Odds are if you were plugged in online to the 2016 election in Colorado, you were exposed to a political advertisement purchased by Russians, or a social media post from a fake account run by their sophisticated underground operation and not by a real person.

Even for those Coloradans who are certain such online drivel didn’t influence their vote that year, it can be an unsettling feeling to know a foreign government was messing with our politics and even interacting with us on social media as the nation waged an intense debate.

U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians last Friday on charges including conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and identity theft.

The Denver Post’s John Frank reviewed a database of tweets sent by those identified as fake accounts run by the Russian infrastructure, predominantly the Internet Research Agency, and found numerous instances where the fake accounts targeted Colorado politics.

Rick Turnquist, a libertarian voice in Colorado, told Frank he was surprised to learn a fake account had retweeted one of his anti-Hillary Clinton tweets during the election.

“I completely believe that the Russians are capable of interfering in our elections and they probably do,” he said.

Meanwhile, Frank also found that Colorado media organizations ran 14 stories in 2016 and 2017 that quoted, cited or included tweets from fake Russian accounts.

It’s the size of the operation and its scope that should have us all concerned. The indictment noted that the Internet Research Agency had a multimillion-dollar budget and hundreds of workers. Some of the money used to fund the Russian operation went through fraudulent bank accounts set up to disguise where the money was coming from.

“This indictment serves as a reminder that people are not always who they appear to be on the internet,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said last Friday. “The indictment alleges that the Russian conspirators want to promote discord in the United States and undermine public confidence in democracy. We must not allow them to succeed.”

Sadly, instead of uniting America against a common enemy — Russia — this has become another point of division.

In Colorado, Trump supporters who hide behind anonymous online accounts were quick to also disparage the indictment and investigation. Their refusal to accept evidence that a wealthy man with strong ties to President Vladimir Putin funneled millions of dollars to America to influence the election strikes us as self-serving and dishonest.

This investigation must hit these online personalities (some of whom have thousands of followers) on two fronts: These trolls enjoy the safety of the same anonymity that allowed the Russian bots to operate without accountability, and it is news that reflects poorly on their candidate of choice.

President Donald Trump finds himself in the same trap. He should punish Russia for these nefarious actions. He could start by imposing the sanctions on Russia that a nearly united Congress supported through official legislation. Or he could stop trying to pretend like the Russian interference didn’t occur and decry what were obviously nefarious international efforts to persuade American voters. Trump’s inability to do any of those things only raises suspicion that when he tweets “no collusion” he’s not being entirely honest.

We hope Coloradans, unlike Trump, can heed the warnings in these indictments and not let others divide us even further.

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