JimBowie1958
Old Fogey
- Sep 25, 2011
- 63,590
- 16,756
- 2,220
He is a persistent and competent former prosecutor who is well familiar with how Mueller and Weisman work.
Eric Dubelier emerges as Robert Muellerâs top courtroom adversary
Dabney L. Friedrich is the wife of a lawyer who was involved with Andrew Weisman in the Arthur Andersen case, Matthew Friedrich.
Longtime Federal Attorney: Eric Holder Protects Corrupt Prosecutors
Judsge Dabney should recuse herself from this trial, but she wont, she is a protected Oligarch tool.
Eric Dubelier emerges as Robert Muellerâs top courtroom adversary
He is Eric A. Dubelier, a litigator for the Reed Smith law firm who knows international law and the D.C. playing field. He served eight years prosecuting cases as a Justice Department assistant U.S. attorney in Washington. He refers to his former employer as âthe real Justice Department,â implying that Mr. Muellerâs team is something less.
His biting remarks have come in months of court filings and oral arguments. Mr. Dubelier has depicted Mr. Mueller as a rogue prosecutor willfully ignoring Justice Department guidelines.
He has accused Mr. Mueller of creating a âmake-believe crimeâ against his Russian client, Concord Management and Consulting, which is accused of funding a troll farm that interfered in the 2016 election.
So far, the federal judge presiding over the case has sided with Mr. Mueller....
Mr. Dubelier charges that the Mueller team violated the confidentially of Concordâs counter evidence while hiding documents Concord needs for its defense. The prosecutor wants to âwhisper secrets to the judge,â Mr. Dubelier says, as Mr. Mueller is calculating the âshort-term political value of a convictionâ and not worrying about an appeals court defeat years later.
An example: In a Dec. 20 motion, Mr. Dubelier resurrected a botched case spearheaded by Mr. Muellerâs top prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann.
Mr. Weissmann headed the Justice Departmentâs Enron task force nearly two decades ago. He won a conviction against the accounting firm Arthur Andersen for shredding the defunct energy firmâs financial documents.
Mr. Dubelier is exactly right on Mr. Muellerâs motives and tactics,â said Sidney Powell, whose book âLicense to Lieâ exposes years of Justice Department scandals. âHis lieutenant Weissmann is the poster boy for prosecutorial misconduct and has no regard for the facts or the law. He will make up whatever he wants to win, and the entire like-minded team views as an accomplishment everyone whose life they destroy in pursuit of their objective.â....
Concord Management and Consulting is an unlikely client. Legal observers opined that when Mr. Mueller brought charges against various Russians who hacked computers and trolled the 2016 election, no defendant would travel the nearly 5,000 miles to show up for trial.
No defendant has personally arrived. But Concord did appear quickly after the February indictment. Of 28 Russian individuals and firms charged with election interference by Mr. Mueller, only Concord has appeared in U.S. District Court, in this instance in the person of the aggressive Mr. Dubelier.
The Washington defense attorney seemed to catch the Mueller team off guard by immediately demanding disclosure of evidence. Disclosure, Mr. Dubelier argues, is a sacred legal right in America, even for the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, Concordâs chief with close ties to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Concord is accused of an elaborate conspiracy with another Russian operation, the Internet Research Agency. The indictment accuses Concord of providing the troll farm $1.2 million monthly to defraud the U.S. The two firms set up fake personas and false Twitter accounts, Facebook ads and other social media posts mostly to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump.
In a separate case, Mr. Mueller brought charges in July against 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking Democratic computers, stealing emails and funneling them to three websites for distribution.
Mr. Dubelier argues that people are free to create fake accounts. Itâs done all the time, he says.
âWhen it comes to political speech, one is free to pretend to be whomever he or she wants to be and to say whatever he or she wants to say,â he said at an Oct. 15 hearing.
âThatâs why in this case this special counsel made up a crime to fit the facts that they have,â Mr. Dubelier said. âAnd thatâs the fundamental danger with the entire special counsel concept: that they operate outside the parameters of the Department of Justice in a way that is absolutely inconsistent with the consistent behavior of the Department of Justice in these cases for the past 30 years.â
Mr. Dubelier lost that argument with U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich, who rejected his bid to dismiss the case.
But he wasnât done. There is an ongoing battle over Concordâs access to âsensitiveâ evidence that Mr. Mueller wonât let its officers see because they are Russians with ties to Mr. Putin.
