U.S. Justice Department headquarters in Washington. Credit: Mike Scarcella / NLJ

Lawyers for a business entity charged in the special counsel's investigation of Russian interference in the presidential election on Monday derided the alleged crime as “make-believe” and said the prosecution has “absolutely nothing to do” with probing any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

The Russian business entity, Concord Management and Consulting LLC, represented by a Washington-area team from Reed Smith, suggested in a court filing that special counsel Robert Mueller III had overstepped his authority to investigate any conspiracy between Donald Trump's campaign and Russian actors who meddled in the presidential race.

Concord Management and other Russian entities and individuals were charged in February in Washington federal district court for alleged roles in “sowing discord” in the presidential campaign. Mueller's team alleged Concord Management funded the Internet Research Agency, a Russian outfit also charged in the indictment. Prosecutors in charging documents identified the Internet Research Agency as the “organization.”

The reason for bringing the case, Reed Smith partners Eric Dubelier and Katherine Seikaly said in a court filing Monday, “is obvious, and is political: to justify his own existence the special counsel has to indict a Russian—any Russian.” The two lawyers describe Mueller's case as based on allegations that Concord Management “engaged in the make-believe crime of conspiring to 'interfere' in a United States election.”

A spokesman for Mueller's office declined to comment.

Concord Management's attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich of the District of Columbia to review the legal instructions prosecutors provided to the grand jury that charged the Internet Research Agency, Concord Management and other Russian entities and individuals. “With that information, the court can determine whether those instructions could support a motion to dismiss the facially invalid count one of the indictment,” the defense lawyers said.

Concord Management's attorneys said in their new filing: “Count one of the indictment is devoid of any specificity about what any officer or employee of Concord actually did other than to generally allege that Concord funded an 'organization' that the special counsel imagined and created. It is not clear whether the indictment alleges that Concord was part of the 'organization.'”

The Reed Smith lawyers' court filing on Monday, mirroring others they've filed in recent weeks, said the charges against Concord “have a strong odor of hypocrisy” based on the contention the U.S. itself has interfered in foreign elections. In April, Dubelier and Seikaly asked the special counsel's office to produce an account of “each and every instance” since 1945 in which the U.S. government engaged in operations to interfere with another country's elections and political processes.

“The instant indictment fails to allege that the defendant knew it was acting unlawfully and that it intended to violate the underlying regulatory offenses,” Concord Management's lawyers wrote in the court filing (posted below). “The risk here is acute, that is, a foreign corporation with no presence in the United States is indicted in an unprecedented case of a type never before brought by the DOJ for conspiring to defraud the United States purportedly by not complying with certain regulatory requirements that are unknown even to most Americans.”

Dubelier and Seikaly are so far the only defense lawyers who have made appearances in the special counsel's case against the 16 Russian defendants. Since entering their appearances on April 11, the two have taken an aggressive approach, successfully resisting the special counsel's push to delay an arraignment hearing amid questions of whether Concord Management had been properly put on notice about the criminal case.

At a hearing last week, Dubelier entered a not guilty plea for Concord Management. A Mueller prosecutor, Jeannie Rhee, revealed that Reed Smith had filed papers at the U.S. Treasury Department suggesting the firm was representing not only Concord Management but another firm charged by the special counsel's office: Concord Catering. In court, Dubelier said he was appearing only on behalf of Concord Management. The firm has declined to comment about its relationship with the two entities.

 

 

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