Tag Archives: Russian Indictment

Mueller Scrambles To Limit Evidence After Indicted Russians Actually Show Up In Court, by Tyler Durden

Posted on June 13, 2018 | 1 comment

Mueller’s indictment against Russian individuals and companies in February was a PR stunt. They weren’t actually supposed to emerge from Russian and challenge Mueller in court. One company did, however. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is scrambling to limit pretrial evidence handed over to a Russian company he indicted in February over alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, according to Bloomberg.

Mueller asked a Washington federal Judge for a protective order that would prevent the delivery of copious evidence to lawyers for Concord Management and Consulting, LLC, one of three Russian firms and 13 Russian nationals. The indictment accuses the firm of producing propaganda, pretending to be U.S. activists online and posting political content on social media in order to sow discord among American voters.

The special counsel’s office argues that the risk of the evidence leaking or falling into the hands of foreign intelligence services, especially Russia, would assist the Kremlin’s active “interference operations” against the United States.

“The substance of the government’s evidence identifies uncharged individuals and entities that the government believes are continuing to engage in interference operations like those charged in the present indictment,” prosecutors wrote.

Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would “allow foreign actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations,” according to the filing.

The evidence includes thousands of documents involving U.S. residents not charged with crimes who prosecutors say were unwittingly recruited by Russian defendants and co-conspirators to engage in political activity in the U.S., prosecutors wrote. –Bloomberg

Mueller also accused Concord of “knowingly and intentionally” conspiring to interfere with the election by using social media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump.

And Concord Management decided to fight it… 

To continue reading: Mueller Scrambles To Limit Evidence After Indicted Russians Actually Show Up In Court

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Mueller’s Comic Book Indictment: How to Prosecute A Great Big Nothingburger, by David Stockman

Posted on February 21, 2018 | Leave a comment

Mueller’s Russian indictment reveals just how feeble the Russian threat was to American democracy and the 2016 election. From David Stockman at davidstockmanscontracorner.com:

We have always heard that a determined government prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich, and now we know it’s true. After 38 years in the prosecution racket, Robert Mueller just made his biggest score ever—that is, he nailed a great big Nothingburger.

But he also did a lot more than that. Mueller’s 37-page comic book indictment actually unmasks—inadvertently to be sure—the distinctly un-terrifying essence of the whole Russian meddling narrative. In fact, the crude social media emissions (ads and posts) of the so-called troll farm were generally lame, often laughable and sometimes downright ludicrous as per this gem cited by Mueller:

a. On or about October 16, 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators used the ORGANIZATION-controlled Instagram account “Woke Blacks” to post the following message: “[A] particular hype and hatred for Trump is misleading the people and forcing Blacks to vote Killary. We cannot resort to the lesser of two devils. Then we’d surely be better off without voting AT ALL.”

Notwithstanding the grave nomenclature of BLOCK CAPITALS, endless sinister “on or about” events and 99 numbered paragraphs of particulars, the true bill (charging document) is actually just a random catalogue of social media trivia like the above “Woke Blacks” post.

Most of the cited gleanings amounted to crude word bombs, often in broken English, that presumably even Kim Kardashian’s 59 million Twitter followers could see through.

“Hillary is a Satan, and her crimes and lies had proved just how evil she is”

The lion’s share of these postings and ads probably disappeared into cyberspace like the sound of a falling tree in an empty forest, anyway. According to Facebook itself, the seemingly ubiquitous social media ad campaign despicted in the indictment was nothing of the kind. It actually amounted to just 3,000 placements at a cost of $100,000—more than half of which were purchased after the election, and 25% of which ended-up in its dead letter office (unread).

Likewise, the handful of efforts to actually stimulate pro-Trump rallies in Florida and elsewhere were abject failures. As we document below, the Russians had absolutely no “ground game” in the US and any third-rate campaign consultant will tell you that ads alone do not produce crowds. In fact, there is virtually no evidence that anyone showed up at the rallies cited by Mueller.

To continue reading: Mueller’s Comic Book Indictment: How to Prosecute A Great Big Nothingburger

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