Judge rejects Mueller's request for delay in Russian troll farm case

[Dashinka 24,765]

A federal judge has rejected special counsel Robert Mueller’s request to delay the first court hearing in a criminal case charging three Russian companies and 13 Russian citizens with using social media and other means to foment strife among Americans in advance of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In a brief order Saturday evening, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich offered no explanation for her decision to deny a request prosecutors made Friday to put off the scheduled Wednesday arraignment for Concord Management and Consulting, one of the three firms charged in the case.

 

The 13 people charged in the high-profile indictment in February are considered unlikely to ever appear in a U.S. court. The three businesses accused of facilitating the alleged Russian troll farm operation — the Internet Research Agency, Concord Management, and Concord Catering — were also expected to simply ignore the American criminal proceedings.

Last month, however, a pair of Washington-area lawyers suddenly surfaced in the case, notifying the court that they represent Concord Management. POLITICO reported at the time that the move appeared to be a bid to force Mueller’s team to turn over relevant evidence to the Russian firm and perhaps even to bait prosecutors into an embarrassing dismissal in order to avoid disclosing sensitive information.

 

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/04/mueller-russia-interference-election-case-delay-570627

[jg121783 3,921]

3 hours ago, Bill & Katya said:

POLITICO reported at the time that the move appeared to be a bid to force Mueller’s team to turn over relevant evidence to the Russian firm and perhaps even to bait prosecutors into an embarrassing dismissal in order to avoid disclosing sensitive information

 

Talk about spin. How dare a defendant in a criminal case use their due process right to discovery. In fact how dare they even show up for court at all to defend themselves. How about we call it how it is. Mueller was shown to be a fraud twice in court in the last few days. First a judge called him out for lying to obtain a warrant against Manifort (which by the way is a felony) among other things. Then in a frivolous case he brought against entities he was counting on not showing up to defend themselves they did show up and asked for discovery. I expect Mueller to weasel his way out of that by dropping the case. Also it looks like the case against Flynn is falling apart. By the way the only reason he pled guilty is because he couldn't afford the massive amount of money it takes to properly defend yourself in a case like this. It's pretty low to target someone for political reasons who served his country and try to bankrupt him with frivilous court actions. I expect the news cycle to shift away from Mueller for a while and go back to Stormy Daniels or some other irrelevant nonsense.

[Dashinka 24,765]

54 minutes ago, jg121783 said:

 

Talk about spin. How dare a defendant in a criminal case use their due process right to discovery. In fact how dare they even show up for court at all to defend themselves. How about we call it how it is. Mueller was shown to be a fraud twice in court in the last few days. First a judge called him out for lying to obtain a warrant against Manifort (which by the way is a felony) among other things. Then in a frivolous case he brought against entities he was counting on not showing up to defend themselves they did show up and asked for discovery. I expect Mueller to weasel his way out of that by dropping the case. Also it looks like the case against Flynn is falling apart. By the way the only reason he pled guilty is because he couldn't afford the massive amount of money it takes to properly defend yourself in a case like this. It's pretty low to target someone for political reasons who served his country and try to bankrupt him with frivilous court actions. I expect the news cycle to shift away from Mueller for a while and go back to Stormy Daniels or some other irrelevant nonsense.

Add to that John Kerry completely ignoring the Logan Act and Hillary Clinton's collusion with the Russians, and we see the top dogs from the DNC doing everything they want to get Trump or members of his team for.

 

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Wonder if the Mueller team is going to turn over their evidence to the lawyers for the defendants?

 

Judges in Virginia and Washington have the special counsel reeling.

Well sure, we filed an indictment. And yeah, we took a victory lap in the big bells-n-whistles Main Justice press conference. But that doesn’t mean we, like, intended to have a trial . . .

That seems to be the Justice Department’s position on its mid-February publicity stunt, the indictment of 13 Russians and three Russian businesses for interfering in the 2016 election.

 

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/robert-mueller-tough-week-court-manafort/

[Dashinka 24,765]

Just another analysis of the snafu the Mueller team and Rosenstein started.  Apparently, Mueller isn't all that smart.  If the judge rules for discovery, can Mueller be charged with colluding with the Russians?

