Elena Khusyaynova, the Russian woman U.S. officials charged Friday with managing the finances behind an attempt to interfere in U.S. elections, appeared in a video online Monday proclaiming her innocence and poking fun at the allegations against her.
CNN:
"American officials are saying it is I who elected US President Donald Trump for the Americans. They are also saying that I will elect the US lawmakers for the Americans in November 2018. What can I say? I'm just a Russian woman," she says in the video.
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[Khusyaynova] is accused on working as the lead accounting manager for a collection of Russian companies including the Federal News Agency, which posted the video. Those companies allegedly formed a years-long effort to plant social media posts that would drive conservative and liberal Americans apart from one another.
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In the video, posted on YouTube Monday, Khusyaynova appears to be exasperated and recites a prepared statement. Wearing a white button-down shirt and black vest with a microphone clipped to it, Khusyaynova sits at a desk in front of notebooks, a lamp and a computer. She sighs several times in the two-minute video.
Khusyaynova said she knows accounting, how to raise children and how to "operate a collective fish farm." She does not speak English, she says in Russian.
Khusyaynova, a 44-year-old St. Petersburg resident, has allegedly worked for the propaganda operation since 2014 and oversaw its $35 million budget from 2016 to 2018, according to the Justice Department.
Behind her, the Federal News Agency's logo is tacked to a bulletin board.
"I was shocked to hear that me, just a simple Russian accountant, elected a US president instead of Americans, and will soon elect their lawmakers. I was amazed but then my heart filled with pride," she says in the video. "Turns out that a simple Russian woman like me can help the citizens of a super power to elect their President, I just need to make a wish."
Woman charged in aiding propaganda scheme: I'm 'just a simple Russian accountant' (CNN)