Not ‘In the Interests of Justice’
Attorney General Bill Barr‘s Dept. of Justice has filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to drop charges against two Russian companies charged as a result of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
The New York Times describes the defendants, Concord Management and Concord Consulting, as “two Russian shell companies accused of financing schemes to interfere in the 2016 election, saying that they were exploiting the case to gain access to sensitive information that Russia could weaponize.”
The two shell companies “were charged in 2018 in an indictment secured by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, along with 13 Russians and another company, the Internet Research Agency. Prosecutors said they operated a sophisticated scheme to use social media to spread disinformation, exploit American social divisions and try to subvert the 2016 election.”
In a legal filing (below) reported by Politico’s Kyle Cheney, the DOJ says continuing to prosecute the case “promotes neither the interest of justice nor the nation’s security.”
The Times reports the DOJ was concerned documents it might have to provide to Concord might end up being published online, and for various reasons decided to file a motion to drop the case “to preserve national security interests and prevent Russia from weaponizing sensitive American law enforcement information,” an official told the Times.
“Upon careful consideration of all the circumstances, and particularly in light of recent events and a change in balance of the government’s proof due to a classification determination,” the filing says, “the government has concluded that further proceedings as to Concord, a Russian company with no presence in the United States and no exposure to meaningful punishment in the event of a conviction, promotes neither the interest of justice nor the nation’s security.”