1) Alright, let's start this return from hiatus off RIGHT. Livetweeting while I read this; the much-awaited Mueller indictments. justice.gov/file/1035477/d…
2) I've never heard of any of the companies or names listed as defendants. I'll let some other research nerds handle that.
3) Foreigners cant drop money into an election, have to register as foreign agents if engaging in political activity in the US, and should not lie on their VISA applications. I wonder if Steele registered as a foreign agent when he was running around in the US promoting his memos
4) These Russkie assholes all conspired with each other to fuck around in our elections by stirring up a whole bunch of SHIT, in and around the 2016 elections, going all the way back to 2014. Holy shit.
5) These aren't ALL of the people involved being indicted. Looks like they focused on the big names in the organization.
6) Stole US identities, posed as US citizens on social media, all that shit. Surprised by the actual identity theft parts.
7) VISA fraud to get into the US and they purchased/rented some computer infrastructure to make the activity look US-based.
8) "Defendent ORGANIZATION had a strategic goal to sow discord in the US political system, including the 2016 US presidential election." Aaaaaand boom goes the dynamite. Goal wasn't to get Trump elected, goal was to literally tear the nation apart with political infighting.
9) They identified Trump as the most divisive candidate and promoted him as a result, disparaging Hillary Clinton as well. Now, this is where I'm going to point something out here:
10) Clinton was corrupt as shit, and she had a cadre of media journoperatives who first boosted Trump's presence to drive the GOP as far right as possible in the primaries, and then lambast him with criticism during the general.
11) These Russians by promoting Trump and firing back at Clinton basically ensured that there was shit being flung both ways to drive the two parties as far apart as possible.
12) And because they were using stolen US identities when paperwork was necessary, no one interacting with these people knew they were Russians, even those in the Trump campaign.
13) Internet Research Agency thread that @The_War_Economy is doing right now, I'll leave that detail work to him for their background.
14) "By in or around May 2014, the ORGANIZATION's strategy included interfering with the 2016 US presidential election, with the stated goal of 'spreading distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general.'"
15) Also, they had hundreds of employees it sounds like, so, most of the grunts in Russia aren't being charged, I guess just leadership and US-based personnel.
16) Concord Management and Consulting LLC is the other company being charged. They were the ones funding the Internet Research Agency. LOTTA obfuscating funding sources through cutout bank accounts.
17) Ok, now a list of names and associated roles/charges, here we go. Christ these stupid Russian names...
18) First, Ivanivy Percocet. Controlled Concord, ok'd moves to help maintain and support the illusion that they were all Americans like paying some random American to stand in front of the White House holding a sign for a picture they'd post on one of their social media accounts.
19) Michael Bitchslap, the guy who ran the Internet Research Agency.
20) Michael Burqa, the second in command of the Internet Research Agency. Like I thought, the names are all the higher ups being indicted.
21) Alexander Cryingoveralover, number 3 at the Internet Research Agency, first one mentioned as having actually traveled to the US under false pretenses.
22) Sergey Pavlov Polo, head IT guy, he's the one who got ahold of US servers to mask the fact that their online shit was all Russian.
23) Anna Vlada Boga, lead data analyst and traveled to the US under false pretenses.
24) Maria Bovine, head of the 'translator project' which I believe was the social media operations of the Internet Research Agency.
25) Robert Bovine, 2ic of the translator project, tried to but couldn't get a VISA to get to the US.
26) Deezu... Duzee... Young Deezy, another one of the heads of the translator project for a time.
27) Vadim Vladim Vodkabitch, generated social media content.
28) Gleb. The fuck kind of a name is Gleb? That's like naming your kid Blep. the fuck kind of a name is Blep?
29) Anwyays, he ran a lot of the social media accounts and pretended to be a US citizen/organizations while doing so.
30) Irina Catheterzina, another fake US person on the translator project.
31) Double V, same as above.
32) The usual page-filling shit about the different involved US agencies that got duped by this band of shitposting Russians begins.
33) HERE WE GO! Page 12, the object of the conspiracy.
34) "The conspiracy had as its object impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful government functions of the USA by dishonest means in order to enable the Defendants to interfere with US political and electoral processes, including the US Presidential Election."
35) Ok, now for the how's and such for them doing all this.
36) They started planning in 2014, got organized in 2013 Trump didn't announce his candidacy until July of 2015. This plan was years in the making and didn't involve Trump; the same would have happened no matter WHO the GOP nominee was.
37) The State Department was fucking up its due diligence by not checking exactly who these people worked for when they were applying for VISAs to come to the United States. Keep in mind Ukraine's civil strife/war started in 2014.
38) Ok, and Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. So yeah, @StateDept WTF WERE YOU DOING.
39) Looks like the conspirators who were coming over were observing the 2014 midterm processes by going to safe blue/red states. Not a single state mentioned that I can identify as a swing state going by pre-2016 standards.
40) So apparently they didn't know WHAT swing states were, and when posing as US people got in touch with other grassroots organizations for pointers on where to focus, the battleground states.
41) "Specialists were directed to to create 'political intensity through supporting radical groups, users dissatisfied with the social and economic situation and oppositional social movements.'"
42) Holy fuck... it was a self perpetuating infinite outrage machine. Russians shitpost radical things. Media hyperfocuses on radical things to tie them to Trump supporters. Realizing they're getting more attention like that, the Russians doubled down on it.
43) They posed as EVERYONE. Black Lives Matter, Muslims, Christians, basically any and every topic as long as it was as divisive as possible.
44) The facebook ads start up in 2015.
45) @ten_gop (since banned it seems) was another of theirs.
46) They did everything they could to look as American as possible, focusing on US timezones, holidays, anything it took to look authentic.
47) They set up American servers to operate through, and set up a bunch of US based email accounts and such to maintain the illusion of being Americans, including when they "contacted media outlets in order to promote activities inside the United States".
48) Even the media who has been screaming about Russian interference were fucking fooled by these people.
49) They used stolen identities to set up Paypal accounts and to trick Facebook and other social media outlets into letting them buy advertising as if they were US citizens.
50) Remember the targeting of dissatisfied economic and social groups? They were promoting Bernie too. YYYUUUUUP.
51) Their social media accounts posing as US citizens then promoted Trump, and contacted unwitting parts of Trump's campaign and grassroots organizations to distribute materials.
52) They also promoted third party candidates. So, that's a thing that happened.
53) They organized rallies during and after the election, after the election they were organizing competing pro and anti-Trump rallies. they would pose as US people online to organize and promote them, then pay unwitting us people to run the rallies themselves.
54) After they were starting to be discovered, they started dismantling their operations online as much as they could.
55) During the election THEY ALSO PURCHASED PRO-HILLARY ADVERTISEMENTS! AAAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
56) Breaking momentarily, be back in a bit.
