美国国家公共电台 NPR Justice Department Charges Russian Cyberspies With Attack On 2016 Election

 

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

All right now, back here in Washington - blockbuster charges today from the special counsel investigating Russia's election interference. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made the announcement at a news conference.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ROD ROSENSTEIN: The indictment² charges 12 Russian military officers by name for conspiring³ to interfere¹ with the 2016 presidential election.

CHANG: NPR's Carrie Johnson was there. And now she is here...

CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE⁴: (Laughter).

CHANG: ...To talk more about the case. Hey, Carrie.

JOHNSON: Hi, Ailsa.

CHANG: So what did these Russian officials allegedly do to tamper⁵ with the election?

JOHNSON: Remember; in 2016, someone hacked⁶ the email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign, specifically...

CHANG: Yeah.

JOHNSON: ...Her chairman, John Podesta. Now today a grand jury in Washington, D.C., has pointed⁷ the finger at people responsible. The grand jury says they're Russians based in military units in Russia. And the court papers say they installed software to capture people's keystrokes or...

CHANG: Wow.

JOHNSON: They fooled people into giving up their passwords, a technique called spear-phishing. Now, there's a particular detail in these charging papers that stood out to me. The papers say the Russians targeted Clinton's personal office and some staff emails on July 27, 2016. That's the same day candidate Donald Trump⁸ said, Russia, if you're listening, I hope you can find Hillary Clinton's missing emails.

CHANG: Wow - coincidence or not? Now, we noticed some of these stolen emails wound up in the hands of people inside the U.S., right? So why are no Americans charged in this indictment?

JOHNSON: We asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. He said there's no allegation in the court papers today that Americans were knowing participants in this conspiracy⁹ or any of them knew they were actually talking to Russians. The indictment does describe people who had contact with these Russians, including an unnamed congressional candidate and, maybe most interesting, a person described in the indictment as being close to members of the Trump campaign who was communicating with these hackers¹⁰. We think that's Roger Stone.

Roger Stone has acknowledged communicating with hackers, but he says he doesn't know who they were - doesn't - didn't know who they were at the time. And again, there's no charges against any of these Americans and no charges, at least for now, against an entity¹¹ we know helped distribute those stolen emails. That's WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is not mentioned by name in this indictment, but it's described as Organization One.

CHANG: Organization One - now, President Trump is preparing to meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin next Monday. So I can imagine the timing¹² of this indictment seems a little awkward. What has the White House been saying about all these charges?

JOHNSON: The White House is pointing to the fact that the Justice Department concluded there is no evidence the hacking¹³ altered the vote count or changed the outcome of the election in 2016. Lindsay Walters, a spokeswoman at the White House, says that's consistent with what Donald Trump's been saying all along. And Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, tweeted, these charges are good for America. He says the Russians have been nailed, and he says it's time for the special counsel to wrap up and exonerate¹⁵ President Trump. Well, the Justice Department says the investigation's ongoing¹⁶, and special counsel Robert Mueller won't be commenting.

CHANG: All right, so the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein - I mean, he's known as a guy who sticks to the facts. And I understand today, though, he kind of went out of his way to deliver a message. What happened?

JOHNSON: Yeah. In the closing remarks in his news conference, he said it doesn't matter that the victims in this case were Democrats¹⁷. We've got to go - rise above partisanship¹⁸. He says the blame here rests with the criminals, the Russians.

(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)

ROSENSTEIN: The blame for election interference belongs to the criminals who committed election interference. We need to work together to hold the perpetrators accountable, and we need to keep moving forward to preserve our values, protect against future interference and defend America.

JOHNSON: Now, Ailsa, right after Rod Rosenstein spoke¹⁴, the director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, put out a statement. He says the Russians have been targeting the U.S. for cyberattacks. He says the warning system is blinking red. And he says we're at a critical point. It's time to harden U.S. defenses when it comes to elections.

CHANG: All right, that's NPR Justice correspondent Carrie Johnson. Thank you, Carrie.

JOHNSON: My pleasure.

(SOUNDBITE OF ESMERINE'S "FUNAMBULE (DEUS PAS DE SEREIN)")

1 interfere   

v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰

参考例句：

• If we interfere, it may do more harm than good.如果我们干预的话，可能弊多利少。
• When others interfere in the affair,it always makes troubles. 别人一卷入这一事件，棘手的事情就来了。

2 indictment   

n.起诉；诉状

参考例句：

• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。
• They issued an indictment against them.他们起诉了他们。

3 conspiring   

密谋( conspire的现在分词 )； 搞阴谋； （事件等）巧合； 共同导致

参考例句：

• They were accused of conspiring against the king. 他们被指控阴谋反对国王。
• John Brown and his associates were tried for conspiring to overthrow the slave states. 约翰·布朗和他的合伙者们由于密谋推翻实行奴隶制度的美国各州而被审讯。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 tamper   

v.干预，玩弄，贿赂，窜改，削弱，损害

参考例句：

• Do not tamper with other's business.不要干预别人的事。
• They had strict orders not to tamper with the customs of the minorities.他们得到命令严禁干涉少数民族的风俗习惯。

6 hacked   

生气

参考例句：

• I hacked the dead branches off. 我把枯树枝砍掉了。
• I'm really hacked off. 我真是很恼火。

7 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

8 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

9 conspiracy   

n.阴谋，密谋，共谋

参考例句：

• The men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.这些人被裁决犯有阴谋杀人罪。
• He claimed that it was all a conspiracy against him.他声称这一切都是一场针对他的阴谋。

10 hackers   

n.计算机迷( hacker的名词复数 )；私自存取或篡改电脑资料者，电脑“黑客”

参考例句：

• They think of viruses that infect an organization from the outside.They envision hackers breaking into their information vaults. 他们考虑来自外部的感染公司的病毒，他们设想黑客侵入到信息宝库中。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Arranging a meeting with the hackers took weeks againoff-again email exchanges. 通过几星期电子邮件往来安排见面，他们最终同意了。 来自互联网

11 entity   

n.实体，独立存在体，实际存在物

参考例句：

• The country is no longer one political entity.这个国家不再是一个统一的政治实体了。
• As a separate legal entity,the corporation must pay taxes.作为一个独立的法律实体，公司必须纳税。

12 timing   

n.时间安排，时间选择

参考例句：

• The timing of the meeting is not convenient.会议的时间安排不合适。
• The timing of our statement is very opportune.我们发表声明选择的时机很恰当。

13 hacking   

n.非法访问计算机系统和数据库的活动

参考例句：

• The patient with emphysema is hacking all day. 这个肺气肿病人整天不断地干咳。
• We undertook the task of hacking our way through the jungle. 我们负责在丛林中开路。

14 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

15 exonerate   

v.免除责任，确定无罪

参考例句：

• Nothing can exonerate her from that.任何解释都难辞其咎。
• There is no reason to exonerate him from the ordinary duties of a citizen.没有理由免除他做公民应尽的义务。

16 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

17 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 Partisanship   

n. 党派性, 党派偏见

参考例句：

• Her violent partisanship was fighting Soames's battle. 她的激烈偏袒等于替索米斯卖气力。
• There was a link of understanding between them, more important than affection or partisanship. ' 比起人间的感情，比起相同的政见，这一点都来得格外重要。 来自英汉文学