Mr. Dubelier has expressed exasperation.
âThis equates to the burden of preparing for trial without any ability to discuss the evidence with the client who is to be put on trial,â he said. âThis has never happened before in reported case law because the notion is too ludicrous to contemplate.â
âWhat Mueller has turned over is often irrelevant to mounting a defense, such as promotion emails for airlines and personal naked selfie photographs,â Mr. Dubelier said in a December filing.
The special counsel is keeping most relevant information between himself and Judge Friedrich, excluding Mr. Dubelier.
Why no probe of dossier writer?
Mr. Mueller won the argument over âsensitiveâ material. He now wants to hold closed sessions with the judge over classified information â again, without Mr. Dubelier.
Mr. Dubelier responded in a Dec. 27 filing: âThe Special Counsel has made up a crime that has never been prosecuted before in the history of the United States, and now seeks to make up secret procedures for communicating ex parte [meaning no defense counsel present] to the court which have never been employed in any reported criminal case not involving classified discovery.â
The defense attorney admitted his motion is âlikely fruitlessâ because Judge Friedrich previously has ruled against Concord.
Many documents are in Russian, a culturally different language than English.
One Russian word, Mr. Dubelier says, âcan be translated into the English words âchief,â âbossâ or âchefâ â a distinction that is critically important since international media often refers to Mr. Prigozhin as âPutinâs chef.ââ
On another matter, Mr. Dubelier is accusing the Mueller team of skullduggery.
Judge Friedrich last summer approved the prosecutorâs request for a âfirewall counselâ to review evidence for its national security implications.
Mr. Dubelier said he submitted evidence to the firewall lawyer only to see it fall into the hands of Mr. Muellerâs team, who began using it to further investigate Concord. âSurely a remarkable coincidence,â Mr. Dubelier said.
In another pre-trial argument, Mr. Dubelier is the first defense attorney to ask this question: Why isnât British ex-spy Christopher Steele, who was paid by Democrats to obtain anti-Trump information from the Kremlin to influence 2016 voting, being investigated by the Justice Department for election interference just like the Russians?
Mr. Steele didnât register under the Justice Departmentâs Foreign Agent Registration Act, under which Mr. Mueller has brought charges against a number of defendants, including the Concord team. Judge Friedrich rejected Mr. Dubelierâs argument of âselective prosecution.â
Mr. Muellerâs counter-motion boils down to this: Mr. Prigozhin is a criminal fugitive who blatantly interfered in the U.S. election and is not entitled to sensitive national security information he would share with the Kremlin intelligence.
In a new battleground, the Mueller team wants to show the judge top secret material to persuade her to keep it from the defense.
âDisclosure of such information could cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security,â the Mueller filing stated.
Judge Friedrich ruled in June that Mr. Prigozhin is prohibited from viewing non-classified sensitive information that details how the government obtained evidence.
His biting remarks have come in months of court filings and oral arguments. Mr. Dubelier has depicted Mr. Mueller as a rogue prosecutor willfully ignoring Justice Department guidelines.
He has accused Mr. Mueller of creating a âmake-believe crimeâ against his Russian client, Concord Management and Consulting, which is accused of funding a troll farm that interfered in the 2016 election.
So far, the federal judge presiding over the case has sided with Mr. Mueller....
Mr. Dubelier charges that the Mueller team violated the confidentially of Concordâs counter evidence while hiding documents Concord needs for its defense. The prosecutor wants to âwhisper secrets to the judge,â Mr. Dubelier says, as Mr. Mueller is calculating the âshort-term political value of a convictionâ and not worrying about an appeals court defeat years later.
An example: In a Dec. 20 motion, Mr. Dubelier resurrected a botched case spearheaded by Mr. Muellerâs top prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann.
Mr. Weissmann headed the Justice Departmentâs Enron task force nearly two decades ago. He won a conviction against the accounting firm Arthur Andersen for shredding the defunct energy firmâs financial documents.
Mr. Dubelier is exactly right on Mr. Muellerâs motives and tactics,â said Sidney Powell, whose book âLicense to Lieâ exposes years of Justice Department scandals. âHis lieutenant Weissmann is the poster boy for prosecutorial misconduct and has no regard for the facts or the law. He will make up whatever he wants to win, and the entire like-minded team views as an accomplishment everyone whose life they destroy in pursuit of their objective.â....
