Prosecutors claim that the Russians were essentially able to evade accountability and punishment while taking advantage of the discovery process to potentially harm U.S. national security.

...

The Concord companies sought to fight the indictment in court, unlike the other Russians charged by Mueller. In doing so, prosecutors say they were able to "obtain discovery" from the U.S. government regarding its efforts to "detect and deter foreign election interference" — while also ignoring court-issued subpoenas.

So the secret is to break the law in such a way that the government can't prosecute you without hurting itself. Good to know.

DOJ moves to drop charges against Russians accused of funding troll farm — NOS4A2

Congrats to you benefactors. :party:

They had no effect, so there's no reason to punish anyone.

Prosecutors claim that the Russians were essentially able to evade accountability and punishment while taking advantage of the discovery process to potentially harm U.S. national security.

...

The Concord companies sought to fight the indictment in court, unlike the other Russians charged by Mueller. In doing so, prosecutors say they were able to "obtain discovery" from the U.S. government regarding its efforts to "detect and deter foreign election interference" — while also ignoring court-issued subpoenas.

So the secret is to break the law in such a way that the government can't prosecute you without hurting itself. Good to know. — Michael

Same playbook Trump has been using... to expose him will expose so many others throughout history who've basically done the same things...

I explicated upon this... pages and pages back... maybe a year ago... it's the only explanation for why they haven't done anything despite clearly illegal behaviour, mainly regarding the emoluments clause.

Corruption is rampant.

So the secret is to break the law in such a way that the government can't prosecute you without hurting itself. Good to know.

Yeah, it’s brilliant. Show up and they drop the charges. Another failure for Mueller and the DOJ.

The government drops the charges against the only Russians to show up for trial. — NOS4A2

Did you read the article you referred? They dropped the charges against the company, or group of companies, "Concord", for various reasons, mostly due to the fact that the company had the capacity to, and practised non-compliance, and it would be capable of taking advantage of the court case through access to information. Pursuing the case was clearly detrimental to the interests of the United States. However, charges against the 13 individuals have not been dropped.

"The United States will continue its efforts to apprehend the individual defendants and bring them before this Court to face the pending charges..."

I did read the article. The government dropped the charges against the only Russians to show up for trial. It’s a deep failure.

Yes, not be able to bring the responsible individuals into court to face trial, and having only representatives from a company who have the sole intention of abusing the judicial process show up, is a failure.

You really believe that, don’t you? The US government cannot charge Russians for national security reasons?

You really believe that, don’t you? The US government cannot charge Russians for national security reasons? — NOS4A2

That's what the court papers say. Do you have an alternative explanation?

There is a substantial federal interest in defending American democratic institutions,
exposing those who endeavor to criminally interfere with them, and holding them accountable, which is why this prosecution was properly commenced in the first place. In light of the defendant’s conduct, however, its ephemeral presence and immunity to just punishment, the risk of exposure of law enforcement’s tools and techniques, and the post-indictment change in the proof available at trial¹, the balance of equities has shifted. It is no longer in the best interests of justice or the country’s national security to continue this prosecution.

...

¹ Moreover, as described in greater detail in the classified addendum to this motion, a classification determination bearing on the evidence the government properly gathered during the investigation, limits the unclassified proof now available to the government at trial. That forces the prosecutors to choose between a materially weaker case and the compromise of classified material.

That's what the court papers say. Do you have an alternative explanation?

Do you believe the defence has a right to see the evidence of what they are charged with?

Do you believe the defence has a right to see the evidence of what they are charged with? — NOS4A2

Yes, which is why the prosecution chose to drop charges. They would have to hand over classified evidence, and as the court papers say, the defendants have already misused evidence that was given to them and so cannot be trusted to not do so again. So for matters of national security it is safer for the U.S. government to not continue with prosecution.

Then why charge someone you could never take to trial, and for an arguably fake crime? The Mueller team fucked up, big league.

Then why charge someone you could never take to trial, and for an arguably fake crime? — NOS4A2

It wasn't a fake crime. And as the quote above says, the classification change happened post-indictment.

It wasn't a fake crime. — Michael

It was this very real crime I believe:

18 U.S. Code § 371.Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States

It wasn't a fake crime. And as the quote above says, the classification change happened post-indictment.

Isn’t that convenient?

Isn’t that convenient? — NOS4A2

For the defence, yes.

What exactly are you alleging? Perhaps that they don't have any evidence and are trying to hide that fact? If that is what you're alleging, where's your evidence?

It was this very real crime I believe:

It’s not illegal to create fake social media accounts.

DOJ moves to drop charges against Russians accused of funding troll farm — NOS4A2

This statement, as well as the headline of your referred article, is false and deceptive.

No charges against Russians have been dropped. Charges against Russian companies have been dropped.

The reasons given for dropping charges against the companies, was that the companies display no inclination to comply with rulings of the court, the court has no jurisdiction to enforce compliance, and the companies have the capacity to abuse information given as disclosures of evidence.

The US government cannot charge Russians for national security reasons? — NOS4A2

Get with it Nos4A2! It's not "Russians" who are the defendants here, it's Russian companies.

