Dubeliner (counsel for Concord Management) goes toe-to-toe with Kavanaugh's ex-girlfriend Judge Friedrich.

Judge blasts lawyers for Russian firm charged by Mueller

A judge publicly slammed the defense lawyers for a Russian company criminally charged by special counsel Robert Mueller, accusing the firm’s attorneys of submitting unprofessional and inappropriate court filings attacking Mueller’s office and of unwisely peppering legal briefs with jarring quotes taken from movies like Animal House.

“I’ll say it plain and simple: knock it off,” U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich told lawyers for the Russian company, Concord Management and Consulting, at a brief court hearing in Washington Monday morning.

The tone and content of the submissions from Concord’s combative attorneys, Eric Dubelier and Kate Seikaly, in past months has been unusual for lawyers practicing in federal court. A filing last week quoted both the British 19th Century historian Lord Acton and a slightly sanitized expletive uttered by the somewhat less erudite “Otter,” a fraternity brother in the 1970s classic Animal House.

A stern-faced Friedrich, the newest of President Donald Trump’s three appointees to the district court in Washington, made clear Monday that she was not amused by what she called the “clever quotes.” She also chastised Dubelier for ad hominem attacks on Mueller’s attorneys and other prosecutors in the case.

“I found your recent filings, in particular your reply brief filed Friday, unprofessional, inappropriate and ineffective,” the judge said. She suggested the submissions were an effort to bully her into granting pending defense motions to give the owners and officers of Concord greater access to materials Mueller’s office has turned over to permit the defense to prepare for trial.

When Friedrich beckoned Dubelier to the courtroom lectern to address some more technical issues about the exchange of information, he declined to say anything of substance, declaring instead that the judge’s rebuke was so severe that he might need to withdraw from the case. He also accused Friedrich of bias.

“I need to go and discuss this with my client,” said Dubelier, a former federal prosecutor now with law firm Reed Smith. “There appears to be some bias on the part of the court.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/07/mueller-probe-concord-management-1085285