Concord Management and Consulting is an unlikely client. Legal observers opined that when Mr. Mueller brought charges against various Russians who hacked computers and trolled the 2016 election, no defendant would travel the nearly 5,000 miles to show up for trial.
No defendant has personally arrived. But Concord did appear quickly after the February indictment. Of 28 Russian individuals and firms charged with election interference by Mr. Mueller, only Concord has appeared in U.S. District Court, in this instance in the person of the aggressive Mr. Dubelier.
The Washington defense attorney seemed to catch the Mueller team off guard by immediately demanding disclosure of evidence. Disclosure, Mr. Dubelier argues, is a sacred legal right in America, even for the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, Concordâs chief with close ties to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Concord is accused of an elaborate conspiracy with another Russian operation, the Internet Research Agency. The indictment accuses Concord of providing the troll farm $1.2 million monthly to defraud the U.S. The two firms set up fake personas and false Twitter accounts, Facebook ads and other social media posts mostly to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump.
In a separate case, Mr. Mueller brought charges in July against 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking Democratic computers, stealing emails and funneling them to three websites for distribution.
Mr. Dubelier argues that people are free to create fake accounts. Itâs done all the time, he says.
âWhen it comes to political speech, one is free to pretend to be whomever he or she wants to be and to say whatever he or she wants to say,â he said at an Oct. 15 hearing.
âThatâs why in this case this special counsel made up a crime to fit the facts that they have,â Mr. Dubelier said. âAnd thatâs the fundamental danger with the entire special counsel concept: that they operate outside the parameters of the Department of Justice in a way that is absolutely inconsistent with the consistent behavior of the Department of Justice in these cases for the past 30 years.â
Mr. Dubelier lost that argument with U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich, who rejected his bid to dismiss the case.
But he wasnât done. There is an ongoing battle over Concordâs access to âsensitiveâ evidence that Mr. Mueller wonât let its officers see because they are Russians with ties to Mr. Putin.
Mr. Dubelier has expressed exasperation.
âThis equates to the burden of preparing for trial without any ability to discuss the evidence with the client who is to be put on trial,â he said. âThis has never happened before in reported case law because the notion is too ludicrous to contemplate.â
âWhat Mueller has turned over is often irrelevant to mounting a defense, such as promotion emails for airlines and personal naked selfie photographs,â Mr. Dubelier said in a December filing.
The special counsel is keeping most relevant information between himself and Judge Friedrich, excluding Mr. Dubelier.
Why no probe of dossier writer?
Mr. Mueller won the argument over âsensitiveâ material. He now wants to hold closed sessions with the judge over classified information â again, without Mr. Dubelier.
Mr. Dubelier responded in a Dec. 27 filing: âThe Special Counsel has made up a crime that has never been prosecuted before in the history of the United States, and now seeks to make up secret procedures for communicating ex parte [meaning no defense counsel present] to the court which have never been employed in any reported criminal case not involving classified discovery.â
The defense attorney admitted his motion is âlikely fruitlessâ because Judge Friedrich previously has ruled against Concord.
Many documents are in Russian, a culturally different language than English.
One Russian word, Mr. Dubelier says, âcan be translated into the English words âchief,â âbossâ or âchefâ â a distinction that is critically important since international media often refers to Mr. Prigozhin as âPutinâs chef.ââ
On another matter, Mr. Dubelier is accusing the Mueller team of skullduggery.
Judge Friedrich last summer approved the prosecutorâs request for a âfirewall counselâ to review evidence for its national security implications.
Mr. Dubelier said he submitted evidence to the firewall lawyer only to see it fall into the hands of Mr. Muellerâs team, who began using it to further investigate Concord. âSurely a remarkable coincidence,â Mr. Dubelier said.
In another pre-trial argument, Mr. Dubelier is the first defense attorney to ask this question: Why isnât British ex-spy Christopher Steele, who was paid by Democrats to obtain anti-Trump information from the Kremlin to influence 2016 voting, being investigated by the Justice Department for election interference just like the Russians?
Mr. Steele didnât register under the Justice Departmentâs Foreign Agent Registration Act, under which Mr. Mueller has brought charges against a number of defendants, including the Concord team. Judge Friedrich rejected Mr. Dubelierâs argument of âselective prosecution.â
Mr. Muellerâs counter-motion boils down to this: Mr. Prigozhin is a criminal fugitive who blatantly interfered in the U.S. election and is not entitled to sensitive national security information he would share with the Kremlin intelligence.
