US Charges Russian Social Media Trolls Over Election Tampering (cnet.com)

The US Justice Department has filed charges against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian groups for interfering with the 2016 presidential election. From a report: In an indictment [PDF] released on Friday, the Justice Department called out the Internet Research Agency, a notorious group behind the Russian propaganda effort across social media. Employees for the agency created troll accounts and used bots to prop up arguments and sow political chaos during the 2016 presidential campaign. Facebook, Twitter and Google have struggled to deal with fake news, trolling campaigns and bots on their platforms, facing the scorn of Capitol Hill over their mishandlings. The indictment lists 13 Russian nationals tied to the effort.

Comments

..and Mueller is just getting warmed up, folks

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just the opening volley.

Re:..and Mueller is just getting warmed up, folks

[Anonymous Coward]

um, yeah, i think you are talking out of your ass and trying to cope defending your shithole president. here's the complete list

What does the indictment say?
It says a group of Russians:

Posed as Americans, and opened financial accounts in their name
Spent thousands of dollars a month buying political advertising
Purchased US server space in an effort to hide their Russian affiliation
Organised and promoted political rallies within the United States
Posted political messages on social media accounts that impersonated real US citizens
Promoted information that disparaged Hillary Clinton
Received money from clients to post on US social media sites
Created themed groups on social media on hot-button issues, particularly on Facebook and Instagram
Operated with a monthly budget of as much as $1.25m (£890,000)

The indictment says those involved systematically measured how well their internet posts were doing and adjusted their strategies to maximise effectiveness.

Re:..and Mueller is just getting warmed up, folks

[Sarten-X]

You're missing the point, and veering rather far from reality, as well.

The original concern (I won't even say it was a "claim") was that Russians may have influenced the election process. That doesn't invalidate the result, and nobody credible has claimed that it would.

The Trump campaign has since then countered that there's nothing to see, never any outside influence, and the whole investigation should be shut down.

With these indictments, there is now an official accusation, backed by a nice pile of evidence, that there was in fact Russian interference. That's it. No, it doesn't indicate on its own that Trump knew, or his campaign officials knew. Those questions are still open. What has been resolved at this point is the question of whether something illegal happened (yes, it did), and whether there was foreign involvement (yes, there was).

This could be the end of the indictments. If Trump's campaign was as honest as he claims, it will be. However, those open questions still need to be answered, which means the investigation needs to keep going. By making statements opposing the investigative process, Trump has made it worse for himself and his administration, because now the investigation needs to answer the question of whether anyone is trying to obstruct justice.

This has nothing to do with whether Americans are unfit to vote. That's always been a risk, echoed in Benjamin Franklin's famous response when asked what kind of government we would have: "A republic, if you can keep it." It has always been known that people are subject to manipulation, and that's why interfering in the election carries severe consequences. If the indicted Russians ever find themselves on American soil, they'll have a chance to find out exactly how harsh those punishments can be.

Re:..and Mueller is just getting warmed up, folks

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you people actually serious when you say things like this? I mean, I assume these are troll accounts, but I just don't know anymore.

I'd find it funny if it wasn't such a serious issue. But sure, let's say that Steele, working for a third party who was being paid by the GOP is totally working for Hilary Clinton's benefit. Because the GOP love Hilary and definitely started their relationship with GPS Fusion for her benefit. (Yes I know the democrats took over payment, but we should be clear on where this whole thing started)

And the two charges are totally identical, because where the charges levied here are for explicitly directed campaigns intended to spread misinformation, Steele was a paid employee of a company hired privately to produce information for another private entity. A full fledged and funded campaign by a foreign government is surely the same thing as the domestic government hiring a foreigner to act as, more or less, a Private Investigator.

These are totally the same.

These two things are totally equatable and not at all two completely distinct and different things so different it would be like comparing apples to horses.

Re:..and Mueller is just getting warmed up, folks

[gnick]

Democrats commissioned the dossier.

A conservative website (The Washington Free Beacon) initially hired Fusion GPS to do the research, largely backed by Rubio supporters. Then Hillary & the DNC took over. Then Fusion GPS hired Steele. So, yes Republicans kicked off the Fusion GPS investigation. No, the GOP did not fund the Steele dossier.

