Sources behind a pro-Russia Twitter account managed to obtain and disseminate hundreds of confidential files belonging to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team of Democrat-aligned prosecutors.
According to new court documents filed by the special counsel in its case against a Russian consulting firm, the files were illegally obtained and subsequently altered as part of a “disinformation campaign” to discredit the investigation into alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign team and the Kremlin.
Hacked?
The special counsel is currently prosecuting Concord Management and Consulting, a Russian company owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The firm is one of three Russian companies and 13 Russian nationals indicted by Mueller for interfering in the 2016 election. In all, Mueller’s team has indicted more than 30 individuals, including 6 Trump associates.
Concord stands accused of funding the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm responsible for creating hundreds of fake social media personas to “sow discord” among American voters. For their part, Concord has accused Mueller of prosecuting a “made-up crime” that the “real Department of Justice” would never have pursued.
Russian troll farms still at large
The special counsel first revealed that “certain non-sensitive” files were illegally obtained in a Wednesday court filing responding to Concord’s request to turn over “sensitive” evidence so that its attorneys in Russia could prepare for trial. Mueller’s team pointed to the pro-Russia Twitter account as justification for denying the defense’s request.
On Oct. 22, 2018, a Twitter account using the handle @HackingRedstone wrote: “We’ve got access to the Special Counsel Mueller’s probe database as we hacked Russian server with info from the Russian troll case Concord LLC v. Mueller. You can view all the files Mueller had about the [Internet Research Agency] and Russia collusion. Enjoy the reading!”
The tweet included a link that led to a file-sharing portal containing folders with “non-public names and file structure of materials” produced to Concord’s defense team.
The special counsel maintains that the FBI found “no evidence” that federal government servers or Mueller’s servers “fell victim to any computer intrusion,” implying that Concord is responsible for leaking the confidential discovery to sources in Russia — not a third party hacker
While criminal defendants are usually entitled to receive all of the prosecution’s evidence to establish their defense, prosecutors in this case have been concerned that Concord’s attorneys could share the files with Prigozhin or any other Russian defendants. Consequently, the special counsel convinced U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich to set up a third party “firewall counsel” that would determine if there were any national security concerns any time the defense sought to share court materials with outside parties.
Justified fears
And it looks like at least some of Mueller’s concerns were justified: over 1,000 files on the Twitter source’s webpage match those released to Concord in discovery. The files included Facebook memes and social media posts published online in 2016 by the Russian troll agency IRA in 2016.
“These facts establish a use of the non-sensitive discovery in this case in a manner inconsistent with the terms of the protective order,” the special counsel wrote. Mueller is now insisting that Concord’s request for evidence identified as sensitive “unreasonably risks the national security interests of the United States.”
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