Top presidential adviser Rudy Giuliani declared the announcement Friday of the Justice Department’s indictment of 12 Russian military offices in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe is “good news for all Americans,” particularly President Trump.
“The Russians are nailed. No Americans are involved,” the former New York City mayor wrote on Twitter.
“Time for Mueller to end this pursuit of the president and say President Trump is completely innocent.”
President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign is a major focus of Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the election, with allegations the campaign colluded with the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton.
The indictment came two days before Trump is to meet for the first time with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but Rosenstein insisted Friday that the timing was purely coincidental.
The indictment names 12 Russian intelligence officers who allegedly hacked email accounts of the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 election.
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Rosenstein said that while evidence shows the Russians were in conversations with some Americans during the time of the alleged activities, there was no evidence that the Americans knew they were talking with Russians.
All 12 suspects were members of the GRU, the Russian intelligence agency.
President Trump, who continues to describe the special counsel probe as a “witch hunt,” was briefed earlier on the charges.
A White House spokeswoman, deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters, emphasized the charges “include no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the campaign and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election result.”
“This is consistent with what we have been saying all along,” she said.
Rosenstein defended the Justice Department a day after FBI agent Peter Strzok was accused in a congressional hearing of acting with extreme partisan bias in his leadership of the investigations of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
“Partisan warfare fueled by modern technology does not fairly reflect the grace, dignity and unity of the American people,” Rosenstein said. “We need to avoid thinking politically. We need to think patriotically as Americans.”
But he said the blame for interference in elections should be placed on the perpetrators.
“The Justice Department, which was investigating Russian interference in the election – with the FBI – before Mueller was appointed, certainly could have handled these cases,” said McCarthy.
Former assistant U.S. attorney Andrew McCarthy noted in an interview with Greg Corombos for WND on Friday that after 14 months, Mueller has presented no evidence of collusion with Russia.
Clearly, there was Russian interference in the election, he said, but the Justice Department, which already was investigating the matter, could have handled the cases.
McCarthy believes, however, that Trump is not helping himself by calling Mueller’s probe a “witch hunt.”
“I think we all know when he says that, what he’s talking about is the allegation that his campaign colluded with the Russians, of which there remains no evidence, much less charges,” McCarthy said.
“But I don’t think it’s helpful that if he knows you’re about to release a set of charges that confirm what all of us have suspected for some time — which is that the Russians did conduct this operation against our election — I don’t know that that’s the best time to be taking shots at the prosecutor.”
