Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, on Friday announced new charges against 12 Russian military intelligence officers accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
[Read our main story on the latest indictments in the Russia investigation. ]
The following are some of the key highlights of the indictment of the Russian agents and what Mr. Rosenstein said at the announcement on Friday.

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Analysis by David E. Sanger and Matthew Rosenberg

• “4. By in or around April 2016, the conspirators also hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (“D.C.C.C.”) and the Democratic National Committee (“D.N.C.”). The conspirators covertly monitored the computers of dozens of D.C.C.C. and D.N.C. employees, implanted hundreds of files containing malicious computer code (“malware”), and stole emails and other documents from the D.C.C.C. and D.N.C. 5. By in or around April 2016, the conspirators began to plan the release of materials stolen from the Clinton campaign, D.C.C.C. and D.N.C.”

The indictment makes no reference to the previous hack of the D.N.C. by another Russian intelligence agency. That agency appeared to just be spying — it did not publish the committee’s documents, or go into the Clinton campaign itself. Mr. Mueller focused only on efforts to influence the election, not to spy.

• “7. The conspirators also used the Guccifer 2.0 persona to release additional stolen documents through a website maintained by an organization (“Organization 1”), that had previously posted documents stolen from U.S. persons, entities and the U.S. government. The conspirators continued their U.S. election-interference operations through in or around November 2016.”

“Organization 1” appears to be WikiLeaks. It is not clear why the indictment does not name the organization. And it does not answer the mystery of whether WikiLeaks got the documents directly or through a cutout — a critical question for those examining whether there was any link to the Trump campaign.

• “8. To hide their connections to Russia and the Russian government, the conspirators used false identities and made false statements about their identities. To further avoid detection, the conspirators used a network of computers located across the world, including in the United States, and paid for this infrastructure using cryptocurrency.”

We know that Russian hackers had posed as American citizens, but we did not know until now that they used cryptocurrency to hide their identities. That is a relatively new addition to traditional means of falsifying identities.

• “22. The conspirators spearphished individuals affiliated with the Clinton campaign throughout the summer of 2016. For example, on or about July 27, 2016, the conspirators attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third-party provider and used by Clinton’s personal office. At or around the same time, they also targeted 76 email addresses at the domain for the Clinton campaign.”

The Russia hack was announced by CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm, in mid-June 2016. This suggests that the revelation did not slow the officers from the G.R.U., Russia’s military intelligence agency; they continued their hacking even though they had been exposed. This is consistent with the group’s activities when caught inside the White House computer systems, where it fought an National Security Agency operation to oust them.

• “25. On or about April 19, 2016, KOZACHEK, YERSHOV, and their co-conspirators remotely configured an overseas computer to relay communications between X-Agent malware and the AMS panel and then tested X-Agent’s ability to connect to this computer. The conspirators referred to this computer as a ‘middle server.’ The middle server acted as a proxy to obscure the connection between malware at the D.C.C.C. and the conspirators’ AMS panel.”

This level of detail clearly indicates that intelligence agencies were inside Russian computers. That might be the N.S.A. — but it could also be the Dutch or the British, who were monitoring Russian activity and providing information secretly to the United States. It raises questions about why the United States did not act more quickly.

• “33. In response to Company 1’s efforts, the conspirators took countermeasures to maintain access to the D.C.C.C. and D.N.C. networks. 
  a. On or about May 31, 2016, YERMAKOV searched for open-source information about Company 1 and its reporting on X-Agent and X-Tunnel. On or about June 1, 2016, the conspirators attempted to delete traces of their presence on the D.C.C.C. network using the computer program CCleaner.”

Company 1 is CrowdStrike. The countermeasures are similar to the G.R.U.’s action when caught in the White House system. It also shows an effort to cover the group’s tracks.

• “35. More than a month before the release of any documents, the conspirators constructed the online persona DCLeaks to release and publicize stolen election-related documents. On or about April 19, 2016, after attempting to register the domain <a href=”http://electionleaks.com” rel=”nofollow”>electionleaks.com</a>, the conspirators registered the domain <a href=”http://dcleaks.com” rel=”nofollow”>dcleaks.com</a> through a service that anonymized the registrant.”

This says what has long been suspected: that the G.R.U. officers directly created DCLeaks.

• “41. On or about June 15, 2016, the conspirators logged into a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455 and, between 4:19 PM and 4:56 PM Moscow Standard Time, searched for certain words and phrases.”

This was a day after the public revelation of the hack. It shows that the United States or one of its allies eventually got into the Russian servers to gather the evidence, or monitored the traffic from those servers.

