The GRU (Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye) is the Russian Ministry of Defense’s Intelligence Directorate, and is actually the largest foreign intelligence service of the Russian Federation. The Special Counsel has indicted twelve of their officers for conspiracy and cyber crimes around the penetration and exploitation of servers belonging to the DCCC, DNC, and the election campaign of Felonia Von Pantsuit.
No, Rosenstein’s “Law-Enforcement Announcement” At 11:45 Isn’t About Russiagate. I Think? Update: 12 Russian Officials Indicted For DNC, Campaign Hackings; Update: Indictment Added
By Allahpundit, Hot Air
…
My God. Mueller blew up the Putin summit.
This isn’t the first time Mueller’s indicted Russians for hacking related to the campaign but it is the first time he’s accused officials of the Russian government, specifically, of engaging in hacking. He’s going to lay this in Putin’s lap three days before Helsinki and essentially force Trump to choose whom he believes, his own DOJ or Russian denials.
Then again, this is the same team of crack prosecutors who indicted a ham sandwhich and are so far having their posteriors handed to them in court in USA V Concord Management. This is rather unlikely to ever go to trial, as the Russian Federation is not in the habit of extraditing their intelligence officers on demand. Even should it somehow proceed to trial, the Special Counsel has proved to be singularly ineffective in court.
I believe Allahpundit is right about the real significance of this indictment.
UPDATE
Having now read the actual indictment I am struck by several things.
- The indictment is very specific as to tools and methods used on the systems penetrated.
- The indictment cites no actual evidence.
- The specificity of the narrative of tools and methods strongly implies extensive computer forensics.
And there is a catch. The FBI never examined the servers of the DNC nor of the DCCC.
