A Cornerstone of Russia Hacked the 2016 Election Collapses by Larry C Johnson

Big news last night (Monday). Buried amid the panic over the corona virus. Robert Mueller's prosecutors got the green light to flush down the toilet  one of their major cases allegedlng that Russia hacked the 2016 U.S. Presidential election--U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich on Monday evening granted the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the case against Concord Management and Consulting. This is more than a black eye. It is an indictment and rebuke of a corrupt group of prosecutors who worked for Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller. They filed a case without foundation and smeared a group of foreigners that they (the prosecutors) did not think would fight back. Big mistake.

Let me take you back to February 2018. The headlines of the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times and The Atlantic blared the following propaganda:

Mueller’s Indictment Puts Details Behind Claims of Russian Interference

This was it. Real proof that the Russians helped elect Donald Trump. Here is the Atlantic's breathless take on the matter:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals on Friday connected to Russia’s Internet Research Agency—a Kremlin-backed outfit whose employees posed as Americans and spread disinformation online in an attempt to influence the 2016 election.

The indictment details highly specific allegations—including names, dates, and the text of private messages—that appear to substantiate central elements of the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia made an active, concerted effort to subvert American democracy.

Did you catch that? This indictment is prima facie evidence that the flawed, disingenuous Intelligence Community Assessment put out in January 2017 was "substantiated." 

The truth challenged former Director of the CIA, John Brennan, also has some major crow to eat. That buffoon took an unfounded victory lap reacting to the news of the indictment of Concord Management:

“Claims of a ‘hoax’ in tatters,” John Brennan, the former CIA director, said in a tweet. “My take: Implausible that Russian actions did not influence the views and votes of at least some Americans.”

Message for John Brennan--you cemented your status as a certified moron and a walking, talking hoax. The only thing in "tatters" is your claim to be a competent commentator on legal matters and intelligence issues. 

The indictment that Brennan so enthusiastically and prematurely celebrated was flushed down the toilet on Monday, March 16, 2020 by the very prosecutors who brought it in the first place. They finally realized they had no case and asked the Judge to "dismiss with prejudice." The Judge said "yes." For those of you who are not lawyers, the phrase, "dismiss with prejudice" is the legal equivalent of a slam dunk by Lebron James in basketball:

a court case that is dismissed with prejudice means that it is dismissed permanently. A case dismissed with prejudice is over and done with, once and for all, and can't be brought back to court.

Let us briefly revisit what Mueller and his band of white collar criminals alleged in the February 2018 indictment of Concord Management et.al.(Note--I replace the term "Defendants" with the actual name, e.g. IRA and Concord):

Defendant INTERNET RESEARCH AGENCY LLC (aka IRA). . . . worked in various capacities to carry out  IRA's interference operations targeting the United States. . . . Beginning as early as 2014, the IRA began The IRA received funding for its operations from Defendant YEVGENIY VIKTOROVICH PRIGOZHIN.

The IRA had a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Concord personnel posted derogatory information about a number of candidates, and by early to mid-2016, Concord's operations included supporting the presidential campaign ofthen-candidate Donald J. Trump ("Trump Campaign") and disparaging Hillary Clinton. Concord made various expenditures to carry out those activities, including buying political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities. Concord also staged political rallies inside the United States, and while posing as U.S. grassroots entities and U.S. persons, and without revealing their Russian identities and ORGANIZATION affiliation, solicited and compensated real U.S. persons to promote or disparage candidates. Some Concord personnel, posing as U.S. persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.

All of this is an unsubstantiated allegation. No evidence. No proof that would have held up in court. The Mueller team folded in the face of a real lawyer, hired by Concord Management. That is what the Mueller team never counted on.

But this was not the first setback for the Mueller team in this case. They were admonished by the Judge last year for falsely and improperly allegeding that the IRA was a Russian Government tool for intelligence operations. 

On April 25, 2019, Concord filed the instant motion in which it argues that the Attorney General and Special Counsel violated Local Rule 57.7 by releasing information to the public that was not contained in the indictment. Concord’s main contention is that the Special Counsel’s Report . . . improperly suggested a link between the defendants and the Russian government and expressed an opinion about the defendants’ guilt and the evidence against them.

The Court ordered the government “to refrain from making or authorizing any public statement that links the alleged conspiracy in the indictment to the Russian government or its agencies.”

The Court further ordered that “any public statement about the allegations in the indictment . . . must make clear that, one, the government is summarizing the allegations in the indictment which remain unproven, and, two, the government does not express an opinion on the defendant’s guilt or innocence or the strength of the evidence in this case.”

The Judge's order for the Prosecutors to cease linking the alleged conspiracy in the indictment to the Russian government was vindicated with the final decision to throw the case out for good. If the Mueller prosecutors actually had real evidence that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 US Presidential contest then they would not have dropped the case permanently. If it was a matter of figuring out how to introduce intelligence information to buttress their evidence they would have left the door open for a future revival of the case. But they did just the opposite. They asked that the charges be dropped completely and permanently.

 

Comments

[MW]

I read about this in the Washington Post. The author(s) spin was that the prosecution was halted due to the impossibility of any of the defendants being present for the trial. Russia’s policy on extradition was cited. As you well know, the Russia BS will continue unabated.

