Joe DiGenova is taking some pleasure in Mueller hitting a roadblock in court after lawyers showed up representing Russian companies he indicted after not being served properly.
Watch below:
Here’s how Fox News explains what happened:
Former U.S Attorney for the District of Columbia Joe diGenova said Special Counsel Robert Mueller were “not ready” to be called into court by Russian interests he previously indicted.
DiGenova said that at least one of the more than a dozen Russian individuals and companies Mueller indicted earlier this year effectively called his bluff on holding further litigation.
DiGenova said Mueller likely indicted the Russian interests because he “needed something Russian” to be charged in his probe, and that since they are from another country, they would be unlikely to fight back.
“One of the Russian companies sent them to court [over the charges],” diGenova said, adding that Mueller’s team then “objected strenuously” to that news.
Tucker Carlson asked if such a situation could be bad for the probe into President Donald Trump.
DiGenova said the judge in the Russians’ case told Mueller it must now go to trial since the defendants are willing to litigate.
He said the Russian company wants “a lot of [legal] discovery,” which could include documents and the like.
Politico added that the reason Mueller’s team was surprised was not because they weren’t ready but because the Russians hadn’t been served properly.
The 13 people charged in the high-profile indictment in February are considered unlikely to ever appear in a U.S. court. The three businesses accused of facilitating the alleged Russian troll farm operation — the Internet Research Agency, Concord Management, and Concord Catering — were also expected to simply ignore the American criminal proceedings.
Last month, however, a pair of Washington-area lawyers suddenly surfaced in the case, notifying the court that they represent Concord Management. POLITICO reported at the time that the move appeared to be a bid to force Mueller’s team to turn over relevant evidence to the Russian firm and perhaps even to bait prosecutors into an embarrassing dismissal in order to avoid disclosing sensitive information.
Mueller’s team sent a copy of the formal summons to Dubelier and Seikaly and asked them to accept it on behalf of Concord Management, but Dubelier wrote back on Monday saying that the government’s attempt to serve the summons was defective under court rules. He did not elaborate.
Here’s what the lawyers for the Russians said:
The Concord lawyers said Mueller’s attorneys were seeking “to usurp the scheduling authority of the Court” by waiting until Friday afternoon to try to delay a proceeding scheduled for next Wednesday. Dubelier and Seikaly complained that the special counsel’s office has not replied at all to Concord’s discovery requests. The lawyers, who work for Pittsburgh-based law firm Reed Smith, also signaled Concord intends to assert its speedy trial rights, putting more pressure on the special counsel’s office to turn over records related to the case.
Apparently the judge who ruled in favor of Concord is a Trump appointed lawyer. Either way, Mueller will have to argue his case when they didn’t expect anyone in Russia to respond or defend themselves. It’ll definitely be embarrassing if the charges get thrown out…