Thread here. I used to be a federal prosecutor. I read the Russian hacking indictment the day it came out. It details crimes by BOTH Russian GRU officers and American citizens. It is irrelevant whether they US persons knew they were dealing with GRU. THAT IS A RED HERRING!
You can commit a crime where the other side of the transaction is an undercover cop or agent. All that matters is that you knew you were committing a crime and believed you were dealing with other criminals.
So, if you thought the criminals you were dealing with were Lucchese crime family, but they turned out to be Bonanno crime family, YOU HAVE STILL COMMITTED A CRIME. Hell, you have still committed a crime even if the other party is legally incapable of committing a crime.
Also, the timing of this indictment relative to the last dates of crimes mentioned in the indictment suggest that this phase of the investigation was over many months ago and this indictment was held in secret for quite a while. Why release now?
1) it completely negates the silly "no underlying crime" objection to the proposed obstruction of justice charges.
2) it contains so much unnecessary detail, that it is clearly a "speaking indictment" meant to telegraph to the GRU are their operation is blown wide open.
2) it contains so much unnecessary detail, that it is clearly a "speaking indictment" meant to telegraph to the GRU are their operation is blown wide open.
2) cont. - This is good in terms of defending the 2018 elections b/c it could constrain GRU efforts as they scramble to figure out just how bad their own security breach is. Good way to defend against cyber attack is to give adversary something else to do with their time
So, 3 takeaways: 1) their IS AN UNDERLYING CRIME, 2) AMERICANS COMMITTED CRIMES WITH THE GRU, 3) this indictment is also a defense against 2018 cyber crimes.
Last thought, the part about the Congressional candidate wanting the analytics sets up possibly proving how GRU influenced the outcome of the election. Otherwise you would have to believe that all campaign do nothing to move voters one way or another/analytics are worthless.
*There is an underlying crime. Sorry for the typo
So, lots of folks are asking what is the crime? They are charged with Computer Fraud 18 USC 1030 et seq; Conspiracy 18 USC 371, Aggravated ID Theft 18 USC1028A et seq.; Conspiracy to Launder $ 18 USC 1956 and some sentencing enhancements that add on time.
IDK why they did not throw in wire fraud. I would have. Except that 18 USC 1343 requires that you must be trying to defraud someone out of $. Maybe not the right kind of monetary element to this conspiracy?
