By: Philip Rucker, The Washington Post
February 17, 2018 Updated: February 17, 2018 at 7:58 pm

The hackers, he suggested, may have been Chinese. Or some 400-pound guy sitting on his bed. Again and again, he insisted, Russian interference was a hoax ...

“Russia talk is FAKE NEWS put out by the Dems, and played up by the media, in order to mask the big election defeat and the illegal leaks!” Trump tweeted last Feb. 26 ...

But Trump’s own Justice Department has concluded otherwise. A 37-page federal indictment released Friday afternoon spells out in exhaustive detail a three-year Russian plot to disrupt America’s democracy and boost Trump’s campaign, dealing a fatal blow to one of the president’s favorite talking points ...

John Brennan, who was CIA director at the time of the election, said on Twitter that the indictments reveal the extent of the Russian campaign. "Claims of a 'hoax' in tatters," he tweeted. "My take: Implausible that Russian actions did not influence the views and votes of at least some Americans" ...

http://gazette.com/trumps-russia-hoax-turns-out-to-be-real/article/1621239

MARK FOLLMAN
FEB. 17, 2018 5:44 PM

On Friday, the ongoing investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller issued an astounding 37-page indictment charging 13 Russians in a broad conspiracy to sabotage America’s 2016 elections. By Saturday, President Donald Trump and White House officials responded by tripling down on what might be called Trump’s Russia-first strategy.

Reacting to the indictment, Trump said nothing about the sophisticated multiyear operation to sow discord among US voters, or what he might do to punch back at America’s foe and stop the continuing attacks. Instead, he focused exclusively on the point that the Russian operation predated his official presidential campaign, and that this particular indictment—surely not the last from the sprawling Mueller investigation—contained no allegations of Trump campaign involvement ...

On Saturday, White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley went even further during an appearance on Fox News. He suggested that Russia was not the enemy. The enemy, he said, was within ...

Trump’s unwillingness even to acknowledge the scope of the Russian attack or suggest that he’ll do anything about it comes off as conspicuously defensive—and suggests fear of what may still be to come from Mueller, who is reportedly close to a plea deal with yet another former Trump aide, Rick Gates ...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/muellers-indictment-of-13-russians-strikes-fear-into-the-trump-white-house/

Sonam Sheth

The FBI's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 US election took a major step forward on Friday ...

And .. Mueller dealt a significant blow to one of .. Trump's central claims about the legitimacy of the investigation ...

The IRA began its efforts to interfere in the election as early as 2014 — a detail the White House pointed to as evidence that the Trump campaign was not involved, because Trump did not declare his candidacy until June 2015.

But as the campaign season got into full swing, the defendants began to engage "in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump," the court filing said ...

http://www.businessinsider.com/mueller-indictment-undermines-trump-russia-hoax-theory-2018-2

Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY
Published 11:21 a.m. ET Feb. 17, 2018 | Updated 4:31 p.m. ET Feb. 17, 2018

For two years, Donald Trump — as both candidate and president — has frequently dismissed the notion of Russian meddling in U.S. elections as a "hoax" and even denigrated heads of U.S. intelligence agencies for suggesting otherwise.

At times he has also taken Russian President Vladimir Putin's word on the issue ...

In August 2017, at a rally in Huntington, W.V., Trump even mocked the notion of Russian meddling, calling the allegations as made-up to explain Hillary Clinton's loss in the presidential elections.

"The Russia story is a total fabrication," he said. "It is just an excuse for the greatest loss in the history of American politics. That's all it is" ...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/02/17/trumps-claims-russian-meddling-hoax-hit-choppy-waters-fbi-indictments/347931002/

By Jonah Shepp
February 17, 2018
9:00 am

The White House on Thursday issued a statement blaming the NotPetya cyberattack, which centered on Ukraine but affected computers around the world, on the Russian government and promising that Russia would face “international consequences” because of it.

The statement, coming hours after the U.K. government also accused the Kremlin of orchestrating the attack last June, marked the first time the Trump administration has formally attributed a major international malware attack to Russia. The Washington Post reported in January that the CIA had connected NotPetya to Russia’s military intelligence agency, GRU, which has conducted a number of cyberwarfare operations in Ukraine as part of the frozen conflict the Kremlin has been fomenting in eastern Ukraine since 2014 ...

Despite the strong language <Sarah> Sanders used to describe the attack, it is not yet clear what these “international consequences” will be. President Donald Trump has resisted efforts to impose new sanctions on Russia, a country in which he is known to have done extensive business, over its meddling in the 2016 election. The administration is dragging its feet on implementing sanctions that Congress voted to impose last year. Whether it will be more willing to sanction Russia over NotPetya remains to be seen ...

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/white-house-condemns-russian-hacking-that-doesnt-benefit-trump.html