Russian charged with conspiring to interfere in US congressional elections

The Khusyaynova case is being prosecuted by assistant U.S. attorneys in the Eastern District of Virginia. It is not being handled by Mueller because it touches on the 2018 elections, which is not part of his remit, the government official said.

Khusyaynova oversaw the financial operations for the project, which had a proposed budget of $35 million for January 2016 to June 2018 and used those funds to wage similar campaigns in the European Union and Ukraine, in addition to the United States.

"It is a global campaign for a regime that views democracy as an existential threat," said John Carlin, former U.S. Assistant Attorney General for National Security.

Khusyaynova, who is a resident of St. Petersburg, Russia, and is not in U.S. custody, billed Prigozhin and his companies to pay for advertisements on Facebook, bloggers, and for "development accounts" on Twitter, the complaint says.

Prigozhin has been dubbed "Putin's cook" by Russian media because his catering business has organized banquets for the Russian leader and other senior political figures. He has been hit with sanctions by the U.S. government.

The criminal complaint said there was no evidence that Khusyaynova or others in the conspiracy succeeded in impacting the outcome of any U.S. election.

In their joint statement on Friday the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Justice Department, FBI and Department of Homeland Security also said they did not have any evidence that anyone went far enough to prevent voting or change vote counts. Some state and local governments, which run polling sites, have reported attempts to access their networks, but officials were able to "prevent access or quickly mitigate these attempts," the statement said.

Mueller's office has not announced any new indictments since July when it charged 12 Russian intelligence officers who were accused of hacking Democratic computer networks as part of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

Mueller has been widely expected to remain quiet in the run-up to the November elections to avoid actions that might sway votes.

But the decision to unseal the Khusyaynova case now appears to reflect changes to Justice Department guidelines last month instructing U.S. attorneys to lean towards disclosing foreign influence operations as a means of deterrence, Carlin said.

The Khusyaynova case shows "in detail that when we talk about Russian interference it is not something in history it is now," Carlin said. "Making it public is an important way to neutralize them."