The Justice Department's Office of Special Counsel has formally charged 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities with interfering in the U.S. elections.

  • 13 Russians indicted for interfering in the U.S. elections
  • Accused of using social media to promote distrust and discord into the election
  • Accused of using stolen identities to create accounts, pay for advertisements
  • READ IT: Justice Department's indictment listing charges (PDF)

Robert Mueller's office says the defendants are accused of engaging in operations to interfere with elections and political processes.

The federal grand jury's indictment, returned Friday, includes charges of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

The defendants are listed as Mikhail Ivanovich Bystrov, Mikhail Leonidovich Burchik, Aleksandra Yuryevna Krylova, Anna Vladislavovna Bogacheva, Sergey Pavlovich Polozov, Maria Anatolyevna Bovda, Robert Sergeyevich Bovda, Dzheykhun Nasini Ogly Aslanov, Vadim Vladimirovich Podkopaev, Gleb Igorevich Vasilchenko, Irina Viktorovna Kavernzina, Vladimir Venkov and Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhnin.

One of the entities named is the Internet Research Agency LLC, "a Russian organization engaged in operations to interfere with elections and political processes," the indictment says. Several other entities were set up to obscure the IRAs operations. 

The indictment alleges that the defendants posed as Americans and operated social media pages designed to attract American audiences. 

It also says the defendants stole the identities of Americans to post on social media for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political system, including the 2016 presidential election.

However, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the charges, however, do not affect the outcome of the presidential election, ultimately.

"There's no allegation in the indictment [that] have any effect on the outcome of the election," Rosenstein said.

He also made it clear that this indictment has no allegation that any American knowingly took part in the operation. 

"The defendants took extraordinary steps to make it appear that they were ordinary American political activists," Rosenstein said.

The question is, how will Americans make sure the defendants face the charges against them? So far, Rosenstein says there have no been communications with the Russian government, but the Justice Dept. will follow the normal process in seeking extradition.

Indictment: Conspiracy started long before the election

The indictment states Internet Research Agency, which registered with the Russian government in 2013, began building an operation as early as 2014 to conduct "information warefare against the United States of America."

"By in or around April 2014, the organization formed a department that went by various names but was at times referred to as the 'translator project.' This project focused on the U.S. population and conducted operations on social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. By approximately July 2016, more than 80 organization employees were assigned to the translator project."

"By in or around May 2014, the organization's strategy included interfering with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, with the stated goal of "spread[ing] distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general."

The company reportedly received funding from Concord Management and Consulting LLC and Concord Catering, two companies controlled by defendant Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin. The indictment says Concord has "various Russian government contracts."

The indictment says the Concord companies were the IRA's primary source of funding, under a larger interference operation called Project Lakhta. The indictment says by Sept. 2016, IRA's monthly budget for Project Lakhta was over $1.25 million.

In 2014, the indictment accuses the Russian nationals of using social media sites to gauge the performance of various groups on political and social issues.

They also reportedly obtained visas to enter the United States, claiming they were traveling for personal reasons and hiding their place of employment and actual purpose -- to gather intelligence. They traveled to several states in June 2014 for this purpose.

They also posed as U.S. citizens and contacted U.S. political and social activists to gather intelligence, according to the indictment. In an example given, they spoke to a someone affiliated with a Texas-based grassroots group, which told them that they should focus their activities on "purple states like Colorado, Virginia and Florida."

Indictment: Creating identities on social media

The indictment accuses Internet Research Agency employees of creating social media accounts that "appeared to be operated by U.S. persons."

"The specialists were divided into day-shift and night-shift hours and instructed to make posts in accordance with the appropriate U.S. time zones. The organization also circulated lists of U.S. holidays so that specialists could develop and post appropriate account activity. Specialists were instructed to write about topics germane to the United States such as U.S. foreign policy and U.S. economic issues. Specialists were directed to create "political intensity through supporting radical groups, users dissatisfied with [the] social and economic situation and oppositional social movements."

On Facebook and Instagram, the indictment said the organization controlled pages on a range of issues, using enticing names -- for immigration, a page name might be "Secured Borders." For the Black Lives Matter movement, group or page names included "Blacktivist."

IRA is also accused of creating regional groups and pages like "South United" and "Heart of Texas."

The indictment said these groups and pages had hundreds of thousands of online followers by 2016.

The indictment also says IRA spent thousands of dollars every month to promote these groups on social media. 

On Twitter, the defendants are accused of creating numerous Twitter accounts designed to appear as if real people or groups controll them. Among them - "Tennessee GOP," under the handle @TEN_GOP. The indictment says over time the account had more than 100,000 followers.

Indictment: Using stolen identities

The indictment accuses the defendants of using social security numbers and birthdates of real Americans, without their knowledge, and opened PayPal accounts in their name. They also reportedly created fake diver's licenses and other forms of identification, to use as proof of identity to maintain accounts and buy advertising on social media sites. 

The indictment also accuses them of using the information to pose as those people on social media.

Indictment: The 2016 election

The indictment accuses the defendants of beginning to look at ways to disrupt the 2016 presidential election in 2014. Operations were primarily intended to "communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump," according to the indictment.

The indictment reads:

"Specialists were instructed to post content that focused on "politics in the USA" and to "use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump -- we support them)."

The IRA also put out materials using election-related hashtags, including, according to the indictment:

  • #Trump2016
  • #TrumpTrain
  • #MAGA
  • #IWontProtectHillary
  • #Hillary4Prison

The indictment says the defendants posed as Americans to contact "unwitting members, volunteers and supporters of the Trump campaign involed in local community outreach, as well as grassroots groups that supported then-candidate Trump."

The indictment also says defendants began to encourage U.S. minority groups to either not vote in the 2016 election, or to vote for a third party candidate. One account on Instagram was called "Woke Blacks," which posted the following: "[A] particular hype and hatred for Trump is misleading the people and forcing Blacks to vote Killary. We cannot resort to the lesser of two devils. Then we'd surely be better off without voting at all."

Starting in summer 2016, the indictment says the group also began promoting allegations of voter fraud by the Democratic Party on social media. It included a charge on Nov. 2, 2016 of voter fraud in Broward County, Florida on social media accounts, " #VoterFraud by counting tens of thousands of ineligible mail in Hillary votes being reported in Broward County, Florida."

Indictment: Political Advertisements

The indictment says from April through November 2016, the Internet Research Agency used their false personas to buy and post ads on social media and online sites urging people to vote for then-candidate Donald Trump. They did not report the purchases to the Federal Election Commission, or register as foreign agents with the Justice Deptartment.

The indictment includes a list of some of the advertisements purchased. They include content excerpts like "Donald wants to defeat terrorism... Hillary wants to sponsor it," "Vote Republican, vote Trump, and support the Second Amendment," and "We cannot trust Hillary to take care of our veterans."

Indictment: Staging Political Rallies

The indictment also accuses the defendants of going as far as organizing and coordinating political rallies in the United States. They allegedly used social media to promote events, and also contacted administrators of large social media groups to request they promote the rallies.

Among the rallies the defendants are accused of organizing are a series of Florida rallies called "Florida Goes Trump," held on August 20, 2016. The rallies occurred in cities throughout the state, including in Orlando and Daytona Beach. It's not known how many people attended.

After the president was elected, the group used the same techniques to stage not only rallies in support of Trump, but also rallies for Trump opponents, including one in New York called "Trump is not my President."

Check back for updates on this developing story.