The indictment of 13 Russian nationals on charges of interfering in the 2016 election, handed down today by a grand jury empaneled by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, has several ties to Texas, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Court papers obtained by 1200 WOAI news, for example, accuses two of the alleged Russian agents of traveling to Texas in 2014, collecting intellegence.
In 2016, the indictment claims the pair posed on line as Texans and spoke to what the indictment refers to as 'Texas based Grass Roots organizations.'
"Starting in or around June 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators, posing on line as U.S. persons, communicated with a real U.S. person affiliated with a Texas based grass roots organization," the indictment reads. "During the exchange, Defendants and their co-conspirators learned from the real U.S. person that they should focus their attention on 'purple states' like Colorado, Virginia, and Florida."
The Texas grass roots organization is not identified, but it is thought to be an group that supports Texas' secession from the union, because Russian agents are known to have posed as Texas secessionists on line, and set up a secessionist Facebook organization which dispensed fiery claims and disseminated 'fake news' during the campaign.