[Fred]

So do the slandered 12 have standing to sue and will Trump waive sovereign immunity for the rouge prosecutors so they pay damages rather than we the taxpayers?

[Deap]

I guess this means America was just not ready for a woman President in 2016, if the Russians didn't deliver Trump lock stock and barrel. Back to sexism and threatened white males keeping Clinton from getting crowned.

[Bill H]

Latest spin is that the DOJ dropped that case because pursuing prosecution of it could “expose additional details about law enforcement’s tools and techniques for investigating malign foreign influence, among other crimes, potentially undermining their effectiveness.”

Sounds like a perfectly valid reason to me. Not.

[turcopolier]

Deap

Do you think it is possible that people just rejected Clinton because she is truly "deplorable" and not because she is a woman.

[Morongobill]

I think a lot of folks would be quite happy and proud to have Tulsi in the White House.

[Deap]

Sorry, turco. I left my sarcasm button off when musing Clinton can no longer blame the Russians for stealing HER election. Now she ha to go down the rest of her list of excuses, misogyny I believe being #2.

However, I don't think her own list ever included herself being deplorable or unelectable. Did we all miss something dring her interminable post-election blame game road tours? Was there ever a mea culpa slithering from her own reptilian lips?

[Diana Croissant]

Hillary is known by many in my generation for her "Women's rights are human rights" speech.

Her statement has been proved as true. Women can fail just as men can fail. Women can be unlikable just as men can be unlikable. Women can be liars just as men can be liars. Women can be malignant narcissists just as men can be malignant narcissists.

I could go on, but you get the picture. Most teenage girls can tell you the many faults of other teenage girls. We talked about "mean girls," even have movies about them.

As a woman, I am very sick of the feminist movement as it has gone off the rails. I think Hillary is one perhaps the main reason that many women will no longer gladly accept the title of being a "feminist." (Followed by AOC and her gang.)

[Thirdeye]

@Diana

Or feminism's lack of popularity among women could be from the fact that most women do not feel oppressed as women, and that the entitled, maladjusted, angry, and bitter women who populate the feminist movement are poor examples for their cause. It's been that way for decades.

[Deap]

Early feminism quickly morphed into dykes on bikes. MS soon stood for the miserable. The genuine movement lost it mainstream appeal. Yes, there was frank discrimination against women, both real and de facto up to the 1960's.

Those prior artificial barriers were quickly eliminated under law. There affer the dark side of angry. resentful feminism belonged more to identifiable sub-sets. But the early feminism movement also belonged to a sub-set too - the affluent and the highly educated.

Keep in mind one of the consequences of "feminism" from the 1970's forward was the need overnight to increase the numbers of "career tracks" since both men and women were now competing for a slot in the post-grad market place. That demand exceeded the supply. And was not realistically balanced by men choosing the mommy-track post college.

Worst consequence, unintended and probably not justified to be mourned, was losing the over-qualified women whose only "career" was teaching K-12 until the 1970's - those women took those considerable talents that could have been used to run IBM, and applied them to elementary education - the Golden Days of US K-12.

Look at any pre-1970 college year book and track those "outstanding seniors" pre-1970 and their stated aspirations at the time. More often than not, it was teach until I get married and have children. Even UC Berkeley confirms this in print - Class of 1965.

The talent and prestige of being a "school teachers" was one of the biggest losses due to the "feminism" movement. Along came Feminine Mystique in 1965, puncturing the growing malaise in the suburbs. The "disease with no name". But doesn't have a name today either.

TW: when do women in the US get their "reparations" having been denied their full legal rights for so long .....too. (/s)

[Diana Croissant]

There are many very important points made in this thread.

For me, the desire to become a teacher began when I was in third grade and had the most amazing third grade teacher--a woman, of course. In fourth grade, I had another one. She told my parents during a conference at the end of the year that they must never discourage me from going to college. She knew they couldn't afford to send me; so she told them that they must always encourage my reading and studying in the hopes I would get a scholarship.

I did just that. And I always loved teaching throughout my entire teaching career. I had loved to study history, but my high school counselor wisely told me to major in English. He didn't want me to fall into the trap of having to coach sports. History departments are the ones from which most coaches are hired. That fact is what has destroyed the teaching of history in our country.

I found that I learned much about history studying the various centuries of English and American literature.

I often took breaks from teaching because I needed some rest. It's terribly hard to work all day and then work at night grading papers while raising one's own children.

I do not see that "mission" to teach in the younger women who become teachers. They like the summers off. They like the relatively short work day. They don't assign much that requires actual grading. They use grading machine for their T/F or A.B.or C. worksheets. They can take silly Education Dept. classes to earn their mandatory extra course work to help them move up on the pay scale. For many it's an easy JOB, not a calling--and they love the summers off.

[Harry]

"I read about this in the Washington Post. The author(s) spin was that the prosecution was halted due to the impossibility of any of the defendants being present for the trial. Russia’s policy on extradition was cited. As you well know, the Russia BS will continue unabated."

Everything in this statement was true before the charges were filed. All of this would have been known by the DoJ. And yet the charges were filed. The only thing which was not known, was that the charges would be contested.

Therefore, that is why the charges are being dropped.