It’s not illegal to create fake social media accounts. — NOS4A2

Then you should be arguing that they are innocent of committing the alleged crime. Because it's false to say that they were charged with a fake crime. They were charged with a real crime. Whether or not they're guilty hasn't been determined (and now won't be).

Charges against the individual Russians are maintained!

Get with it Nos4A2! It's not "Russians" who are the defendants here, it's Russian companies.

Why are they Russian? Because Russians own them and run them.

I’m hot and cold on the response. I think he’s been quick to respond, but I also think he’s taking it too serious. Now he’s talking about sending cash to working American’s, and bailing out entire industries. These measures make me cringe each time I hear them.

I hope you realize Trump is a populist, not a libertarian.

So you think he's taking it too seriously. Does that mean you'd prefer to let nature take its course? I guess that would reduce social security outlays.

I’m well aware of that. On the other hand he is leaving much of the response to the states, which suits me just fine. I think that’s the best way to go about tackling the issue. But I fear his opponents and the press are trying to goad him into taking some drastic measures.

Now he’s talking about sending cash to working American’s, and bailing out entire industries. — NOS4A2

He’s a god damn socialist. :razz:

An authoritarian socialist: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/watch-live-trump-invokes-defense-production-act-to-increase-masks-supplies-to-fight-coronavirus

About time he crossed over and gave "liberty" and the free market the finger.

Anti-Trump Fake News during a Pandemic

The Fake news has been working overtime to malign the administration’s efforts during the pandemic. Trump took decisive coronavirus-related actions back when impeachment was all the rage, saving countless lives while the media was garnering countless clicks, but none of that will stop the usual suspects from dancing on the graves of Americans to further their political futures. Their ghoulish efforts during this pandemic has only increased confusion, anger and division in a time when we need to pull together.

1. Google Website

This article by CNN once painted a much different picture: Google will partner with US government to develop a nationwide coronavirus website, company says. It once read: Google says it's not publishing a national-scale coronavirus site anytime soon after Trump announcement.

CNN and others ran with this “gotcha” until Google later confirmed that they were wrong.

2. The president is putting his own political interests over the well-being of the American people, according to Vanity Fair.

A Vanity Fair author said that “Trump Reportedly Afraid Coronavirus Testing Could Hurt Reelection Chances”. This dangerous accusation, sowing discord and division in a time of crisis, was extrapolated not from any evidence or statement of Trump’s, but from a politico reporter’s “understanding”.

My understanding is he did not push to do aggressive additional testing in recent weeks, and that's partly because more testing might have led to more cases being discovered of coronavirus outbreak, and the president had made clear - the lower the numbers on coronavirus, the better for the president, the better for his potential reelection this fall.

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/814881355/white-house-knew-coronavirus-would-be-a-major-threat-but-response-fell-short

3. Trump dissolved the pandemic response team, cut funding for the CDC, and reduced the CDC presence around the globe.

In May 2018, Trump ordered the NSC’s entire global health security unit shut down, calling for reassignment of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer and dissolution of his team inside the agency. The month before, then-White House National Security Advisor John Bolton pressured Ziemer’s DHS counterpart, Tom Bossert, to resign along with his team. Neither the NSC nor DHS epidemic teams have been replaced. The global health section of the CDC was so drastically cut in 2018 that much of its staff was laid off and the number of countries it was working in was reduced from 49 to merely 10. Meanwhile, throughout 2018, the U.S. Agency for International Development and its director, Mark Green, came repeatedly under fire from both the White House and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. And though Congress has so far managed to block Trump administration plans to cut the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps by 40 percent, the disease-fighting cadres have steadily eroded as retiring officers go unreplaced.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/

Much of these falsities are woven with little bits of truth, but is ultimately misleading,according to factcheck.org. As usual the nonsense is already widely spread among media parrots.

4. Trump called the Coronavirus a hoax.

CNN continues to push this lie to their servile followers.

But Trump never called the coronavirus a hoax. He was clearly speaking about the Democrat’s politicization of the pandemic, and only through deceptive editing of video could this lie possibly work.

5. Trump Declined WHO Coronavirus Test Kits

The trump-bashing reached new heights when politico claimed the administration declined WHO test kits.

Why the United States declined to use the WHO test, even temporarily as a bridge until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could produce its own test, remains a perplexing question and the key to the Trump administration’s failure to provide enough tests to identify the coronavirus infections before they could be passed on, according to POLITICO interviews with dozens of viral-disease experts, former officials and some officials within the administration’s health agencies.

This was parroted by the Biden campaign during the debates and found a comfortable home in the minds of millions. Of course, it was false. No testing kits were offered. No testing kits were declined. And there was no deviation from standard protocols.

6. Trump offered large sums of cash for exclusive rights to vaccine from Germany

This unsubstantiated misinformation made Germans angry in a time of pandemic, and offered soothing balm to any Trump-hater’s cognitive dissonance. Citing some German newspaper, the claim made its way through the Twitterati and their obsequious followers, who readily believe anything that makes Trump look bad. But those actually involved in the discussions—on both sides—disputed the claims entirely, not that they made any sense to begin with.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/03/17/trump-poach-coronavirus-vaccine/

Thanks for the propaganda update, KellyAnne, :yawn:

He lied and:

People are dying because of this. — NOS4A2