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Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. The Department of Justice has announced indictments against 12 Russians alleging they interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

We're going to talk about what those charges mean. I must my college political reporter. I'm Carrie Johnson, Justice Correspondent.

I'm feeling you're a national security editor. And I'm Aisha Roscoe. I cover the White House.

So, Carrie, this morning you rushed over to the Department of Justice because Rod Rosenstein had a fairly large announcement to make these are the allegations that were made that there were 12 Russians who interfered in the 2016 election.

Carrie, tell us exactly what's in this indictment.

We've been waiting for this, right? We've known that there's been a big investigation, and whomever hacked the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Pedesta,

and a whole bunch of other people in the course of 2016. And today we got some answers. The Justice Department identified 12 people, all members of Russian military intelligence, some of them senior members,

and the Federal Grand Jury indictment handed down in Washington, D.C., named these guys. They're charged with conspiracy, aggravated identity theft, and a number of other things.

The big question is whether they'll ever face justice here in the United States. It's very hard to get a Russian citizen extra-dited here to America. You never know what might happen.

But at the very least, the Justice Department and the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, wanted to identify the people responsible in their view for this big hack in the election year.

So fill this information with stolen from the Democratic National Committee, as well as Hillary Clinton campaign, but something Rod Rosenstein said, and during the announcement struck me, and that said he says no Americans knowingly participated in any of these crimes.

But he does seem that there was correspondence.

That's right. Yeah, that's the big coda as a part of this story, because not only is the Special Counsel's Office investigating the Russian attack on the election,

he's investigating specifically whether anyone in the Trump campaign or anyone else in the United States was a winning conspirator as part of that attack.

Mr. Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General, said today the answer for this indictment is no, but all he said was what's contained in this indictment.

The Mueller investigation is going to go forward. We don't know what else he is going to find, but the President and his allies are drawing attention to Rosenstein's comment, making clear that for the purposes of this document today,

there's no collusion, no conspiracy, and no one in the Trump campaign of the White House who's been involved with these charges.

There's no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime.

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