• “58. Although the conspirators caused transactions to be conducted in a variety of currencies, including U.S. dollars, they principally used Bitcoin when purchasing servers, registering domains and otherwise making payments in furtherance of hacking activity. Many of these payments were 21 processed by companies located in the United States that provided payment processing services to hosting companies, domain registrars and other vendors both international and domestic. The use of Bitcoin allowed the conspirators to avoid direct relationships with traditional financial institutions, allowing them to evade greater scrutiny of their identities and sources of funds.”

The indictment’s details about the Russians’ use of Bitcoin showed how cryptocurrencies — and the anonymity they provide — have become both a tool and a challenge for intelligence agencies in the battles between nation states. The Bitcoin network allows anyone to move millions of dollars across the world without any in-person meetings, and without requiring the approval of any financial institutions. For spies, that means gone are the days of covertly exchanging suitcases full of cash.

• “The conspirators funded the purchase of computer infrastructure for their hacking activity in part by “mining” Bitcoin. Individuals and entities can mine Bitcoin by allowing their computing power to be used to verify and record payments on the Bitcoin public ledger, a service for which they are rewarded with freshly minted Bitcoin. The pool of Bitcoin generated from the G.R.U.’s mining activity was used, for example, to pay a Romanian company to register the domain <a href=”http://dcleaks.com” rel=”nofollow”>dcleaks.com</a> through a payment processing company located in the United States.”

Spies need to get their money somewhere, and Russia’s intelligence services are not nearly as well bankrolled as their American counterparts. So, in 2016, the Russians came up with a new way to secure money — they created it by mining their own Bitcoins.

Germans were particularly shocked by accusations that they are in bed with Russia.
“Germany, as far as I’m concerned, is captive to Russia because it’s getting so much of its energy from Russia,” Trump told NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, former leader of Norway, on the first day of the summit. “We have to talk about the billions and billions of dollars that’s being paid to the country we’re supposed to be protecting you against.”
Now, as Trump travels to Finland for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, Germans worry that the nation’s decades-long balancing act between East and West might come tumbling down, leaving them — and Europe — reeling from the fallout.
They are bracing for the worst from what was once their once-most stalwart ally.
“The Germans are trying to assess what could be the maximum damage and how should the Europeans react if Trump does something horribly stupid,” said Gustav Gressel with the European Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin.
The transatlantic relationship is especially important for Germans, who have American investments to thank for helping rebuild the nation after World War II and helping Berlin during the Cold War. American politicking also contributed to the collapse of the communist regime in East Germany in 1989, and President George H.W. Bush’s nod of approval allowed for German reunification a year later.
Many Germans have family across the Atlantic as well, and hundreds of thousands study or work in the US each year. The German language — and food — is peppered with American influence.
Faith in that relationship and the nations’ shared democratic values, however, have made Germany reliant on the United States for its domestic security, analysts say.
Under the protection of NATO, Germany has winnowed away at its defense budget, which now stands at just 1.23 percent of GDP, according to government figures. That’s far lower than the 2 percent threshold NATO members agreed to meet by 2024, although defense spending is slated to increase in the coming years.
At the height of the German-American relationship, Germany’s dependence on the United States hardly tarnished German citizens’ views toward America. But relations experienced a major shift with the election of Trump in 2016.
Many Germans see the American president’s constant criticism of the United States’ $64 billion trade deficit with Germany and his gloating over American patronage to Germany as distasteful and an affront to nation’s sovereignty.
In 2017, 56 percent of respondents to a Pew Research Center study thought US-German relations were bad, while only 11 percent of Germans expressed confidence in Trump. That’s compared to over 80 percent who expressed confidence in the capabilities of former President Barack Obama in 2016.
“I think, generally speaking, we’re losing a very good friend,” said Jörg Dobers, 49, who works in pharmaceuticals in Berlin. “We know that Trump will be gone in four years but I’m fearful that he’ll leave much broken in his wake. That will be difficult to repair.”

‘Our former enemy’

Germany, in general, considers alliances with the US as well as with the rest of the EU as key to maintaining stability, peace and healthy trade. Throughout its history, however, the United States isn’t the only superpower with which Germany has sought to maintain close relations.
In order to pacify the Russian threat during and after the Cold War, Germany began developing energy networks with Russia, which were accelerated at the beginning of the millennium, said Gressel.
The relationship spawned massive natural gas pipelines from Russia to Germany, and Russian gas now makes up almost 10 percent of Germany’s energy mix, according to government figures.
That amount could increase when a second pipeline, Nord Stream 2, opens in the coming years, especially as Germany moves to shut down coal-fired and nuclear energy in line with its energy transition to renewable sources.

