***To read the full blog, please check out the complete post on NewsBusters***
The Special Counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election dropped federal indictments on 13 Russian nationals on Friday, stunning Washington, DC. And in a press briefing a short time later, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told the media that the indictments had no allegations against Americans because none were “knowing participants” in the plot and the election outcome was not swayed. But that didn’t sit well with a CNN Newsroom panel who couldn’t seem to wrap their heads around it.
Before introducing the panel, host Pamela Brown played a clip of Rosenstein articulating what was in the indictments:
Russians also recruited and paid real Americans to engage in political activities, promote political campaigns, and stage political rallies. The defendants and their co-conspirators pretended to be grassroots activists. According to the indictment, the Americans did not know that they were communicating with Russians. [video skips] Now there is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity. There is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.
After chiding how the White House had “latched onto” “the fact” that a few Trump campaign aids unwittingly worked with Russians, Brown wondered to White House Correspondent Sara Murray: “So you can imagine that the White House would want to come out and say, ‘look, doesn't this show there's no collusion?’ But can they come out and say that?”
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