Our Advice For Russian Troll Farm Company Is To Start Drinking Heavily
This defense is a bit ... UNORTHODOX.
Hey kids, PSA from your friendly neighborhood Wonklawyer. If ever you find yourself representing a Russian troll farm in federal court against Special Counsel Robert Mueller, DON'T DO THIS.
The Special Counsel's argument is reminiscent of Otter's famous line, "Flounder, you can't spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes! You f**ked up . . . you trusted us. Hey, make the best of it."
For reals, federal judges will not be impressed with your granular knowledge of seminal 1970s frat house flicks, and are quite likely instead to tear you a new asshole for being"unprofessional, inappropriate, and ineffective." When the judge tells you to "knock it off," do not turn around and accuse said judge of "bias" against you. And for the love of all that is holy, DO NOTtell the judge, "That's your opinion." Seriously, this will not end well.
When last we left Concord Management's bellicose counselBluto Blutarsky Eric Dubelier, he was hinting darkly about naked selfies and accusingRobert Mueller of "thr[owing] a dart at the Federal Reporter" in search of case cites. Even for a guy representing "Putin's caterer" Yevgeniy Prigozhin, Dubelier's filings are shall we sayover the top .
Concord is the only defendant appearing among the 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies indicted by Robert Mueller for conspiring to ratfuck the American election. Clearly Concord's strategy is to jump up and down screaming in an attempt to discredit the special counsel's office, while simultaneously extracting maximum information through the discovery process. Meanwhile Prigozhin and the other defendants sit safely in Moscow impervious to American jurisdiction.
All of which puts Yr Wonkette in an uncomfortable position. Because at this here commie mommyblog, we really do believe in civil liberties. We take that shit about "no secret evidence" and "right to confront your accuser" seriously. So we sympathize with Concord's contention that it's entitled to know how the Special Counsel got the evidence being used against it, and we see the merits in Dubelier's argument that take my word for it, 'cause I'm Robert Fuckin' Mueller is perhaps not entirely in accord with the Fourth Amendment. Even when that argument is transparently made as a cover for a Russian troll farm trying to root out a mole within its ranks. That being said, we're a little puzzled that the strategy of a former federal and state prosecutor like Dubelier is to act like a raging dickhead at every turn.
At issue today was evidence provided by Concord to firewall counsel -- that is, independent lawyers appointed by Judge Dabney Friedrich to shield national security information and classified matters from Concord's Kremlin-linked boss Yevgeniy Prigozhin. According to Dubelier, Concord submitted an unspecified piece of evidence to the firewall counsel, and he has reason to suspect that it was leaked to Mueller.
The Court issued an unprecedented and onerous Protective Order, containing only one concession to the Defendant; that is, Defendant could supposedly communicate information to firewall counsel without that information winding up with the Special Counsel. As to the first and only such communication, the Special Counsel took investigative action seven days later. It is the responsibility of the Court to determine whether a violation of the Protective Order occurred. A simple lawyers' denial that does not contain any reference to their staff or investigators cannot support a conclusion that no violation occurred. [Citations omitted.]
Yes, that is curious timing. Perhaps Concord's lawyer would have had better luck with his argument had he not submitted a spittle-flecked memorandum all but accusing the SCO of participating in a conspiracy against his client.
Surely the Special Counsel could answer that question without compromising any ongoing use of a grand jury to unilaterally conduct discovery in an already indicted case. But no, instead just a curiously sealed pleading containing not a single citation to any case authority proposing more ex parte secrets to the Court. For a Special Counsel who claims that secretly pretending to be someone you are not on the internet is a conspiracy against the United States, one might think that all of his proposed secrets in prosecuting this matter are a conspiracy to deny the Defendant its right to a fair, open and public determination of its case.
DUDE, SWITCH TO DECAF!
After a contentious hearing over the "secret evidence," Judge Friedrich granted time for Dubelier to discuss whether they want to obtain new counsel because of the court's BIASSSS against him -- or at least to waste more time on this moronic non-starter. She further instructed Concord and the SCO to quit screwing around and work outtheir discovery issues, after which she sealed the courtroom to discuss the grand jury matter. Would that be the secret Mueller case involving a foreign company which refuses to comply with a grand jury subpoena currently working its way up to the Supreme Court? Dunno! But that Dubelier guy puts on a hell of a show!
[ Concord Memorandum / Politico / Buzzfeed / Talking Points Memo ]
Follow your FDF on Twitter!
Please click here if you love Animal House gifs, or if you hate them want your Wonkette to snark on forever without stupid shit from the bad old days.
Yes, and he rang all of them, Katie.
Fun fact: the "biased" Judge Friedrich was appointed to the federal bench in 2017 by one Donald Ivanovich Trump.