 

https://spectator.org/robert-muellers-gaping-self-inflicted-wound/

[Dashinka 24,765]

Very interesting case.  I wonder what Mueller thought when he started down this path.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/05/14/russian-company-indicted-by-mueller-says-charge-is-baseless.html

[TBoneTX 46,058]

Just need the right people righteously fighting back, and the appropriate chickens will come home to roost.

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

On ‎5‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 12:20 PM, Bill & Katya said:

Just another analysis of the snafu the Mueller team and Rosenstein started.  Apparently, Mueller isn't all that smart.  If the judge rules for discovery, can Mueller be charged with colluding with the Russians?

 

https://spectator.org/robert-muellers-gaping-self-inflicted-wound/

The judge has to rule for discovery that is the law. You can not just put someone on trial without them knowing the evidence that you have.

 

But this indictment in the beginning was a show indictment meant to look good for the media and hopefully get a judgement with the defendants being tried in absentia. But now that attorneys for the defendants showed up the prosecutors are left looking like asses. Why would you need more time for more evidence if your the prosecution?????

[Dashinka 24,765]

17 hours ago, cyberfx1024 said:

The judge has to rule for discovery that is the law. You can not just put someone on trial without them knowing the evidence that you have.

 

But this indictment in the beginning was a show indictment meant to look good for the media and hopefully get a judgement with the defendants being tried in absentia. But now that attorneys for the defendants showed up the prosecutors are left looking like asses. Why would you need more time for more evidence if your the prosecution?????

Absolutely agree.  I wonder if this will end up in a dismissal of the indictment.

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

33 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

Absolutely agree.  I wonder if this will end up in a dismissal of the indictment.

I don't know in all honesty we shall see. But if they keep trying to stall then the judge might just dismiss it until they have more evidence.

[Dashinka 24,765]

Some more sparring in court.  Seems like the Mueller team is scrambling a bit.

 

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/388055-indicted-russian-company-complains-mueller-hasnt-handed-over-evidence

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Some additional legal analysis for this case so far.

 

https://www.courthousenews.com/413023-2/

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Further update.  It seems the Mueller team is scrambling a bit.

 

http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/23/mueller-delay-russia-trial/

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

3 hours ago, Bill & Katya said:

Further update.  It seems the Mueller team is scrambling a bit.

 

http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/23/mueller-delay-russia-trial/

I read that yesterday and I still have the article pulled up on my phone. It's funny how the Mueller Prosecutors are trying to throw out a decades old precedent about a "quick and expedient trial" because they actually have to do work now. Oh BTW part of the evidence they submitted for the indictments are 2 TBs of data that is in Russian and HAS NOT BEEN TRANSLATED YET SO THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT'S BEING SAID. I really can't make this stuff up it's so ridiculous.

 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Wednesday revealed his office is prepared to flood two terabytes of Russian social media content — without any translation — into the court record to comply with a discovery request by one of the defendants in his collusion case.

The government’s lead attorney, Jeannie Sclafani Rhee, confirmed her office had compiled two terabytes of Russian-language social media content and confirmed little of it was translated.

“The government did not translate every single word and doesn’t have to,” she told the court

[Dashinka 24,765]

3 minutes ago, Cyberfx1024 said:

I read that yesterday and I still have the article pulled up on my phone. It's funny how the Mueller Prosecutors are trying to throw out a decades old precedent about a "quick and expedient trial" because they actually have to do work now. Oh BTW part of the evidence they submitted for the indictments are 2 TBs of data that is in Russian and HAS NOT BEEN TRANSLATED YET SO THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT'S BEING SAID. I really can't make this stuff up it's so ridiculous.

 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Wednesday revealed his office is prepared to flood two terabytes of Russian social media content — without any translation — into the court record to comply with a discovery request by one of the defendants in his collusion case.

The government’s lead attorney, Jeannie Sclafani Rhee, confirmed her office had compiled two terabytes of Russian-language social media content and confirmed little of it was translated.

“The government did not translate every single word and doesn’t have to,” she told the court

A great example of ineptness of government officials particularly when dealing with political issues.