Special Counsel Case Against Russian Company Takes A Page Out Of The Soviet Handbook
A May 24, 2019 order in the “Russian interference” case United States v. Concord Management & Consulting exposes a particularly troubling flaw in the government’s effort to control, manage, and curate political ideas from abroad. The special counsel appears to have forgotten to explain how foreign political speech broke U.S. law.
According to the May 24 order, the government is required to demonstrate that Russia-based company Concord had a duty to play “Mother, may I?” with the DOJ and the Federal Elections Commission before posting political speech on the internet using assumed names. Without that, the entire criminal case falls apart.
As noted by Judge Dabney L. Freidrich, speech that might “sow discord among US voters through divisive social media posts and political rallies … by itself, was not illegal.” Truly, all political speech has the potential to be divisive or sow discord. The prosecution of any political criticism of Hillary Clinton without citing the specific laws supposedly being violated is troubling, to say the least.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/20/special-counsel-case-russian-company-takes-page-soviet-handbook/