Re:..and Mueller is just getting warmed up, folks

[edtice1559]

This should have gotten a -1 Misinformed. It's illegal in the US for foreign actors to provide campaign contributions, collude with a campaign, and a host of other activities. This was passed in response to Chinese support for Bill Clinton, I believe. Individual Russians trolling on FB wouldn't be a crime but when they start purchasing paid advertisements and coordinating with the campaigns, it's a serious crime. Maybe it shouldn't be, but it is. The reason that this is a hot button item is, of course, that the Democrats tend to put forth foreign policy much more friendly to the rest of the world. So normally this interference would happen on a Democrat's behalf. The Republicans are now walking a tightrope. Ignore the Trump campaign's behavior and risk having the rest of the world support his opponent more openly. Don't ignore it and get caught red handed.

Re:..and Mueller is just getting warmed up, folks

[Anonymous Coward]

Name a piece of information, known by Christopher Steele to be false, spread as if it were true.

But first off, let's back up. Who is Christopher Steele? From Wikipedia:

From 1990 to 1992, Steele worked under diplomatic cover as an MI6 agent in Moscow, serving at the Embassy of the United Kingdom in Moscow.[7][9] Steele was an “internal traveller”, visiting newly-accessible cities such as Samara and Kazan.[4]

Steele's identity as an MI6 officer was one of 115 names Her Majesty's Government attempted to suppress through a DSMA-Notice in 1999.[10][11] He returned to London in 1993, working again at the FCO until his posting to Paris in 1998, where he served under diplomatic cover until 2002.[9][12][13][14] In 2003, Steele was sent to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan as part of an MI6 team, briefing Special Forces on "kill or capture" missions for Taliban targets, and also spent time teaching new MI6 recruits.[9] By 2006, Steele was heading the Russia Desk at MI6.[4][7][15]

Steele's expertise on Russia remained valued, and he served as a senior officer under John Scarlett, Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), from 2004 to 2009.[15] Steele was selected as case officer for Alexander Litvinenko and participated in the investigation of the Litvinenko poisoning in 2006.[9] It was Steele who quickly realised that Litvinenko's death "was a Russian state 'hit'".[15]

Not exactly some fly-by-night amateur. And rather amusing that you'd accuse someone whose job had been spying on Russia and later investigated the Litvinenko poisoning, determining it to be a Russian hit, of "spreading Russian propaganda"

Steele - again, the former head of MI6's Russia desk - had been an FBI source for years prior, where he had proved useful in a number of investigations unrelated investigations.

During the last election, Steele was hired - first by Republicans, then Democrats - to research Trump. And that he did. It's not even clear that he knew who was the source of his funding; he worked for Fusion GPS. The so-called "Steele Dossier" is not a curated/filtered "report", but rather a series of independent memos from varying sources - and was never presented as anything else. He was paid to collect information, not to analyze and curate it. Some of the information from the dosier that wasn't public at the time has since been independently confirmed. The vast majority has been neither confirmed or denied.

Concerning the Carter Page "memo" from Trump transition team member Devin Nunes (yes, he was part of Trump's own transition team... "Hey, let's investigate ourselves!") suggests that A) the Steele dossier was the foundation of getting a warrant on Page, B) it did not inform them that the dossier had been paid for by a political entity, and C) the fact that it had been noted that Steele made a statement about being worried about Trump becoming president disqualifies him as a biased source.

Except:

A) Page had been on the radar long beforehand, having previously been caught up in a Russian spy scheme and having not only made numerous statements condemning the US and supporting Russia (on Russian TV), but even claimed to be a Kremlin representative. (Seriously, if the FBI hadn't been spying on this guy they should all have been fired for incompetence)

B) The warrant application did state that the dossier had been paid for by a political entity; Nunes's complaint has now amusingly morphed into "the font size was too small".

C) Intelligence courts generally presume by default that sources have some sort of motive, because as a general rule, people who aren't motivated don't act as sources. Furth

Re:..and Mueller is just getting warmed up, folks

[e3m4n]

i believe the original claims was that there was Collusion which implies conspiracy. The white house denied any collusion. and definitely said investigations into such were a waste of time and should be shut down. Are you old enough to remember the whitewater fishing expedition into hillary fraud even in the 90s? The dems made the exact same statements then, (vast right wing conspiracy) and nobody screamed obstruction of justice. After all that investigation we got purgery about a blue dress and inappropriate sexual conduct with a subordinate to which consent legally cannot be established due to the nature of the working relationship.

your points aren't too far off from accurate but the revisionist bit about mere interference as a redressing of the very load claims that trump worked with the russians to hack and steal an election. We knew trump would deny russian meddling, the same way he wigged out over the claims of the size of inauguration. Its not cover-up, its narcissism. But she's just as narcissistic so it was lose-lose there all the way around.

