“Knock it off” – federal judge tells off Robert Mueller’s latest courtroom adversary
We’re still waiting to see what the Supreme Court is going to do with the escalating legal battle between Special Counsel Robert Mueller and an unidentified foreign government-owned company that’s been trying to defy a subpoena. Even as that storyline plays out, Mueller and his team are engaged in other ongoing Trump-Russia courtroom battles as well. One of them now involves fireworks.
Awhile back, Robert Mueller brought criminal charges against a Russian company named Concord Management and Consulting for meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Concord is trying to convince the federal judge in the case to order Mueller to turn over additional evidence ahead of trial. Suffice it to say that the effort is not going well for the defense – at all.
The judge just told the defense team, “I’ll say it plain and simple: knock it off,” adding that its legal filings have been “unprofessional, inappropriate and ineffective.” So what’s the problem? According to Politico, the defense lawyers have been making bizarre moves such as quoting the movie Animal House in their filings. It appears to be some kind of stunt aimed at annoying the judge into recusing herself, but we can’t imagine that’ll go anywhere.
In any case, this marks yet another Trump-Russia court battle in which things are going well for Robert Mueller, or going poorly for his adversaries, or both. Concord Management and Consulting must not think it has any valid way of mounting a defense, if it’s already resorting to these antics, which clearly aren’t working. This suggests Mueller will end up winning the inevitable court trial.
