Mueller Indicted Concord Catering for Conspiring in the 2016 U.S. Election. But Its Lawyer Says the Company Didn't Exist
"The government indicted a proverbial ham sandwich—somebody that didn't exist." Concord Management and Consulting—one of three Russian firms indicted for ties to an alleged "troll farm"—pleaded not guilty yesterday in federal court to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. "The court appearance was the first by any of the Russian defendants accused by special counsel Robert Mueller of participating in a covert social media campaign aimed in part at helping Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton," notes the Springfield News-Sun .
One of the more interesting moments came when U.S. Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey asked Concord's lawyer, Eric Dubelier, whether he was also there on behalf of Concord Catering, another company named—along with the Internet Research Agency and 13 individual defendants—in the indictment. Dubelier said he was only there on behalf of Concord Management and Consulting, not Concord Catering, a company that he claimed didn't exist in 2016.
"The government indicted a proverbial ham sandwich—somebody that didn't exist...at the time period alleged by the government," Dubelier told the court.
He also expressed dismay at a federal prosecutor's revelation that she had seen the formal request, filed with the Treasury Department by his employer (the Pennsylvania-based law firm Reed Smith), for authorization to provide legal services to Concord Management and Concord Catering. The approval that was necessary since both companies have been on the U.S. sanctions list since June 2017. "We now know [prosecutors viewed] a confidential filing of [the Office of Foreign Assets Control], which in and of itself is a disturbing fact," said Dubelier.
Defendant Yevgeny Prigozhin—a 56-year-old Russian restaurateur, co-owner of Concord Management, and member of Vladimir Putin's inner squad—did not appear in court Wednesday.
The feds claim that Prigozhin owns the Internet Research Agency (which allegedly oversaw the illegal U.S. "trolling" labor from to 2014 to 2017), though he denies this. He admits to partial ownership of Concord Catering and Concord Management, neither of which are alleged to have engaged in the online shitposting that the agency did. They were added to the U.S. sanctions list last June because of their link to Prigozhin (who has been on the sanctions list since 2016) and to Mueller's February indictment because the Justice Deparment claims they financed the Internet Research Agency's work.
As to the claim that Concord didn't exist during the last U.S. presidential election: There are myriad old references to Concord Catering in Russian media, and press releases about Concord events and openings in Russia say that it was founded in 1996. It also still seems to be operational today. It's unclear if or when Concord Catering began doing any business in the United States. Searches of Nexis business info, the SEC database, and the National Business Register turn up no results for any company called Concord Catering except a small and unrelated business in Arizona.
https://reason.com/blog/2018/05/10/mueller-indicted-a-ham-sandwich
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" Searches of Nexis business info, the SEC database, and the National Business Register turn up no results for any company called Concord Catering except a small and unrelated business in Arizona."
Interesting !
Fishing can get pretty boring at times when you don't catch anything real !
But........
It can make for some pretty big "Fish" stories though.
"It was THIS
BIG" !!!!!!!! I swear !
Yup, Mueller has been bluffing his way. It's all catching up with him now
Except Concord Catering does exist and Yevgeny Prigozhin funneled $1.25 million dollars a month through an online St. Petersburg troll farm to buy internet ads.
There are some who take Kellyanne's 'alternative facts' too seriously. This is how Goebbels did it.
Mueller just indicted an imaginary company.
That act captures the essence of the entire collusion obsession.
Ya, a shell company. You are familiar with the term, right ?
She sells sea shells down by the shore. How do you keep fucking that up?
I imagine that there will be more imaginary companies going down.