IF ALL America can be said to have been under attack when hijackers turned four airliners on it in 2001, the assault Russian agents launched on American democracy in 2016 represented a full-blown war. The 12 fresh charges against Russian intelligence officers unveiled by the deputy attorney-general, Rod Rosenstein, on July 13th, offered a few important new details about that attack, confirmed many long-held fears, and suggested there may be much more of the scandal to unfold.

A previous round of indictments against Russian hackers, which then as now sprang from the investigations of Robert Mueller, the special counsel who is investigating the Russian attack, suggested it was audacious and flagrant but relatively limited. It focused on a godless Russian effort to flood social media with images of Jesus rooting for Donald Trump and Satan for Hillary Clinton. The latest indictment points to a much more complicated, multifarious effort to swing the election for Mr Trump.

It included hacking the computer systems of Mrs Clinton’s campaign team and party, via the offices of the Democratic National Committee, and also those of a state election authority. The Russians executed their manipulation through various means, including “spear phishing”—which involves using fabricated e-mail addresses—as well as money-laundering and peddling stolen data to Republican candidates and their supporters.

According to Mr Rosenstein—who is overseeing the Mueller investigation because his boss, Jeff Sessions, was forced to recused himself after being caught lying about his own secret communications with Russians—the 12 suspects: “covertly monitored the computers, implanted hundreds of files containing malicious computers code, and stole e-mails and other documents.”

Among the details of the plot previously suspected, Mr Rosenstein appeared to refer to the lead role in the plot played by Wikileaks, an anarchist website run by the fugitive Julian Assange, in disseminating the stolen goods. “In addition to releasing documents directly to the public, the defendants transferred stolen documents to another organisation, not named in the indictment, and discussed timing the release of the documents in an attempt to enhance the impact on the election.”

The indictment is also believed to refer to the long-suspected though perhaps unwitting role played by Roger Stone, a right-wing agitator and close advisor to Mr Trump. The hackers, the indictment reported, were in touch with “a person who was in regular contact with senior members of the [Trump] presidential campaign.”

Perhaps the most stunning new detail concerns Mr Trump’s own, also perhaps unwitting, role in the attack on America. While campaigning in Florida, on July 27th, he made a public appeal to Russian hackers to trawl for Mrs Clinton’s e-mails: “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.” Without referring to that outrage, the indictment notes that the Russians, all of whom belong to a Kremlin-linked Russian cyber-espionage unit called GRU, launched their first effort to break into Mrs Clinton’s office computer system that very day.

The indictment points to previously unsuspected collusion—again, perhaps unwitting—between the Russians and opportunistic Americans. “On or about August 15, 2016, the conspirators…received a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress,” the indictment reports, without naming the candidate. “The conspirators … sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate’s opponent.”

Even so, Mr Rosenstein took pains to note that the indictment included no allegation of lawbreaking by any American citizen. Nor, he said, did it fall within the bounds of Mr Mueller’s mandate to suggest whether the Russian effort swung the election for Mr Trump or not. Yet that was not to say there will be no further indictments, including of Americans. To the contrary, they seem extremely likely. Nor did it mean the Russian attack was insufficient to account for the paper-thin margin of Mr Trump’s freakish victory.

Mr Mueller’s small investigative team had delivered outstanding value for money even before this latest coup. It has now filed more than 100 criminal charges against 32 people and three companies. They include 26 Russian agents and four senior members of Mr Trump’s campaign team, three of whom have already pleaded guilty. This has been achieved at an estimated cost of around $10m. The 9/11 Commission’s report into the hijacking attack, to put that in some sort of context, cost $15m.

Yet the comparison is mainly instructive because of the way the 9/11 report and its sober reception represented a scrupulously bipartisan effort to uncover the truth of a national disaster. The same, tragically, cannot be said of the toxic political atmosphere in which Mr Mueller is working. “I think that we’re being hurt very badly by the, I would call it the witch hunt; I would call it the rigged witch hunt,” Mr. Trump said of his investigation, a few hours before the latest indictment was unveiled.

The president also fretted that Mr Mueller was inconveniencing his own one-man effort to cosy up to America’s aggressor, Vladimir Putin, whom Mr Trump is due to meet mano a mano in Helsinki on July 16th. “I think [Mr Mueller’s investigation] really hurts our country and it really hurts our relationship with Russia.”

After the indictment landed, the White House released a statement which made no mention of the awful and dazzlingly successful attack on American democracy it described. It mainly noted that the indictment had not attributed Mr Trump’s victory to the Russians: “This is consistent with what we have been saying all along.”

Mr Trump’s political-accomplice-turned-lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, meanwhile suggested that, as the indictment showed “no Americans are involved”, Mr Mueller’s investigation should be promptly shut down. That, at least, has probably now got a bit harder for Mr Trump to do.

Oh to be alive in such an age.