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Friday, February 16, 2018

discussion  of the russian indictment:
caveats: i'm not a federal criminal defense lawyer.

 From in or around 2014 to the present, Defendants knowingly and intentionally conspired with each other (and with persons known and unknown to Case 1:18-cr-00032-DLF Document 1 Filed 02/16/18 Page 2 of 37 2 Case 1:18-cr-00032-DLF Document 1 Filed 02/16/18 Page 3 of 37 the Grand Jury) to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the government through fraud and deceit for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016. 

I predict that this charge will fail, if D's get a fair trial. defrauding the government is hard to prove on these facts.

Defendants also used the stolen identities of real U.S. persons to post on ORGANIZATION-controlled social media accounts. 

Possible crime.

Defendants also staged political rallies inside the United States, and while posing as U.S. grassroots entities and U.S. persons, and without revealing their Russian identities and ORGANIZATION affiliation, solicited and compensated real U.S. persons to promote or disparage candidates. 

interesting, but where's the crime, precisely?

 Defendants conspired to obstruct the lawful functions of the United States government through fraud and deceit, including by making expenditures in connection with the 2016 U.S. presidential election without proper regulatory disclosure; 

Failing to disclose is not itself fraud. There appears to be a recurring pattern of unproven allegations of fraud in this indictment, which will would give defense lawyers much to chew on. However, there is some stuff that could stick, so a deal is likely.

The ORGANIZATION’s annual budget totaled the equivalent of millions of U.S. dollars. 
Significant, but not unlawful in itself.


Count I, fraud, is fuly defensible for two reasons.
1. failure to isclose is not fraud.
2. the russians are immune from disclosure ue to reasonable expectation of harrasment (socialist workers party) and 5th amendment freedom from self-incrimination; you can't require disclosure of illegal ads; that would be a compelled confession.

To enter the United States, KRYLOVA, BOGACHEVA, R. BOVDA, and another co-conspirator applied to the U.S. Department of State for visas to travel. During 12 Case 1:18-cr-00032-DLF Document 1 Filed 02/16/18 Page 13 of 37 their application process, KRYLOVA, BOGACHEVA, R. BOVDA, and their coconspirator falsely claimed they were traveling for personal reasons and did not fully disclose their place of employment to hide the fact that they worked for the ORGANIZATION. 

But I bet they -were- traveling for personal reasons. I always do. Trying to pin a crime on someone for being succinct on a form is problematic. Here they can probably prove malice, but we don't want to make a it a crime to be in a hurry to fill out government forms. Too many functionally illiterate americans could be trapped by such a rule.

For example, starting in or around June 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators, posing online as U.S. persons, communicated with a real U.S. person affiliated with a Texas-based grassroots organization.

I am suspicious of this claim. And so forth; it goes on for pages and I have not yet read the whole document.

By 2016, the size of many ORGANIZATION-controlled groups had grown to hundreds of thousands of online followers. 

OK, I think I'm catching on. This inictment is more a political document than a legal one. It doesn't matter to them whether these 13 people get convicted or not, what matters is to get these facts into the news cycle.  I do think this will be one of the major stories of 2018.



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