A Brief Summary of Volume I of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Report, Part 1:

Volume I of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report revealed that “[t]he Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election” (1. Volume I, Page 1). The Russian Government first “carried out the earliest Russian interference operations” through means of their Internet Research Agency (IRA) using “social media accounts and interest groups to sow discord in the U.S. political system through what it termed “information warfare.”” (1. Volume I, Page 4). “The IRA’ s operation also included the purchase of political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities, as well as the staging of political rallies inside the United States… [however, there was no] evidence that any U.S. persons conspired or coordinated with the IRA. (1. Volume I, Page 4). In addition to the IRA, “the Russian government employed a second form of interference: cyber intrusions (hacking) and releases of hacked materials damaging to the Clinton Campaign. The Russian intelligence service known as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the G­eneral Staff of the Russian Army (GRU) carried out these operations.” (1. Volume I, Page 4). “The GRU stole hundreds of thousands of documents from” the Clinton Campaign, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) (1. Volume I, Page 4). “On June 14, 2016, a cybersecurity firm and the DNC announced that Russian government hackers had infiltrated the DNC and obtained access to opposition research on candidate Trump, among other documents… [and] [o]n July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks posted thousands of internal DNC documents revealing information about the Clinton Campaign.” (1. Volume I, Page 6). “On October 7, 2016… WikiLeaks made its second release: thousands of John Podesta’s emails that had been stolen by the GRU in late March 2016.” (1. Volume I, Page 7).

“Many of the individuals and entities involved in the social media campaign have been charged [see United States v. Internet Research Agency] with participating in a conspiracy to defraud the United States by undermining through deceptive acts the work of federal agencies charged with regulating foreign influence in U.S. elections, as well as related counts of identity theft.” (1. Volume I, Page 9). Additionally, “Russian intelligence officers who carried out the hacking into Democratic Party computers and the personal email accounts of individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign” have been charged in United States v. Netyksho (1. Volume I, Page 9). “A federal grand jury… returned [the] indictment charging Russian military intelligence officers from the GRU with conspiring to hack into various U.S. computers used by the Clinton Campaign, DNC, DCCC, and other U.S. persons,… committing identity theft and conspiring to commit money laundering in furtherance of that hacking conspiracy,… [and] conspiracy to hack into the computers of U.S. persons and entities responsible for the administration of the 2016 U.S. election.” (1. Volume I, Page 175). As of today, the defendants remain at large (1. Volume I, Page 175).

1. https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf