Kusnetsky Most and all that

That Mueller indictment about the Russian influence on the U.S. Presidential election campaign makes interesting reading. The full thing is 37 pages in a legalese format, but there are some basic gems within.

6. Defendant ORGANIZATION (ie the Russian organisation, in its various guises) had a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Defendants posted derogatory information about a number of candidates, and by early to mid-2016, Defendants operations included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump (Trump Campaign) and disparaging Hillary Clinton.

Defendants made various expenditures to carry out those activities, including buying political advertisements on social media in the names of US. persons and entities.

Defendants also staged political rallies inside the United States, and while posing as US. grassroots entities and US. persons, and without revealing their Russian identities and ORGANIZATION affiliation, solicited and compensated real U.S. persons to promote or disparage candidates.

Some Defendants, posing as U.S. persons and without revealing their Russia association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.

There's a whole almost Cold War style movie right there, with weaponised cyber-trolling sponsored by a mysterious Russian conglomerate. Creating fake identities, suckering the real Trump campaign into the organised marches. Paying people via a web of offshore accounts.

So what was it all for?

Object of the Conspiracy

28. The conspiracy had as its object impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful governmental functions of the United States by dishonest means in order to enable the Defendants to interfere with U.S. political and electoral processes, including the 2016 US. presidential election.

43. By 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators used their fictitious online personas to interfere with the 2016 US. presidential election. They engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.

Now, the question is, whether Trump knew anything about any of this? And also, whether any of his immediate team were aware of what was happening?

It is possible that this (so far alleged) Russian plan was orchestrated by, say, the Russian FSB. If that were the case, then it is inconceivable that Putin wouldn't know what was happening. After all, an attempt to destabilise the U.S. via cyber-influence is a pretty big deal, albeit inexpensive compared with the use of conventional military approaches.

And what started as online influencing could later morph into street rallies and similar. Let's have another peek at the indictment.

46. In or around the latter half of 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators, through their (manufactured false) personas, began to encourage U.S. minority groups not to vote in the 2016 U.S. presidential election or to vote for a third-party US. presidential candidate.

48. From at least April 2016 through November 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators, while concealing their Russian identities and ORGANIZATION affiliation through false personas, began to produce, purchase, and post advertisements on U.S. social media and other online sites expressly advocating for the election of then-candidate Trump or expressly opposing Clinton. Defendants and their co-conspirators did not report their expenditures to the Federal Election Commission, or register as foreign agents with the US. Department of Justice.

Having remotely created a groundswell of activism in the U.S. the next stage was to influence it to take to the streets. How does it go? Infiltrate, Educate, Manipulate? So they used the false personas to gain some supporters, told them what they wanted to hear and embellished it to make it agitative. Then, using the motivated U.S. citizens to start to run U.S. visible street events, whether through advertising or rallies.

52. In order to build attendance for the rallies, Defendants and their co-conspirators promoted the events through public posts on their false U.S. persona social media accounts. In addition, Defendants and their co-conspirators contacted administrators of large social media groups focused on US. politics and requested that they advertise the rallies.

56. After the rallies in Florida, Defendants and their co-conspirators used false U.S. personas to organize and coordinate U.S. political rallies supporting then-candidate Trump in New York and Defendants and their co-conspirators used the same techniques to build and promote these rallies as they had in Florida, including: buying Facebook advertisements; paying U.S. persons to participate in, or perform certain tasks at, the rallies; and communicating with real U.S. persons and grassroots organizations supporting then-candidate Trump.

That last series of events (which is dealt with at length in the indictment (sections 70 to 80ish) illustrates the direct contact between the Russian personas (such as a fake person called Matt Skiber) and the Trump Campaign (including the 18-20 August events around the Florida March for Trump).

What Mueller's work doesn't cover is any overt linkages leading back to the so-called president or his team. I guess we'll have to wait for another story to break before any links are uncovers. That is, unless Trump disbands the investigation by linking it to something else which he thinks is more important.