Opens to Video narrated by British correspondent for CNN Moscow bureau.
[CNN] As both a prosecutor and defense attorney, I have written and reviewed many indictments. Though often brimming with legalese, they are designed by prosecutors to tell a compelling and detailed crime story. The indictment announced Friday in the Mueller investigation told just such a story -- of Russian attempts to sabotage the American presidential election.
If the allegations of the indictment prove true, it seems probable that the Russians were successful in their multimillion-dollar effort to influence the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Of course the answer to this complex question will never be definitively known. Polling cannot tell us whether voters might have chosen differently if the Russian influence operation hadn't happened.
What is known, however, is that the election was close and voter shifts in just a few significant states could have changed the Electoral College vote count in a presidential election in which Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.