In a new battleground, the Mueller team wants to show the judge top secret material to persuade her to keep it from the defense.
âDisclosure of such information could cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security,â the Mueller filing stated.
Judge Friedrich ruled in June that Mr. Prigozhin is prohibited from viewing non-classified sensitive information that details how the government obtained evidence.
Dabney L. Friedrich is the wife of a lawyer who was involved with Andrew Weisman in the Arthur Andersen case, Matthew Friedrich.
Longtime Federal Attorney: Eric Holder Protects Corrupt Prosecutors
Meanwhile, back in Texas, I was working as defense counsel for the Merrill Lynch executives being dragged through a second round of criminal prosecution initiated by the Task Force prosecutors that destroyed Arthur Andersen. Unaware of Mr. Holderâs opposition to the new legislation, we were buoyed by the Attorney Generalâs pronouncements, and the widespread and repeated calls for reform. I represented Merrill exec Jim Brown, and I was certain the prosecutors were hiding evidence. None of the prosecution made any senseâfrom the indictment forward. No witnesses, including Merrill counsel, would talk with any of the defense lawyers because the prosecutors kept them under threat of indictment.
By then, three teams of Department of Justice lawyers had claimed there was no exculpatory evidence in the governmentâs huge files from which the original defense trial lawyers had been given only a few page summary by original prosecutors Kathryn Ruemmler, Matthew Friedrich, John Hemann, and Task Force Director Andrew Weissmann.
On top of that, this second prosecution was on the same indictment the Fifth Circuit had already found âfatally flawedâ when it reversed 12 of 14 counts of convictions and acquitted one defendant entirely. Four Merrill Lynchers who the federal district judge had noted were âjust doing their jobsâ had spent up to a year in prison because they had been denied bail pending their appealsâuntil the Fifth Circuit held that their conduct was not criminal as charged.
Countless lawyers across the country (including this one) hoped and believed that Holder meant what he said. He instituted new training on prosecutorsâ duties to provide evidence favorable to the defense (Brady evidence), and publicly, he was saying all the right things. Except one.
The Department of Justice opposed the Fairness in Disclosure of Evidence Act. The bill died. And the Department of Justice continues to hide evidence. We learned that in Holderâs view, only prosecutors can decide what is âmaterial to the defense,â and if they decide itâs not material, they donât disclose itâeven if it is obviously favorable to the defense. Mr. Holderâs Department is even seeking to change the ethical rules in each state to comport with the Departmentâs view and make it easier for prosecutors to hide evidence. Mr. Holderâs view of the Brady rule puts the prosecutor in total and sole control of the outcome of the case. It licenses him to lie.
By then, three teams of Department of Justice lawyers had claimed there was no exculpatory evidence in the governmentâs huge files from which the original defense trial lawyers had been given only a few page summary by original prosecutors Kathryn Ruemmler, Matthew Friedrich, John Hemann, and Task Force Director Andrew Weissmann.
On top of that, this second prosecution was on the same indictment the Fifth Circuit had already found âfatally flawedâ when it reversed 12 of 14 counts of convictions and acquitted one defendant entirely. Four Merrill Lynchers who the federal district judge had noted were âjust doing their jobsâ had spent up to a year in prison because they had been denied bail pending their appealsâuntil the Fifth Circuit held that their conduct was not criminal as charged.
Countless lawyers across the country (including this one) hoped and believed that Holder meant what he said. He instituted new training on prosecutorsâ duties to provide evidence favorable to the defense (Brady evidence), and publicly, he was saying all the right things. Except one.
The Department of Justice opposed the Fairness in Disclosure of Evidence Act. The bill died. And the Department of Justice continues to hide evidence. We learned that in Holderâs view, only prosecutors can decide what is âmaterial to the defense,â and if they decide itâs not material, they donât disclose itâeven if it is obviously favorable to the defense. Mr. Holderâs Department is even seeking to change the ethical rules in each state to comport with the Departmentâs view and make it easier for prosecutors to hide evidence. Mr. Holderâs view of the Brady rule puts the prosecutor in total and sole control of the outcome of the case. It licenses him to lie.
Judsge Dabney should recuse herself from this trial, but she wont, she is a protected Oligarch tool.