Rudy Giuliani touts Russian hacking indictments as 'good news for all Americans'
President Donald Trump has yet to directly respond to the newly announced indictments of Russian intelligence officers for hacking Democrats during the 2016 election, but his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, cheered the results as "good news for all Americans."
Giuliani tweeted a statement saying that the indictments, announced by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, show that Trump should be vindicated in the election interference probe.
"The indictments Rod Rosenstein announced are good news for all Americans. The Russians are nailed. No Americans are involved. Time for Mueller to end this pursuit of the President and say President Trump is completely innocent," Giuliani said in his tweet.
The White House echoed some of those sentiments.
"Today’s 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," deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters releasing a statement.
She also emphasized that the indictment did not allege that any American citizen committed a crime, that Americans knew that they were corresponding with Russians, or that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result.
The indictment, announced hours ago by Rosenstein, targets 12 Russian intelligence officers for engaging in a sustained effort to hack networks of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee, and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. All 12 are members of the GRU, Russia's intelligence service, according to the court filing.
The charges come just days before President Donald Trump is set to meet with Russia's President Vladimir Putin and on the same day that Trump, on a trip to the United Kingdom, again called the investigation a "witch hunt."
Rosenstein said he had briefed President Trump on the indictment earlier this week, adding that although Americans corresponded with the indicted Russians, in this case no Americans knowingly conspired with Russian intelligence officers.
