The NPR Politics Podcast - Justice Department Charges Russian Cyberspies With Attack On 2016 Election

Episode Date: July 13, 2018

The Justice Department charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with offenses related to Russia's hacking of the Democratic National Committee's emails, state election systems and other targets in 2016. This episode: political reporter Asma Khalid, justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, national security editor Phil Ewing and White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hello, this is Kyle and Rachel. We are currently traveling on a high-speed train from Shanghai to Beijing. This podcast was recorded at 1.47 p.m. on Friday, July 13th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. Keep up with all of NPR's political coverage at NPR.org, the NPR One app, and on your local public radio station. Okay, here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. The Department of Justice has announced indictments against 12 Russians, alleging they interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

We're going to talk about what those charges mean. I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter. I'm Carrie Johnson, justice correspondent. I'm Phil Ewing, national security editor. And I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover Keri Johnson, justice correspondent. I'm Phil Ewing, national security editor. And I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. So, Keri, this morning you rushed over to the Department of Justice because Rod Rosenstein had a fairly large announcement to make. These are the allegations that were made that there were 12 Russians who interfered in the 2016 election. Keri, tell us

exactly what's in this indictment. We've been waiting for this, right? We've known that there's been a big investigation in whomever hacked the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, and a whole bunch of other people in the course of 2016. And today we got some answers. The Justice Department identified 12 people, all members of Russian military intelligence, some of them senior members. And the federal grand jury indictment handed down in Washington, D.C. named these guys. They're charged with conspiracy, aggravated identity theft, and a number of other things. The big question is whether they'll ever face justice here in the United States. It's very hard to get a Russian citizen extradited here to

America. You never know what might happen. But at the very least, the Justice Department and the special counsel, Robert Mueller, wanted to identify the people responsible in their view for this big hack in the election year. So, Phil, this information was stolen from, you know, the Democratic National Committee as well as the Hillary Clinton campaign. But something Rod Rosenstein said during the announcement struck me, and that's that he says no Americans knowingly participated in any of these crimes, but it does seem that there was correspondence. That's right. Yeah, that's the big coda as a part of this story, because not only is the special counsel's office investigating the Russian attack on the election,

he's investigating specifically whether anyone in the Trump campaign or anyone else in the United States was a winning conspirator as part of that attack. Mr. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, said today the answer for this indictment is no, but all he said was what's contained in this indictment. The Mueller investigation is going to go forward. We don't know what else he is going to find, but the president and his allies are drawing attention to Rosenstein's comment, making clear that for the purposes of this document today, there's no collusion, no conspiracy, and no one in the Trump campaign of the White House who's been involved with these charges. There's no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime.

There's no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result. I'd point out the White House actually issued a statement. Rod Rosenstein said at the news conference that he briefed President Trump on these charges before the president took off on his overseas adventures. And the White House says today that the charges include no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the campaign and no allegations the hacking affected the election result. The White House view is that this is consistent with what we have been saying all along. But it's interesting what that statement didn't say. It did not say President Trump strongly condemns the interference of foreign governments in our democratic process.

And he vows to go toe to toe with Russian President Vladimir Putin at their scheduled summit in Helsinki and get in his face and say, Mr. Putin, you better knock this off. They focused extensively and exclusively in that statement on whether or not anyone in the Trump camp was involved. So, Kerry, you've been looking through this indictment. You're certainly very familiar with it all. There were some specific email exchanges that I thought were really compelling. And one in particular was with a person who was in contact with the Trump campaign and these hackers. So here's what we know from the indictment.

Rod Rosenstein has said that no American played a winning role and no American has been charged in this indictment. But the court papers do describe a few interactions. One, an interaction between these hackers and a candidate, an unnamed candidate for Congress who was seeking out some stolen documents. The second, an interaction between the hackers and somebody who was registered as a state lobbyist at the time. And then third, and maybe most important to your question, an interaction between somebody who was in regular contact with the Trump campaign and these hackers. And we know that Roger Stone, who's a friend of the president, has talked about having an unwitting exchange with some hackers. Roger Stone is not mentioned in these court papers. We know people have been asking a lot of questions about Roger Stone. The government has not signaled what it's going to do with Roger

Stone in this document one way or the other. So what was the context of these emails, these conversations? Okay, so the court papers talk about a person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign. And in emails, this person exchanged with the hackers. The court papers cite mostly what the hackers had to say, which is, did you find anything interesting in the documents I posted? Please tell me if I can help you anyhow. It would be a great pleasure to me. Like customer service hackers. Yes, yes. We don't have a lot from the response of this unnamed person,

but the hackers seem to be going out of their way to try to be useful. Ayesha, you're traveling with the president, and today he met with British Prime Minister Theresa May. Have you gotten any indication that this is affecting any of his plans? I mean, he's certainly expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday. Listening to President Trump over the past couple of days, and he's been asked about Putin a great deal, you wouldn't have, there was no difference in his tone he hasn't from what I can tell when he talks about Russia really talked about them in any any kind of tougher fashion or in any way that would make you think that maybe

he's gonna take a different approach with Putin than he has in the past or not be as open to a relationship with Putin. That hasn't shown up in the last couple of days. So it's surprising that he was talking about all these things with the knowledge that this indictment was coming. He was asked about what he would talk about with Putin. I know you'll ask, will we be talking about meddling? And I will absolutely bring that up. I don't think you'll have any, gee, I did it, I did it,

you got me. There won't be a Perry Mason here, I don't think. But you never know what happens, right? But I will absolutely, firmly ask the question. And hopefully, we'll have a very good relationship with Russia. I think having, and the Prime Minister would agree, if we have a good relationship with Russia and with China and know, I think having and the prime minister would agree if we have a good

relationship with Russia and with China and with other countries, that's a good thing, not a bad thing. The thing is, we've already seen immediate reaction from some Democrats. I saw some comments from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, as well as from Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. And they were both calling on President Trump to cancel this meeting with the Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday. I don't get any sense, Carrie, that this is going to happen based on how Ayesha is describing the president's been handling himself. But what are their concerns? The concern basically is that the U.S. government has now charged 12 Russian military officials with tampering with the 2016 election in the Senate and in the House, and disturbing to the Democratic National Committee, which is out today with some very tough words about how this is a very, very serious event brought presumably knew about these charges when he said the stuff about Perry

