Russian national charged with conspiracy to meddle in 2018 midterm elections
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Source: CBS News
A Russian national has become the first person charged by the U.S. for conspiring to interfere in the 2018 midterm elections, according to the FBI and Justice Department. Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova is alleged to have participated in a conspiracy to "sow discord in the U.S. political system and to undermine faith in our democratic institutions," U.S. Attorney Zachary Terwilliger, of the Eastern District of Virginia, said in the indictment. The government says that the conspiracy is also part of the 2016 influence operation that dates back to at least May 2014.
Forty-four-year-old Khusyaynova, of St. Petersburg, was the chief accountant of "Project Lakhta," an effort funded by Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin and two companies he controls, Concord Management and Consulting LLC, and Concord Catering, the indictment says. Prigozhin is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and is often referred to as "Putin's chef."
Khusyaynova is accused of overseeing a $35 million budget from 2014 to 2018 that covered spending on activists, social media advertising, registration of domain names, the purchase of proxy servers, and promoting news postings on social networks. The Justice Department says that the proposed operating budget for 2018 alone was over $10 million.
The indictment says that this was a large-scale operation overseen by a management group and notes that there were several departments, including a graphics and design department, one devoted to analysis, and another to search engine optimization, as well as an IT, and a finance department. Khusyaynova's role was to manage the financing "of substantially all aspects of Project operations, which included media and influence activities" aimed at the U.S., European Union and Ukraine, as well as the Russian Federation.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russian-national-charged-with-conspiracy-to-meddle-in-2018-midterm-elections/
SeattleVet
(5,468 posts)I recognize a lot of things that I have seen on social media, and several of the canned responses that they came up with really sound a whole lot like what has been posted over in freeperville over the past couple of years. The phrase 'useful idiots' comes to mind...
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)sad
ck4829
(34,976 posts)Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)iluvtennis
(19,757 posts)iluvtennis
(19,757 posts)BumRushDaShow
(127,298 posts)More_Cowbell
(2,190 posts)The document itself, and several media sources, use the word "complaint"
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/19/politics/criminal-complaint-elena-alekseevna-khusyaynova-russia/index.html
But this story and other ones use indictment. I have a law degree but am not active and I don't understand it. It seems like most of the time, prosecutors submit an indictment to a grand jury to get criminal charges later.
Mueller's team doesn't leak, but it does provide a lot more details in court filings than are usually provided. I expect it's to get other coconspirators to realize that they should come clean. But I'm not sure what the complaint/indictment difference is.
Thanks in advance!
Chemisse
(30,793 posts)Duplicate of https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142182326
Please continue the discussion in the original thread.