Does Mueller Indictment of Concord Match the Statute?

In yet another fun-filled way for lawyers to rack up billable hours, Concord has filed a petition seeking access to the grand jury legal instructions provided by Mueller pre-indictment.

So what, you ask.


Well, unlike gross-negligence in handling classified information, there is a knowledge-requirement for Count One under the indictment of the statutes Concord and the other Russians were indicted under. Nowhere in the count does such language appear, and Concord wishes to know if Team Mueller properly advised the Grand Jury of the language and meaning of the statute.

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.

As such, Count One of the Indictment appears to be facially invalid because it fails to charge an essential element of the offense of conspiracy to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing and defeating the functions of the FEC and the DOJ, that is, that the Defendant acted willfully, in this case meaning that Defendant was aware of the FEC and FARA requirements, agreed to violate those requirements, and ultimately acted with intent to violate those requirements.
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DOJ never brought any case like the instant Indictment, that is, an alleged conspiracy by a foreign corporation to ‘interfere’ in a Presidential election by allegedly funding free speech. The obvious reason for this is that no such crime exists in the federal criminal code.

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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.

This lawyer is particularly sassy, which makes reading what are often times dull filings entertaining.

Will this work? Quite possibly. Like the "arise from" language in the Manafort case, legalise means something. It can't be easily hand-waved away as a technicality. In fact, more so since this deals with the language of an actual statute clearly intended to guide prosecutors in what constitutes this crime. A motion could come to dismiss from either misapplication of the statute (no willful behaviour is even alleged) or from a failure to instruct the jury on the statute in regards to willful intent being a necessary component of actions rising to a crime under this statute.

If the charge is dropped, then what? Well, it's another embarrassment for what should be a veteran legal team. Either they are trying real hard to get something/anything or they are not quite the Dream Team, they thought they were. If the count is vacated by the bench, then Mueller can try bringing the same facts to another Grand Jury and explain that they must also find intent to indict under this charge. Which is not impossible, though supporting evidence for that allegstion is curiously absent in the charge.

a reply to: RadioRobert

" from a failure to instruct the jury on the statute in regards to willful intent being a necessary component of actions rising to a crime under this statute."

Kind of Hard to do just that when a Lack of Substantial Evidence is Not Presented..

a reply to: RadioRobert

JFC
All these fed lawyers and nobody caught this?
F'nKeystone Kops.
This entire event is so poorly executed, with these people in charge of the fbi and justice department there is no wonder the government was so corrupt for the last 8 years.

Team Mueller caught off guard and they look sloppy.

😃😎🎁

The mentality of law enforcement is that someone will get charged with something when they expend resources regardless of what us going on

meuller has to justify his investigation somehow

a reply to: shooterbrody

Well, take vandalism, for example. It is intentional and malicious destruction of property not your own. If you drop my shot glass on the spanish tile out back while we're tossing a few back, that isn't vandalism. It doesn't meet the knowledge-requirement. You broke my shot glass, but no crime.

If I have you indicted by showing the grand jury evidence that might tend to make them believe you broke it, but don't instruct them on the language of the statute or attempt to show them intent, the count is going to get dropped. I could try again, but I'd have to instruct the grand jury on the statute correctly and show intent this time.