?
39/ I'm not going to run through every aspect of the Russian op—this "talking indictment" offers a large number of details, which indictments do not always—except to say that the *earliest* recorded attack appears to have been on the very *day* that Papadopoulos met Mifsud. Wow.
40/ I have been saying for a year now that the two key events in the 2016 Trump-Russia story are the March 31, 2016 "TIHDC meeting" of Trump's NatSec team and the Mayflower Hotel speech on April 27, 2016. It now appears the BULK of the Russian op happened between those two dates.
41/ Per the indictments the four major Russian pushes were these:
1. Right after Manafort's hire;
2. Between the TIHDC/Mayflower events;
3. Right around the June Trump Tower meeting;
4. Right after Trump publicly begs Russia for assistance.
The time-coincidences are astounding.
1. Right after Manafort's hire;
2. Between the TIHDC/Mayflower events;
3. Right around the June Trump Tower meeting;
4. Right after Trump publicly begs Russia for assistance.
The time-coincidences are astounding.
42/ *Please* remember what happened on March 31, 2016: Papadopoulos told Trump he was a Kremlin intermediary and Trump was *OK with it*. The 21 days after that contain the *bulk* of Russia's attack on the United States to assist Trump in winning the presidency. Not a coincidence.
43/ Many won't recognize April 19, 2016 as key beyond what we just learned—that's when the Kremlin created "DC Leaks." If I'm not mistaken, it's also the day that Paul Manafort took over the Trump campaign officially from Corey Lewandowski. These days are lining up in scary ways.
44/ UNBELIEVABLE how these dates align (I'm using the term "unbelievable" here literally, as in "it's not coincidental"):
April 19: "DCLeaks" created and Manafort becomes Campaign Manager
June 8: DCLeaks launches just 24 hours before Trump campaign-Kremlin meeting in Trump Tower
April 19: "DCLeaks" created and Manafort becomes Campaign Manager
June 8: DCLeaks launches just 24 hours before Trump campaign-Kremlin meeting in Trump Tower
45/ I'm wondering now if DCLeaks was launched on June 8 so that Don Jr. could see it on June 9 (directed there by others, whether Russian or American) and see it as a sign of Russian "good faith" before meeting with Kremlin agent Natalia Veselnitskaya and a Russian intel officer.
46/ DCLeaks *was* the "Clinton dirt" Trump Jr. was promised. On June 9—the date Trump Jr. was promised dirt—Americans saw for the first time DCLeaks, which was created to provide the Trump campaign promised Clinton dirt. So what if there *was* a result to the Trump Tower meeting?
47/ The indictment gets crazy halfway through—in the sense of becoming very intense. It sounds like Roger Stone should be expecting an indictment at some point of Making False Statements, and members of the media may inadvertently have acted as a conduit for the Russian military.
48/ The indictment also confirms the criminal activity of WikiLeaks in a way that makes Trump's repeated consideration of a deal with Julian Assange positively *obscene* and perhaps—down the line—additional evidence of his attempts to coordinate with the Russians after-the-fact.
49/ Counts 2-9: Aggravated Identity Theft. Count 10: Conspiracy to Launder Money. Count 11: Conspiracy to Commit An Offense Against the U.S. Note that we have "Conspiracy" here and in count 1 because DOJ knows of "acts in furtherance" but may not know who did the underlying acts.
50/ The Russians stole 500,000 Americans' voter data. If you think they did *nothing* with that data—like delete registrations—I've some swampland in Florida to sell you at a great rate. It's now clear Russia *wanted* to *directly* tamper with the election. We'll see if they did.
CONCLUSION/ Please see the new thread below for continued coverage of the new Mueller indictments. I focus on how the revelations about DCLeaks *directly implicate* the president's son in possible federal Conspiracy charges relating to Russian "collusion."