Re:..and Mueller is just getting warmed up, folks

[sycodon]

I honestly can't tell if that's Sarcasm or not. Because it lines up perfectly with what the mentally ill Hillary Butthurts believe.

Re:..and Mueller is just getting warmed up, folks

[Straif]

The history of the dossier is now quite well documented and it had nothing to do with the GOP or Republican leaning groups.

Fusion was hired by The Washington Free Beacon to do some background research on Trump. This did not involve Russia but was more just general opposition research during the primaries. In 2016 they terminated the contract and that was the end of their involvement.

After that contract was over Fusion was then hired by the DNC and Hillary campaign (through their lawyers) to research Trump with specific interest in Russia. Fusion then hired Steele as part of the DNC contract.

This all came out during congressional testimony and as far as I know is not in dispute by any of the named parties.

Re:..and Mueller is just getting warmed up, folks

[e3m4n]

she will be dead before being president. We might have a madame president but it wont be her. That 'cold' she has had for the last 2 years..... its still there. Besides why would you WANT her? She ACTUALLY IS guilty of collusion and conspiracy to meddle in an election. They didnt even deny they colluded with the media to rig the primary elections. Thats what started the whole screaming about russian hacking to begin with. Podesta fell for a fake email that tricked him into signing into a fake website with his real password. Hell even the then-chairman of the DNC released a book outing the illegal stuff the HRC campaign did. If you try to put her back into the election cycle you're going to end up with someone else you dont like. Pick someone without so much damn baggage for fucks sake

Re:..and Mueller is just getting warmed up, folks

[Anonymous Coward]

Steele did leak the dossier to media

The person who leaked to Buzzfeed is not known; a ruling last year determined that Buzzfeed does not have to reveal the source. However, by the time that Buzzfeed published it, it was already widely circulating in the federal government, so the most likely source was a government official.

You're confusing the release of the dossier with the release of the fact that Steele was assisting the FBI.

reporting on his leak was subsequently used (in part) as justification for FISA application

We don't get to see the full Democratic response to Trump transition team member Devin Nunes because the White House blocked it, but from the summary: "The GOP memo also claims that a Yahoo News article was used to corroborate Steele, but this is not at all why the article was referenced."

Nunes, it should be added, never even read the FISA application.

Steele did knowingly impair and obstruct the functions of the Department of Justice

Oh give it a bloody rest. The guy compiled intelligence memos - something he's been doing for his entire career, MI-6 and after. Nothing about them or him was kept secret from the FISA court, and nothing about any aspect of his work was even remotely against the law; it's rather baffling what on Earth you think was. On the other hand, what is being investigated is serious violations of federal law. Covering a wide range of topics, some of which have already gotten guilty pleas.

The FISA warranty was given to surveil a guy who had been boasting about being a Kremlin representative. The fact that you find this to be some sort of grave miscarriage of justice is even more baffling.

Re:..and Mueller is just getting warmed up, folks

[Straif]

Steele did in fact release large parts of the memo to the public through a series of interviews with several news organizations. That is part of the reason he was terminated as a FBI source. He lied to investigators about whether or not he had communicated the contents of the dossier to journalists and he said no. This was later shown to be a lie during a British investigation where he testified that he had in fact talked to several journalists, including Yahoo News, which was used as a secondary source to help verify the contents of the dossier itself.

So Steele leaked his dossier to the news as an anonymous source, then Fusion gave it to the FBI who used those same leaked news stories to verify the dossier.

Re:..and Mueller is just getting warmed up, folks

[Sarten-X]

I've regretted that sentence since writing it, so I'll take this opportunity to rephrase:

The Trump campaign (and administration afterward) has since countered that there's nothing to see, no undue outside influence, and no willing participation from his campaign. He's also advocated shutting the whole investigation down, to the extent of firing people involved in the investigation.

I agree that Trump's campaign is probably correct in that they didn't knowingly seek to break any laws during the campaign. I think that after his inauguration, though, Trump's meddling probably is obstruction, though I'm not sure there's enough evidence for an indictment against him. I expect there's also a lot of negligence involved, some criminal, but most of those accusations will go away to gain cooperation during the investigation.

I'd argue that ultimately, the charges and accusations don't matter nearly as much as just letting the investigation run its course. Our justice system, including the FBI, is founded on the belief that the written law is more important than any person or organization. Since the written law says that the FBI will investigate such matters, that's what they must do, regardless of the outcome. To do otherwise is literally un-American.

