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Today’s indictment fills a major gap in Mueller’s mosaic, adding hacking to previous charges of propaganda, offering things of value, & concealing/lying. A factual narrative rounding out the basic elements of the January 2017 IC Assessment of Russian election interference. 1/6
It also represents the first direct charges of Russian government personnel (GRU is Russian military intelligence). The previously indicted Internet Research Agency is a private entity with connections to the Russian government. 2/6
And it charges election interference in the strong sense – efforts to “hack into the computers of U.S. persons and entities responsible for the administration of [the] 2016 U.S. elections,” including state election officials and private companies. 3/6
It’s also a pretty good case study in (political) cybercrime, with spearphishing, keyloggers, custom and commercial malware, bitcoin to avoid KYC/AML banking regulation, use of rented American and Malaysian servers, VPN and other masking technology. 4/6
What comes next? Standard practice in this kind of investigation is to begin at the outer ring – low hanging fruit, most readily-provable crimes – and work in towards the bulls-eye as the evidence warrants. 5/6
I suspect that POTUS and his closest advisors are and should be worried that, depending on the evidence, Mueller’s next steps will make it feel like the walls are closing in. 6/6
