Fine People On Both Sides UPDATE: Guccifer 2.0 Was a Russian Intelligence Officer
EXCLUSIVE: Lone DNC Hacker Guccifer 2.0 Slipped Up and Revealed He Was a Russian Intelligence Officer
Robert Muellers team has taken over the investigation of Guccifer 2.0, who communicated with (and was defended by) longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone.
SPENCER ACKERMAN
KEVIN POULSEN
03.22.18 7:00 PM ET
https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-lone-dnc-hacker-guccifer-20-slipped-up-and-revealed-he-was-a-russian-intelligence-officer
Guccifer 2.0, the lone hacker who took credit for providing WikiLeaks with stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee, was in fact an officer of Russias military intelligence directorate (GRU), The Daily Beast has learned. Its an attribution that resulted from a fleeting but critical slip-up in GRU tradecraft.
That forensic determination has substantial implications for the criminal probe into potential collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia. The Daily Beast has learned that the special counsel in that investigation, Robert Mueller, has taken over the probe into Guccifer and brought the FBI agents who worked to track the persona onto his team.
While its unclear what Mueller plans to do with Guccifer, his last round of indictments charged 13 Russians tied to the Internet Research Agency troll farm with a conspiracy for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016. It was Muellers first move establishing Russian interference in the election within a criminal context, but it stopped short of directly implicating the Putin regime.
Muellers office declined to comment for this story. But the attribution of Guccifer 2.0 as an officer of Russias largest foreign intelligence agency would cross the Kremlin thresholdand move the investigation closer to Trump himself.