Economic and cultural rapprochement between Russia and Germany, however, reached its apex in 2014. Then, Putin annexed the Crimean Peninsula, showing that the “attempt to flatter Russia, or to provide economic incentives to Russia to make Russia more conformist and to accept Europe as it is, has basically failed,” Gressel explained.
At the time, ultra-pragmatic German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a product of Soviet-controlled East Germany who also speaks Russian, was adamant in levying sanctions against Russia for the deed. That was in spite of deep trade ties valued by businesses in Germany, a leading exporting country.
Not all Germans supported her decision.
“Germans are, all in all, for more of a cooperative tone with our former enemy in the Second World War,” said Henning Riecke with the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin.
After all, Germany’s formerly communist eastern states are still shaped by Russian culture, and many Germans feel a special relationship with Moscow.
“We have the advantage of having a chancellor who grew up in East Germany, the mid-point between East and West,” said Ruth-Janessa Funk, in her 40s, who teaches fashion marketing in Berlin.
But given increased Russian interference in Western elections, cyberattacks and Putin’s desire to fray Europe at the seams, “I think our relationship with Russia is getting so hot that it might boil over,” said Funk.

‘The Trumpian winter’

Looking forward to Helsinki on Monday, there are fears that Trump’s aggressive tone toward Germany and other traditional allies will only bolster Putin’s resolve to create chaos in the political alliances that have come to define the West’s geopolitical dominance, said Riecke.
“We’re now hoping that Helsinki doesn’t produce a complete break of Western consensus,” he said. “If Trump makes specific special deals with Russia that he didn’t pre-negotiate inside NATO, that would be a problem.”
Now caught between a geopolitical rock and a hard place, many Germans and political analysts say Merkel needs to take advantage of her position at the helm of Europe’s ideological and economic engine to return some semblance of normalcy to the East-West relationship.
That could take the shape of hiking up defense spending and bending slightly to Trump’s demands, but not to the point that she looks like a “poodle of Trump,” said Riecke.
And with Putin, that could mean leveraging Germany’s historical cooperation with Russia to salvage the relationship, “while also holding the European Union together and promoting European harmony,” said Sabine Reed, a city planner in Berlin in her 50s.
With Trump in particular, said Gressel, the key is appeasement and waiting it out to minimize the damage that his unilateral actions could have on Germany, the European Union and beyond.
“Germans don’t want to do a lot of damage on their end,” he said. “They basically want to freeze relations and hibernate the transatlantic relationship through the Trumpian winter. And with whomever succeeds him we can start talking serious stuff again.”
Austin Davis reported from Berlin.

Edition

During special counsel Robert Mueller’s time as director of the FBI from 2001 to 2013, he actively sought to cover up disturbing links between a Saudi family in Florida and the Sept. 11 terror attacks, according to bombshell FBI files that throws grave doubt on the character of the man investigating President Trump and his campaign.
According to a report filed by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune last year, when the terrorists who carried out the devastating attack that left 2,977 Americans dead first arrived in America, they relied on a network of associates across the country to “get apartments, open bank accounts and connect with local mosques.”

They essentially used family and friends to get settled in and begin making preparations for their planned attack. This brings us to a mysterious Saudi Arabian family “who were living in Sarasota County (Florida) shortly before the 9/11 attacks” but disappeared shortly thereafter.
“Alerted by neighbors’ suspicions about a lack of activity and three vehicles apparently abandoned in the driveway and garage, FBI agents converged on 4224 Escondito Circle within weeks of the 9/11 attacks” and found “mail on the table, dirty diapers in the bedroom, made beds, a refrigerator full of food, and closets with entire wardrobes intact,” according to the Herald-Tribune.
ConservativeTribune reports: It was as if they had chosen to leave at a moment’s notice. As a result, many suspected the family had held ties of some sort to the Sept. 11 attacks.
Now fast-forward to 2011, when Florida Bulldog first unveiled these extraordinary facts in an exclusive report that quickly went viral across the nation, attracting attention from the Miami Herald and other notable papers.
In response, FBI officials “immediately repudiated the story, asserting that it had thoroughly investigated the Sarasota family and could find no links with the hijackers,” according to the Herald-Tribune.

Now fast forward another year to 2012, when the Florida Bulldog watchdog organization filed a Freedom of Information Act suit against the FBI, demanding it release its records on the Saudi family.
When the watchdog group finally obtained the records a year later, it noticed a bombshell sentence within them: “Further investigation of the (name deleted) family revealed many connections between the (name deleted) and individuals associated with the terror attacks on 9/11/2001.”
What wasn’t redacted was the address, 4224 Escondito Circle, i.e., the same one as the aforementioned Saudi family. This stunning piece of evidence proved that the FBI had known from day one that the Saudi family did in fact have verified links to the Sept. 11 attacks and had therefore lied in 2011.
Moreover, according to additional FBI records reviewed in January by Florida Bulldog, it appears it was Mueller who ordered the agency to lie.
“Mueller … is referenced in a document index created in late November by the FBI at the direction of U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch of Fort Lauderdale,” the watchdog group reported.
“The index reference to former FBI Director Mueller is contained in an item about a FBI white paper that was written one week after the Bulldog and the Miami Herald simultaneously published the Bulldog’s story about the abrupt departure of Saudis Abdulaziz and Anoud al-Hijji from their Sarasota area home about two weeks before 9/11.”
Here’s the kicker: The white paper “was created to brief the FBI Director concerning the FBI’s investigation of 4224 Escondito Circle,” as quoted directly from the index.
Florida Bulldog further notes that the white paper was created on the exact same day that the FBI issued its lies to the media denying the existence of evidence proving the family had ties to the Sept. 11 attacks.
What does all this mean? Well, assuming the picture painted by the clear-cut evidence is accurate, the man currently investigating President Donald Trump for collusion/obstruction/whatever is a bald-faced liar, point blank, period.

