FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Defendant’s Court Filing Adds to Mueller’s Russiagate Problems
May 15, 2018 (EIRNS)—Concord Management and Consulting, one of the three Russian companies and 13 individuals indicted last February by Robert Mueller for allegedly interfering in U.S. elections, called the Special Counsel’s bluff last week by pleading not guilty and demanding a trial, which Mueller never expected.
Yesterday, lawyers for the accused company upped the ante, filing a motion with the court seeking discovery of the information used by Mueller’s team to get that indictment. They argue that the information contained in the prosecutor’s legal instructions to the grand jury will prove to the Court that the case is a fraud and should be thrown out.
Concord’s filing deliciously rips into the entire set-up.
Never before has the Department of Justice issued such an indictment for “an alleged conspiracy by a foreign corporation to ‘interfere’ in a Presidential election by allegedly funding free speech,” lawyers Eric Dubelier and Katherine Seikaly wrote. “The obvious reason for this is that no such crime exists in the federal criminal code.”
But now, they continue,
“the Deputy Attorney General ... has rejected the history and integrity of the DOJ, and instead licensed a Special Counsel who for all practical political purposes cannot be fired, to indict a case that has absolutely nothing to do with any links or coordination between any candidate and the Russian Government. The reason is obvious, and is political: to justify his own existence, the Special Counsel has to indict a Russian—any Russian.”
A footnote by the defense lawyers mocks the clumsy procedure, recalling the Humphrey Bogart movie “Casablanca,” in which Rick/Bogart’s ally Captain Renault bellows, “Round up the usual suspects!”
The defendants’ motion says the charges were based on allegations that Concord Management “engaged in the make-believe crime of conspiring to ‘interfere’ in a U.S. election....”
A status hearing on the case will be held May 16.
