DOJ Charges Russian With Conspiring to Disrupt 2018 Elections

Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova is accused of managing the finances of multi-million-dollar interference effort.

Kremlin pool/Zumapress

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The Justice Department on Friday filed a complaint against Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, a 44-year-old Russian national who, prosecutors allege, was the chief accountant managing the finances for Project Lakhta, Russia’s political influence operation aimed at disrupting elections in the United States and other countries. 

Khusyaynova is charged with participating in a conspiracy to disrupt US elections, including the upcoming 2018 midterms. The complaint alleges that Khusyaynova controlled millions of dollars in Project Lakhta’s operating budget, including money spent in the US on domain names, proxy servers, advertisements on social media, and more. The DOJ alleges that she managed the financing of “media and influence activities” directed at the US, the European Union, Ukraine, and Russia itself. 

Project Lakhta is an umbrella effort funded by Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prighozin and the companies he controls, Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering. In February, Special Counsel Robert Mueller charged both Concord companies and Prighozin himself with conspiring to interfere in the 2016 US election.

You can read the full complaint below:

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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