However, Trump has built his campaign and administration around an image of disrupting norms and ignoring processes he didn't like. Even if he is correct about the facts of Russian collusion (or absence thereof), he's still butting heads with the written law of the land, and it will fall to the other two branches of government to decide whether they'll allow it or not.

Re:..and Mueller is just getting warmed up, folks

[tbannist]

Steele wasn't some random person who just sent Hillary an email, he was essentially her employee. Hillary's campaign specifically contracted the dossiers creation and then pushed it to the FBI to try and trigger an investigation without the slightest attempt at verification.

Steele worked for Fusion GPS. Hillary Clinton's campaign contracted them to do opposition research on Trump. In no way was Steele "essentially her employee". Also, it was Fusion GPS, not Hillary nor Steele who made the decision to provide the dossier to the FBI.

You either very ignorant or deliberately lying.

How is she not responsible for it?

Clinton's campaign received the dossier and then did nothing with it. In what way are they responsible for things they didn't create and didn't publish?

There's also the very strong likelihood (due to the specific nature and wording of some of the details) that large parts or even the entire document was in fact created by people even closer to Hillary than just paid contractors (Blumenthal being the top suspect) and Steele was only used as a go between to give it a semi-respectable face.

Yeah, sure. Why don't you discredit yourself further with even more conspiracy theories?

$100k

[Anonymous Coward]

So these are the guys who spent less than 7 figures on propaganda and supposedly bought the most powerful government in the world?

Re:$100k

[Anonymous Coward]

6 figures were spent on advertising on social media. 1 million a month was spent on the entire operation, including employee compensation. You don't think these guys work for free, do you?

The Clinton campaign spent a billion dollars on campaigning. The idea that foreign agents spending fractions of that swayed the entire election is absurd. The idea that American citizens have to be shielded from the outside world to have safe elections is absurd. The fact that we're discussing Russia's effect on the 2016 election and not Israel and Saudi Arabia's effect on every other election is absurd.

Russian's posting on Twitter is a threat to American democracy, but Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal having a major stake in the platform itself is just fine.

Re:What tampering? This is about memes

[Anonymous Coward]

communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.

Translation: sharing a meme on Facebook.

Re:The Moscovian Candidate

[mi]

We got us a RICO case against the White House.

Except not a single American is indicted — much less anyone from the Executive Branch.

This is 'bout to get real interesting.

Please, hold your breath until it gets interesting. Please, please, please. With sugar on top...

Re:The Moscovian Candidate

[barc0001]

> They didn't care one wit about which candidate won

Sure they didn't. That's why they were talking with the Trump campaign and trying to get him to drop the Maginitsky act after being elected, and why Trump isn't enforcing the sanctions. I'm suuuure that Clinton would have acted exactly the same.

Both sides are equally bad, amirite?

Re:The Moscovian Candidate

[PopeRatzo]

Try again.. I just heard the presser for these charges. They where actively supporting BOTH sides

No, go read the actual indictment. It's very clear that the charges indicate help for Donald Trump only.

Read this section of the indictment:

"“included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J Trump ... and disparaging Hillary Clinton,”

It goes on to say that during the primaries, the indicted Russians sought to give support to Trump and disparage his GOP opponents (Cruz, et al). Here is a direct link to the indictment:

https://www.justice.gov/file/1...

Re:What tampering? This is about memes

[XxtraLarGe]

I haven't been paying much attention to this whole story since it seems like general boondoggle and that nothing substantial will come out of this, but doesn't the above quote make it harder for the people who want to accuse Trump of collusion? The " unwitting individuals" part makes it seem like Trump is just stupid (well we already knew this) instead of guilty of collusion.

I'm glad you got your digs in on Trump and all that, but do you really think Trump was involved directly with the trolls?

Better article at WaPo

[Gravis Zero]

The Washington Post has a better article on this.

One bit of info missing from CNET is that these indictments are the direct result of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation.

Russian shills abound...

[frank_adrian314159]

At this point, I just figure that anyone who posts idiocy about the Russians not hacking the US is either a Russian shill or one of their dupes. Either that, or they're so soaked in conspiracy theories that their brains are addled. It's really no use listening to them. Once you decide that false information is as good as real facts, your mind might as well be gone.

And for the idiots referenced above who say that all this Russsia stuff is "fake", I'll take the CIA, FBI, and NSA's word about spying before any of you conspiracy-spouting morons in the peanut gallery - I do value professionalism, if nothing else.

