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U.S. Charges Russian for Conspiracy to Interfere in Elections
By Chris Strohm and Greg Farrell
October 19, 2018, 2:28 PM EDT
Updated on October 19, 2018, 2:45 PM EDT
Accusations are first related to impending midterm vote
Operation had a proposed budget of $35 million, U.S. alleges
The buildings of the Kremlin complex sit beside the Moskva River in Moscow. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
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A Russian national was charged by the U.S. for allegedly being one of the masterminds behind a conspiracy to interfere in both the 2016 and 2018 elections, marking the first charges related to next month’s congressional midterm vote.
The woman, identified as Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova of St. Petersburg, Russia, allegedly served as the chief accountant for an operation known as “Project Lakhta,” the Justice Department said Friday in a statement. The department identified the operation as "a Russian umbrella effort funded by Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin and two companies he controls, Concord Management and Consulting LLC, and Concord Catering."
The charges come as top U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies warn Americans about ongoing efforts by Russia, China and other foreign actors to interfere in the 2018 midterm and 2020 presidential elections.
The charges announced on Friday centered on a conspiracy that included the creation of thousands of social media and email accounts that appeared to be run by U.S. persons as part of what the conspirators referred to as “information warfare against the United States.”
Referring to Khusyaynova, the Justice Department said, “The financial documents she controlled include detailed expenses for activities in the United States, such as expenditures for activists, advertisements on social media platforms, registration of domain names, the purchase of proxy servers, and promoting news postings on social network.”
The case appears to be an outgrowth of a larger case filed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in February, accusing Prigozhin and others of interfering in the 2016 election by pushing divisive social media campaigns that attacked Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
In that case, Mueller’s office cited examples of Russians who adopted online personas and used Twitter and Facebook posts to sow doubts about Clinton, urge voters to support Green Party candidate Jill Stein and galvanize support for then-candidate Donald Trump."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-19/u-s-charges-russian-for-conspiracy-to-interfere-in-elections