Judge may hold Mueller-ensnared Russia firm in contempt
A Donald Trump-appointed federal judge on Thursday said she’s considering holding in contempt of court a Russian firm charged with interfering in the 2016 presidential election after the company failed to comply with a government subpoena.
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich in a one-paragraph order sided with federal prosecutors, giving lawyers for the firm Concord Management and Consulting until the end of Friday to explain why their client should not face a civil penalty for missing a deadline to produce documents. Concord is facing charges that it helped fund Russia’s 2016 election meddling efforts.
The Concord trial — scheduled to begin with an initial jury selection hearing on April 1 — represents one of the final outstanding threads from Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.
The special counsel filed charges in February 2018 against the St. Petersburg-based company and two other Russian businesses, as well as 13 Russian individuals, claiming that together they financed and organized an army of internet trolls that worked to sow discord among American voters and sway the last presidential campaign in Trump’s favor.
Only Concord has stepped forward to fight the charges in court, hiring a U.S.-based law firm to mount its defense. The company is controlled by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch with close ties to the Kremlin and known as “Putin’s chef” because his restaurants and catering business have hosted dinners for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Thursday’s order from Friedrich sides with the federal prosecutors who inherited the Concord case from Mueller’s since-shuttered investigation.
In preparation for the trial, prosecutors asked the court to order Concord to turn over documents about its corporate structure, details on internet addresses it used, as well as financial records and calendar entries. Friedrich effectively narrowed the subpoenas somewhat, but ordered that the firm produce the records.
Prosecutors say the company handed over only a handful of publicly-filed corporate records and produced nothing in response to the other requests. Concord's lawyers forwarded the limited set of records, but court records show the firm's American attorneys expressly refused to vouch for the company's compliance with the subpoenas.
The judge scheduled a Monday hearing on the issue, but it is unclear what sort of consequences the Russian firm may face if it defies the court. Fines are one possibility, although it seems doubtful they'd ever be collected.
Public court filings show no specific proposal from prosecutors about what sanction the company should face. Justice Department attorneys did ask that a representative of the firm be required to attend Monday's hearing. Friedrich ordered that to happen, but based on past practice it seems unlikely anyone other than the company's American lawyers, Eric Dubelier and Katherine Seikaly, will show up to represent the company.
Records about the subpoena fight show that the point person on the issue for prosecutors until recently was Jonathan Kravis, who served as an assistant U.S. attorney and as deputy chief of the Fraud and Public Corruption Section of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington. Kravis abruptly quit his post earlier this month after Attorney General Bill Barr intervened to lessen the sentencing recommendation in a separate criminal case against Trump adviser Roger Stone.
Emails made public in a court filing Thursday show that in the wake of Kravis' exit, the prosecutor taking lead on the issue was Luke Jones, a lawyer in the National Security Division of the Justice Department.