Re:Russian shills abound...

[iMadeGhostzilla]

Let me lend some identity to your anonymous post because that is exactly my sentiment.

As a person on the left said, criticizing his wing, "Similarly, during the presidential campaign, the internet was saturated by multiple, widely shared think pieces focusing on Trump’s misogyny. Anyone that attempted to explain why they might vote for him were comfortably, and immediately be shouted down and dismissed as a sexist, or racist, or ableist. And vote for him they did: 63 million hate-filled bigots apparently, their seething Nazism hitherto undetected. Odd that."

Re:PopeRatzo is a moron

[PopeRatzo]

So now, no Americans involved

News is still breaking today. This came out like ten minutes ago:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news...

This is an American who just plead guilty to helping the Russians with the identity fraud part of the conspiracy. He is now cooperating with the Mueller investigation.

When you say "no American involved", you should have said, "yet". Now we learn of the Americans involved.

You are the worst liar that has ever existed.

Don't try to flatter me.

Re:What tampering? This is about memes

[Smidge204]

I suppose reading even the introductory paragraph of the indictment is too much for you? It is, in fact, illegal for non-Americans to directly participate in US Politics, such as:

- Paying for political advertisements
- Paying others to troll social media for you
- Making campaign contributions

And this is all on top of general fraud and identity theft charges.

This is a proper and textbook example of a conspiracy, with a group of people in coordinated effort to conduct an illegal activity... not just some assholes "posting memes."
=Smidge=

Re:The Moscovian Candidate

[Rick Schumann]

You can be butthurt all you want that your so-called 'law and order' and 'conservative family values' candidate never really existed, but at least have enough honesty with yourself that he never was those things, and that you got fooled into voting for him -- because that's the fact of the matter, investigation or no investigation. He keeps trying desperately to distract FBI attention away from himself, just like a guilty person would, and he's now confirmed for cheating on his wife at least twice, one of those times with a skeezy porn actress, and just after his wife gave birth to his son. He's an awful human being who is not in the least qualified for the job, was elected under false pretenses, and should be removed. IDGAF if you're going to continue to publicly defend the son of a bitch or not, at least be honest with yourself: You fucked up, you got conned, and you backed the wrong horse, all the way down to the finish. TRY to do better next time, or at least don't bother voting. Once we get his ass out of the whitehouse we need someone in there who can fix all the damage he's done, not another clueless narcissistic 5-year-old.

Re:What tampering? This is about memes

[Sarten-X]

In this indictment, yes. The events detailed here did not include willing participation by Trump's campaign. Unfortunately for Trump, there are some crimes that don't require knowledge to be committed... For example, being negligent in one's duty to investigate a financial source can be a crime.

As has been the case for a while, the bigger concern is Trump's behavior after the investigation started. If he's shown to have been actively working to obstruct the investigation, that could be what gets him.

Cynic that I am, that's really what I expect is the case... Trump tried to run an honest campaign, but he's so easily manipulated and so quick to overreact that he ends up causing his own downfall, without any direct foreign involvement.

Re:What tampering? This is about memes

[Smidge204]

And if they coordinated with Trump, what does Trump get out of it?

There's good reason to believe someone - likely multiple people - have a lot of leverage on Trump. There's a decent chance he's being straight-up blackmailed.

There's also a decent chance he's caught up in various illegal activities with the Russian mafia. Specifically there have been allegations that his properties were/are used to launder money.
=Smidge=

Call housekeeping, Vlad

[PopeRatzo]

Putin can't have witnesses. I'm betting we're about to see some dead Russians.

If you were one of the 13 indicted Russians, would you be more afraid of the US Department of Justice or Vladimir Putin?

Re:What tampering? This is about memes

[AmiMoJo]

It's much more than just memes. Americans went on rallies organised by Russians. The Russian operatives encouraged minorities not to vote, and focused on damaging the Clinton campaign.

Re:No Americans involved who knew

[AmiMoJo]

The rallies were after the election. If you read the actual document they state that most of the activity was against the Clinton campaign.

Re:What tampering? This is about memes

[Smidge204]

Could you cite the actual statutes, please?

The actual indictment is linked in the Slashdot summary. They explain exactly what they believe happened and why it's illegal, including citing applicable statues.

Unless the donation is to a "charity", owned and run by a candidate, right?

You better be careful trying to play that card, considering Trump continues to operate his "charities" despite having been forbidden to operate in New York due to investigations.

