WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - A federal grand jury on Friday approved the first charges in the
investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential
election, a source briefed on the matter told Reuters.
The
indictment was sealed under orders from a federal judge so it was not clear
what the charges were or who the target was, the source said, adding that it
could be unsealed as early as Monday.
The filing
of charges by the grand jury in Washington was first reported on Friday by CNN,
which said the target could be taken into custody as soon as Monday.
U.S.
intelligence agencies concluded in January that Russia interfered in the
election to try to help President Donald Trump defeat Democratic candidate
Hillary Clinton through a campaign of hacking and releasing embarrassing
emails, and disseminating propaganda via social media to discredit her
campaign.
Special
counsel Robert Mueller, a former director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, is investigating whether Trump campaign officials colluded with
those Russian efforts.
“If the
Special Counsel finds it necessary and appropriate, the Special Counsel is
authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these
matters,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in a May 17 letter
appointing Mueller.
Sources
familiar with Mueller’s investigation said he has used that broad authority to
investigate links between Trump aides and foreign governments as well as
possible money laundering, tax evasion and other financial crimes.
Peter Carr,
a spokesman for Mueller, declined to comment on Friday.
Trump, a
Republican who was elected president last November, has denied allegations that
his campaign colluded with Russians and condemned investigations into the
matter as “a witch hunt”.
The Kremlin
has denied the allegations.
Mueller’s investigation
also includes an effort to determine whether Trump or any of his aides tried to
obstruct justice.
The special
counsel’s team has conducted interviews with former White House chief of staff
Reince Priebus, former spokesman Sean Spicer and other current and former White
House officials.
In July, FBI
agents raided the home in Virginia of Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul
Manafort, whose financial and real estate dealings and prior work for a
pro-Russian political party in Ukraine are being investigated by Mueller’s
team.
Mueller was
appointed to lead the investigation a week after Trump fired FBI Director James
Comey, who was heading a federal probe into possible collusion with Russia.
Trump
initially said he fired Comey because his leadership of the FBI was inadequate
and hurt morale, but in a later interview with NBC he cited “this Russia thing”
as his reason.
SHADOW
The Russia
investigation has cast a shadow over Trump’s nine-month-old presidency and
widened the partisan rift between Republicans and Democrats.
Republican
lawmakers earlier this week launched investigations to examine several of
Trump’s longstanding political grievances, including the FBI probe of Hillary
Clinton’s emails and her alleged role in a sale of U.S. uranium to a Russian
firm.
Mueller’s
team has also investigated Michael Flynn, who was an adviser to Trump’s
campaign and later briefly served as his national security adviser.
Flynn was
fired from that post in February after misleading Vice President Mike Pence
about the extent of his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak
last year.
While he was
on Trump’s campaign team, Flynn also had a $600,000 contract from a Turkish
businessman to help discredit U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen,
accused by Turkey’s government of instigating a failed coup in July 2016.
Former CIA
director James Woolsey, who was also an adviser to the Trump campaign, has
alleged that Flynn discussed with the businessman and two Turkish government
ministers the idea of covertly spiriting Gulen out of the United States to face
charges in Turkey.
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