Mason. He's still saying that he's going to ask Putin, did he interfere in the election? Did he know about it? He's still saying that he's going to ask and then just kind of go from there. At this point, you would think that you don't, does he really need to question Putin about whether he did it and instead just go with, we have this serious evidence. Do you have anything to disprove it? If not, let's have a serious conversation. I just think that that is very striking.

Ayesha makes an excellent point. And it's a microcosm of everything else we've seen from President Trump, not only on this trip, but in the conduct of foreign policy since he's been in office. There's the United States government's position or the policy that it takes. And then there's Trump's policy or position that he takes. If you ask the special counsel's office, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, they can tell you in clinical detail, the names and identities and ages and ranks of the GRU officers from this military intelligence agency who were responsible for the 2016 hacking. It is a question of metaphysical certitude on their part

because they put it in a legal indictment. And as Kerry said earlier, if the United States ever got its hands on these guys, it would put them on trial before a jury. Now, that's probably not going to happen because the Russians won't agree, but that is the point of this indictment, to demonstrate to the world

just how much the special counsel's office knows about who is responsible and what took place. But Trump, as Ayesha just said, is like, well, maybe we'll ask him and maybe he'll say yes and maybe we'll say no. The work product of his own government, his own intelligence community is not good enough for him. And he has over the time since he's been inaugurated, gone back and forth about what he accepts and what he doesn't about the active measures, the role of the Russians, the role of other powers. And this is just more of the same. It's been a very consistent theme from him. You know, since this is the politics podcast, I wanted to point out that there was a very

unusual thing from Rod Rosenstein today at the podium at the Justice Department. He made basically a plea for bipartisanship on this issue. It was a remarkable thing for him to say because he doesn't usually talk about politics. But remember, we've had a very rough week. A current FBI agent was on Capitol Hill yesterday for 10 hours, Pete Strzok, getting beaten up by Republicans and sometimes Democrats, too, for his inflammatory text messages. Rod Rosenstein said, let's not pay attention just to the fact that there were Democratic victims of this hack. Let's come together and try to harden the nation's defenses to these kinds of crimes in the future. When we confront foreign interference in American elections, it's important for us to avoid thinking politically as Republicans or Democrats, and instead to think patriotically as Americans. Our response must not depend on which side was victimized.

And Rosenstein basically said the blame for this election interference belongs to these criminals from Russia. Let's do something about it. I found that particularly noteworthy as well, Carrie, because when you go out on the campaign trail, even this election cycle, it is a very common theme among Republican voters, among defenders of the president, to question the legitimacy of this special counsel. And what I heard there from Rod Rosenstein was this sort of moral lesson on American democracy, on the role of the judiciary, for him to say, you know, this is a really problematic argument. It should be very alarming to both Republicans and Democrats that we have allegations of foreign interference in the U.S. electoral process. So, Ayesha, President Trump's legal team has responded to Rod Rosenstein's announcement. Why don't you give us a sense of what we've heard? Rudy Giuliani, who is President Trump's personal lawyer, he said that the indictments from Rosenstein announced today by Rosenstein are

good news for all Americans the Russians are nailed this is a quote from him uh but and he also says no Americans are involved and now it's time for Mueller to end this pursuit of the president and say President Trump is completely innocent so they're taking the position that, look, everything's been solved now. We've we've we got we got the Russians. So now you need to completely exonerate the president and just said the special counsel investigation is continuing. The special counsel is not going to be talking and that one should be very careful about reading accounts about the investigation and where it's headed from unnamed sources because a lot of this information is wrong. So I didn't get a hint that the investigation was about to end tomorrow from Rod Rosenstein. But Rod Rosenstein did say, interestingly enough, that this indictment will be handled moving forward by career prosecutors in the National Security Division at the Justice Department, not the special counsel team. What does that mean?

Yeah, good question. That means that Robert Mueller is not going to be around forever. So if it takes a long time to get these Russians and possibly get your hands on these Russians and try to bring them back to the United States to face trial, that will be handled by career prosecutors who are going to be around longer than this special counsel will be. I think now that now that these indictments going off of what Kerry just said about whether these Russians will ever come to the U.S., that seems highly unlikely. But being that we do have a president of the United States who will be meeting with Putin, presumably that's a question that he could ask. Are you going to turn over these

Russian operatives? But that is a question that President Trump will certainly face from the media is, so did you bring, did you ask Putin about these Russians who have been indicted? Did you say that he should send them to the U.S.? They should be extradited.

All right. That is a wrap for today. And as Ayesha was just mentioning, President Trump will be meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday. And we will be back in your feeds bright and early to talk about that. I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter. I'm Carrie Johnson, justice correspondent. I'm Phil Ewing, national security editor. And I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.