Oh right, soon after Trump was elected he fired the Attorney General who was investigating him, so I guess that makes it okay since he's not under investigation anymore!
=Smidge=

You're putting words in people's mouths

[rsilvergun]

Nobody ever said the American people were unfit to vote. What we _did_ say is that they, like everybody, are capable of being lied to about the sources of information. Kinda like when a Cigarette company backs a study on the health benefits of tobacco. Or when Coke did the same thing. You'd want to know who backed that study. Lying by omission is a thing. A democracy lives and breaths by the quality of information available.

And no, there's still plenty of talk about the Russians hacking the election. They got caught funneling money through the NRA to Trump's campagin, and the only question is are we doing to do anything about it. Then there were all those meetings between high level Trump campaign officials and shady Russians that are still being investigated. Oh, and there's tons of evidence that the Russians have hacked into (literally) our electronic voting systems and that they continue to do so. There's good solid evidence they shared priceless voting record data with the Trump campaign. Again, hard to say if anything will come of this since the Republicans control so much of the government even before Trump won.

Remember, Trump was and is always a patsy. Nobody cares if he knew any of this because his only job was to show up to rallies and say bad things about Hillary and Mexicans. The question is how much did the folks who _really_ run the show know and do. What's clear is that what tattered remains of American democracy are left are being eroded.

But whatever, just keep ignoring the mounting evidence because the word 'hacked' sometimes gets used slightly inappropriately.

If the US had any balls whatsoever...

[argStyopa]

...we could simply say "OK thanks Russia. You want to play 'media domination game"?"

The US is already the most staggeringly dominant culture ever seen on earth, without really deliberately trying (not unlikely that's partly why).

If we were a country with any sense of itself, any sense of unity of purpose, and not a fractious bunch of self-hating bitches, with Hollywood's expertise we could without batting an eye SWAMP Russian media, internet, and airwaves with a chaos of propaganda, infowar, fake news, with production values so sophisticated there would be NO WAY any Russian national could tell if that video was real or not, or that email was real or not, or that video of Vladimir Putin having a quiet, gay moment with a young Russian male model followed by an overwhelming wave of irrefutable evidence of that young male model being found murdered brutally and only the faintest traces of official security service involvement.

They spent what, a few $hundred thousand influencing social media? We could drop a few $hundred MILLION and drive their society into outright civil war.

There is no media culture as dominant or efficacious as the American culture in 2018. None.
But we are our own worst enemy, and Russia can do this sort of thing knowing that Americans will cheerfully attack EACH OTHER over it long before they have the cojones to set aside their partisan bitching in favor of their own country's well being.

Re:If the US had any balls whatsoever...

[bongey]

We already do, we invented what the Russians did, it is called a Color Revolution and we just meddle in other countries elections right out in the open. https://www.washingtontimes.co...

Re:What tampering? This is about memes

[asdfman2000]

There's good reason to believe someone - likely multiple people - have a lot of leverage on Trump. There's a decent chance he's being straight-up blackmailed.

There's also a decent chance he's caught up in various illegal activities with the Russian mafia. Specifically there have been allegations that his properties were/are used to launder money. =Smidge=

Oh, we're making shit up now?

There's good reason to believe someone - likely Xenu - sent Trump to Earth to destabilize it. There's a decent chance he's being straight-up mind-controlled.

There's also a decent chance he's caught up in various interstellar prostitution rings with the Omicron Persei 8 mafia. Specifically there have been allegations that he likes to grab alien pussy.

Re:The Moscovian Candidate

[SlaveToTheGrind]

No, go read the actual indictment. It's very clear that the charges indicate help for Donald Trump only.

You might try actually reading it yourself. Paragraph 43, part of Count One of the indictment, very clearly says they also supported Bernie:

They engaged in operations 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.
* * *
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).”

Perspective

[Alamandorious]

One group talks about how this condemns Trump, because it shows Russian interference on his behalf (note it's interference, not collusion anymore). The other side says it exonerates Trump because the report specifically says that no American willingly participated. What people seem to be failing to notice is that the Russians were doing Pro and Anti-Trump, as well as Pro and Anti-Hillary...and then immediately after the election, kept stirring the pot with anti-Trump. You are being played to create dissent, to create chaos, and you're gleefully letting it happen. You have a media establishment that hates Trump, you have Democratic politicians who are willing to let the country go up in flames because they aren't getting what they want, and instead of saying 'Gee, maybe we'd better notice that Russia is screwing us all up' they're saying 'No sacrifice is too great to bring down Trump'.