Shmuley Ben Shekelheim New York Times July 22, 2018
WASHINGTON — The special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election issued an indictment of Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday in the sinking of a Missouri duck boat. The indictment came as no shock to many close to the duck boat investigation, though America is reeling from learning that the President of Russia was hiding out in a submergible pod in a Missouri lake waiting to sink a duck boat.
The 29-page indictment is the most detailed accusation by the American government to date of the Russian government’s interference in American duck boat tours, and it includes a litany of brazen Russian subterfuge operations meant to foment chaos in the Missouri lake.
The indictment details a vigorous and complex effort by Russia’s dictatorial leader to sabotage “Ride the Ducks” and other operations at the lake. It accuses Mr. Putin of murdering the 17 people who drowned in the boat, most of whom were African American. It states that Mr. Putin used an advanced sound weapon to destabilize the craft, and notes that Putin watched the victims sink with “giddy glee.”
The timing of the indictment, by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, added a jolt of tension to the already freighted atmosphere surrounding the fallout of Mr. Trump’s Helsinki summit with Mr. Putin. It is all but certain to feed into the conspiratorial views held by the president and some of his allies that Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors are determined to undermine Mr. Trump’s designs for a rapprochement with Russia.
The indictment was based on an image posted on the Twitter page of the Reagan Battalion, a traditional conservative group which opposes President Trump because of his attacks on multiculturalism and transsexuals in the military. The photo shows Mr. Putin in a submergible pod watching the duck boat sink.
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