As President Donald Trump met Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II for the first time at Windsor Castle Friday morning, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein held a press conference in Washinton, D.C., to announce the indictments of a dozen Russian intelligence officers for hacking into the Democratic National Convention, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
The goal of the hacking, according to the indictment, was to “hack into computers, steal documents, and release those documents with the intent to interfere with the election.”
The hackers used spearfishing email messages to trick users into sharing sensitive information like passwords, and later the hackers installed malicious software to spy on users and steal data. The hackers concealed their efforts and connections to the Russian government by using a network of computers around the world, paid for with cryptocurrency.
Rosenstein noted that there is no allegation in the indictment that implicates any Americans in the scheme, and no evidence so far that the hacking directly influenced the election results.
The announcement comes just three days before Trump is slated to meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Finland.
