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.