Below is a statement from DNC Chair Tom Perez on the indictments issued on Friday. You can see the actual indictment here.
As you’ve probably seen, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has announced the indictment of 12 Russian nationals for their involvement in cyberattacks during the 2016 election.
Here are the facts: the Russian government attacked our democracy in 2016 and the Democratic National Committee was a primary target of this attack.
Donald Trump has been desperately calling this investigation a witch hunt. But once again, we have have cold, hard proof that he’s absolutely wrong. This is not a witch hunt. This is not a joke. And this is far from over.
Today’s indictment makes clear just how vast this operation was, with details such as Russian intelligence officers’ intrusion into the website of a state election board and the theft of information related to approximately 500,000 voters.
It’s long past time for Trump and his allies in the Republican Party to stop ignoring this urgent threat to our national security.
Putin’s goal is to destabilize America and its alliances, and Trump has done his bidding every step of the way. This is Putin’s compensation for helping put Donald Trump in office.
Let’s not forget: On July 27, 2016, Donald Trump said quote, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you find the 30,000 emails that are missing”
That same day, the conspirators named in these indictments attempted to spearfish email accounts used by Clinton’s personal office. How many coincidences do you need before you stop calling it a coincidence?
President Trump should cancel his meeting with Putin on Monday. In fact, he should never have taken the meeting to begin with. We have no idea what Trump hopes to gain from this meeting, but we have every reason to believe that it’s not in America’s best interest. Donald Trump looks out for one person and one person only: himself.
But if he does go, he should do nothing less than hand Putin these indictments and demand immediate extradition of the indicted individuals.
The American people deserve to know the truth and the Special Counsel’s investigation is ongoing. The Kremlin’s efforts to disrupt our electoral process have grave implications for our democracy. Donald Trump and his Republican enablers’ efforts to discredit these established facts only embolden Putin’s Russia and invite further attacks on our country.
This is about more than the DNC. It’s about the integrity of American democracy.