GETTY
COLD CASE: Trump has vowed to reopen the 9/11 investigationDisenfranchised working class voters propelled the billionaire reality star into the White House this week in one of the biggest election upsets in US history.
In his first days as President-elect, Republican Trump has given few clues on how he plans to honour his pledge to “Make America Great Again”.
But ahead of his Brexit-style election earthquake, Trump threatened to lift the lid on one of the most catastrophic terror attacks in modern history.
GETTY
DISASTER: Almost 3,000 people died in the monstrous terror attackSpeaking at a Republican rally in Henrico County, Virginia, Trump pledged to launch a fresh probe into the 2001 September 11 attacks.
He claimed that the attack by Islamic terrorist group al-Qaida was not properly investigated and vowed to get to the bottom of it.
Pressed about the attacks on the World Trade Center, and his plan to prevent further massacres, he said: “First of all, the original 9/11 investigation is a total mess and has to be reopened.
Speculating over the collapse of the skyscraper after the attack, he said: “How do two planes take out three buildings in the same day?
“I never got my head around the fact that nothing is mentioned about the destruction of Building 7 in the 585-page document.”
GETTY
ATTACK: The World Trade Center was targeted in 2001Accusing “19 high-jackers from Saudi Arabia” of carrying out the attack, he blasted George Bush’s administration for not taking legal action against the country in the February debate.
He added: “The World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush.
“He kept us safe? That is not safe. That is not safe.
“Americans deserve answers and I would definitely request a new investigation so that this horrible tragedy never happens again.”
GETTY
RIDDLE: Conspiracy theorists claim the towers were brought down intentionallyLike many of his other seemingly off-the-cuff election promises, it is not yet clear whether he intends to re-open the 9/11 probe.
Although there is little establishment support for reopening the investigation, a number of government chiefs have demanded the case be revisited.
Former Governor of Florida Bob Graham has been demanding a new transparent investigation for years.
He said: “For years I have been campaigning for the release of the 2002 Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee 9/11 Inquiry’s report, to no avail.
“These missing pages point to the direct involvement of the government of Saudi Arabia.
“Why are these being kept secret? Who has to gain from these games of secrecy?”
GETTY
REVOLUTION: Former Governor of Florida Bob Graham said the documents could ‘start a revolution’Due to a Freedom of Information exemption, the documents from the 9/11 Commission Report, released in 2002, were heavily redacted.
In the 28 pages released, the Saudi Arabian government claimed they were not responsible for supporting or financing the attacks.
Mr Graham added: “I have read these documents myself and if the American public knew what was in these documents, there would be a revolution tomorrow in the streets of America.
“Americans deserve to know the truth.”
Conspiracy theorists have claimed for years that the 9/11 attack was an “inside job” – known as a false flag attack – aimed at fuelling support for War on Terror.
There is no proof to stand up these claims – but truth seekers have pointed to footage which appears to show the Twin Towers explode before the planes hit.

Sturgess, 44, died in hospital last week after she was exposed to the poison.
The incident occured just miles from where ex-spy Sergei Skripal, and daughter Yulia, were attacked with the substance in Salisbury in March.
Met Police today released a statement saying they believe the source of the Novichok that killed Sturgess was a small bottle.
Sturgess’ partner Charlie Rowley, 45, remains in a critical condition but has regained consciousness.
Cops said a small bottle was recovered after searching the scene of Rowley’s house in Amesbury.
It was taken for tests where scientists confirmed the bottle contained Novichok.
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TRAGEDY: Dawn Sturgess was killed by exposure to NovichokThe Met’s Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said: “This is clearly a significant and positive development.
“However, we cannot guarantee that there isn’t any more of the substance left and cordons will remain in place for some considerable time.
“This is to allow thorough searches to continue as a precautionary measure for public safety and to assist the investigation team.
“I also appreciate there is a lot of interest in this; however, we are not in a position to disclose any further details regarding the bottle at this stage.
“The safety of the public and our officers remains paramount and we are continuing to work closely with Wiltshire Police, scientists, health experts from Public Health England and other partners.”
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