Robert Mueller Made A Huge Mistake That Could Sink His Russia Case
Robert Mueller is not the squeaky clean prosecutor his apologists in the media make him out to
be.
The special counsel was caught red-handed cutting corners in a high profile trial about
alleged election meddling.
And this mistake could sink his entire Russia case.
Lawyers for the thirteen Russian nationals indicted by Mueller for conspiring to defraud
the United States have proven to be more than a match for Mueller and his band of partisan
Democrat prosecutors.
The attorneys shocked Mueller and his team when they entered a not guilty plea, and Mueller
was dealt his first legal setback when a judge turned down his request to delay the trial.
Now these lawyers have uncovered Mueller taking legal short cuts that could get the whole
case thrown out.
Mueller's team charged 13 Russian nationals with conspiracy to defraud the United States,
as opposed to conspiracy to violate Federal Election Commission laws, because the standards
of proof for conspiracy is much lower than proof of violating FEC laws.
Prosecutors made their argument as to why that was an acceptable move in briefings filed
with the court.
The special counsel's team wrote:
"As an initial matter, the government agrees that the plain language of the statutory provisions
Concord Management has identified in the Federal Election Campaign Act, 52 U.S.C. § 30109(d),
and the Foreign Agent Registration Act 22 U.S.C. § 618(a), set forth a "willfulness"
Case 1:18-cr-00032-DLF Document 20 Filed 06/01/18 Page 5 of 12 6 standard with respect to knowledge.
The government, however, did not charge Concord Management with substantive violations of
FECA, FARA, or for that matter, visa fraud — an offense that requires only a "knowing"
standard.
See 18 U.S.C. § 1546.
Concord Management is alleged to have conspired to defraud the United States, in violation
of 18 U.S.C. § 371.
As described in more detail below, the mens rea for that offense is intent to defraud
the United States, not to willfully commit substantive offenses that are not charged
in the Indictment."
But lawyers for Concord Management fired back that Mueller's team was cutting corners.
They argued that the special counsel invented a "make believe" crime of conspiring to
interfere in an election and is disregarding the intent of Congress who specifically set
a higher threshold of intent for violating FEC laws.
Concord's lawyers wrote:
"Presumably to bolster these allegations (which have a strong odor of hypocrisy) 4
, the Special Counsel has pleaded around the knowledge requirements of all related substantive
statutes and regulations by asserting that Concord conspired to obstruct the functions
of the United States Departments of Justice ("DOJ") and State ("DOS"), and the
Federal Election Commission ("FEC").5 But violations of the relevant federal campaign
laws and foreign agent registration requirements administered by the DOJ and the FEC require
the defendant to have acted "willfully," a word that does not appear anywhere in Count
One of the Indictment.
See 52 U.S.C. § 30109(d) and 22 U.S.C. § 618(a)."
They also contended that this amounted to a trick to get around using the "willful"
intent standard since the last time the Department of Justice brought charges of foreign interference
in 1998 over foreign donations to Democrat campaigns, the "willful" language was
part of the indictment.
Mueller has granted himself broad powers to investigate crimes far outside his mandate.
And now he stands accused of fabricating a crime and ignoring the statutory language
in order to charge these Russian entities.
If the court agrees Mueller cut corners and is bending the law, his case against the Russian
firms and nationals will collapse.
We will keep you up to date on any new developments in this story.
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