"There is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity," Rosenstein said, adding there "there is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election."
Good news!
"No allegations" at this time. Whether he says so or not, that's the full implication of the indictments.
Let's examine. "No allegation . . . that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election."
I think it was some time in the early 1980s when statistical evidence passed muster to introduce it in a court of law.
At the same time, looking back at our own history of similar psy-war operations against Russia and other entities, with CIA-funded researchers in major universities publishing more innocent work in "Public Opinion Quarterly" until the Church Committee hearings, statistical analysis was critical to making operations effective and successful. Now . . the only statistics that would be available would likely be those gathered by the Russians as they proceeded with multiple campaign projects directed at state battlegrounds of particular value and interest. One would have to totally reconstruct their data-gathering in a context of a known strategy about the battlegrounds, available media and other factors. Or -- the Russians themselves would need to be available to comment or testify with authority. But these 13 indicted Russians? That wasn't their job. They could report data, but they wouldn't be able to analyze it in the appropriate context.
There are two standards for reaching the Truth: a scientific approach which always admits that a working theory could still be wrong and some uncertainty as to the hypothetical judgments toward some conclusion, and a legal approach. The legal approach has always been warned to be inaccurate, since the justice system is biased and skewed toward protection of the innocent. This is why "not guilty" verdicts do not mean that the accused didn't really do the crime, but rather that a legal standard of evidence proving lack of any reasonable doubt had not been met.
The mere fact that there are 13 indictments in an ongoing investigation confirms that the investigation has new ongoing life. If indications turn up that any of the 13, or any of the X unindicted people known or not yet known -- had collaborative contact with campaign personnel, then you can see things turn in that direction. And given Trump's own contact with Russian oligarchs, it could eventually drop in his lap.
By inference, which can be weak on the reasonable doubt count, Trump himself publicly invited the Russians to pursue psy-war projects against Clinton. And he is obsessed with there being "no collusion -- no collusion -- no collusion!"
The argument that the psy-war campaign began in 2014 -- therefore not specific to the campaign and consequently "no collusion" -- is absurd. Trump is trying to establish an argument of a time-line that isn't relevant to anything. And Trump has been a major figure since the Birth Movement: the Russians certainly would've analyzed that aberration as a matter of the social science behind their known psy-war strategy.
The sense of relief -- or the argument put forward -- that "there's no proof that the psy-war meddling affected the outcome of the election" -- is a sucker's ploy. You have a hard time proving it, but were there enough evidence to prove it statistically, it would be an uphill battle to pass muster in court, or at least in some courtrooms. Instead, it is a refuge sought by pro-GOP pundits, politicians and operatives to assure the Base of legitimacy, and a courtroom fallback from reality.
Yet our own national security apparatus no less than the KGB and its successor agency have a long history of measuring impacts on public opinion and directing orchestrated information campaigns in interaction with the data collection.
An early Director of CIA, Walter Bedell Smith, had said that "propaganda was an effective prophylactic," and would help greatly in reducing armaments expenditures. The Russians merely caught up, and are speedily surpassing in a new realm of media that wasn't imagined during Smith's time.
But the GOP argument is as shabby or more so than "hanging chads." You can seek legal refuge in the nature of the existing evidence or the uncertainty, but it's only an argument to stay in power. It is not an argument for the Truth.