White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters issued the following statement in reaction to today’s indictment of twelve Russians for their election activities in 2016.
“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,” Walters said. “This is consistent with what we have been saying all along.”
In other words, even after having read all the evidence provided in the indictments, the White House is still skeptical of the work of their own FBI and Department of Justice. They’re still saying that it is merely allegation that the Democrats were hacked at all.
That’s a risible and insufferable response. It’s doubtful that the defendants will ever have to appear in an American court and answer for what they did, so we may never get to see the Special Counsel’s evidence challenged. We can’t assume they can prove every allegation beyond a reasonable doubt, but we should at least be able to concede that they’ve proven that the hacks actually occurred.
As for the White House’s other defenses, it is of course not within the purvey of the Special Counsel’s office to try to figure out how many votes were flipped due to Russia’s multifarious attempts to help Trump win and if anyone on the Trump campaign was involved that evidence will be spelled out in separate indictments.