An indictment against 13 Russians associated with a St. Petersburg-based social media troll farm says the group planned to target the 2016 U.S. election at least 13 months before Donald Trump announced his candidacy.
The indictment unveiled Friday by special counsel Robert Mueller outlines a vast operation called the Internet Research Agency, with hundreds of employees broken into departments focused on specialties such as search engine optimization, graphics, and data analysis. Search engine optimization is a marketing tactic geared toward giving an organization or website a high ranking in online searches.
“By in or around May 2014, the ORGANIZATION’s strategy included interfering with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, with the stated goal of ‘spread[ing] distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general,’ ” the indictment says.
Trump did not announce his candidacy until June 2015, before which he was not considered a serious potential candidate. Most political experts believed his interest in politics was part of a branding strategy.
Hillary Clinton was, however, the presumed Democratic presidential front-runner. Clinton’s political positions on armed conflicts in Ukraine and Syria were at odds with Russian foreign policy objectives.
The indictment from Mueller, whose team is investigating Russian meddling in the election, does not allege that Trump associates knew of the Russian social media campaign.
In April 2014, the Russian company allegedly set up a “translator project” that was “focused on the U.S. population and conducted operations on social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.”
Early social media activities included advocacy favoring increased U.S. border security, the Black Lives Matter movement and Muslim civil rights.
Two of the 13 defendants are accused of traveling to the U.S. in June 2014 to “gather intelligence,” including contacting Americans, although they allegedly concealed their identity. An unnamed alleged co-conspirator visited Atlanta in November 2014.
During the election campaign, the group is accused of favoring Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont over Clinton in the Democratic primary and backed Trump while opposing GOP Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas.
By July 2016, about 80 employees were assigned to the project.
In the general election, the group encouraged third-party voting, the indictment says.
The Russian defendants, who may never face trial in the U.S., are accused of illegally engaging in election activities and of using stolen U.S. identity information to open bank accounts.
