that the indictment does not charge that any American knowingly participated in the conspiracy, or that the conspiracy actually affected the outcome of the election. The Trumpists will pounce on this, of course. I wonder if Rosenstein is trying to save his hide by pointing this out?

But, since the indictment was directed to those 13 Russians and no one else, there would be no reason to make such a claim in this indictment. If it does turn out that Americans were involved, they would be separately charged and indicted. This indictment has to do with grass-roots activities. If high-level Trump campaign personnel were involved, that is probably still being investigated, and those people would be indicted separately.

In this indictment.

The gap in all of this is the absence of any reference to the Russian government. Why would this group undertake a conspiracy to impact the US elections if they weren't acting at the direction or and/or on behalf of the Russian government? It's just not believable that Russian government actors didn't have a hand in this and if they did, that is where the Trump campaign could come into play.

the part involving these 13 Russians' manipulating social media and organizing fake grassroots events. There was much more that the indictment didn't cover, including the DNC email hack and the contacts with Trump campaign people. I think we should anticipate more indictments.

sort of takes away that talking point.

I'm not saying that how they play it reflects the truth; I'm just predicting what they say.

I just hope that Mueller is still holding his trump card (pun intended) for later use.

I hope he and his dumbfuck family all have to seek asylum in Russia soon.

from the WH in handcuffs. Big deal.

interfere in the election at all and taint his Presidency.
This says they did.
He will ignore completely.

Completely agree - that's how they will play this. "No Collusion!" he will shout.

his buddies, that they have been cleared of any wrong doing.

Of course this tRUMP argument will fade to nothingness as his argument will fall on deaf ears, he's cried wolf too many times, and the overwhelming amount of evidence against so many defendants will be hard to ignore, with so many links between the tRUMP organization and Russian players (way too many to be pure coincidences, isn't it?).

Repeating that "No Drumpf campaign people" on this indictment will keep him from getting nervous and shutting the whole thing down before they have all the evidence in place.

But the indictment does make it clear that the there were "organizations of Russians" had an interest in getting Drumpf elected - going after those who could possibly beat him during the primaries, and by extension, the general election. It's not going to be surprising at all to a reasonable person when connections start being made between the Drumpf campaign and those backing those Russian propaganda organizations.

Haele