The federal government remains partially shut down at present, but Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation is continuing anyway. After having previously reached the U.S. Supreme Court via an attempt to block one of his team’s subpoenas, his investigation has gotten an essential green light from the nation’s highest judicial body. This week, they detached themselves from that attempt to block a subpoena, which came in the form of an appeal of lower court rulings holding the subject in contempt for refusing to comply.
Notably enough, although there was basically no explanation for their dismissal offered, neither was there any immediate public indication that any one of the judges on the court dissented. Although less direct than others, it’s hardly the first time that a court has offered some form of support for Mueller’s investigation to proceed.
The subject of the subpoena in question has remained up until this point unnamed. All that’s known is that Mueller is targeting a company owned by another country, but from there the possibilities extend all sorts of directions. He’s previously targeted Russian companies behind the infamous internet misinformation campaigns that rocked the 2016 elections, but the company could also be something like a bank. They’ve argued that they should be free from American jurisdiction, but lower court judges have held that unidentified commercial activity sufficiently intertwines them with American affairs to warrant scrutiny.
Throughout the months that the case has dragged on through one initial D.C. Court upholding Mueller’s subpoena and two subsequent appeals before the bid to the Supreme Court, the matter has been shrouded in secrecy. When D.C.’s Court of Appeals heard the case, the entire floor was cleared out in an effort to keep the identities of involved parties secret. The association with Mueller has only been derived from educated conjecture based on the case’s nature and sightings and overheard remarks associated with the case.
When it reached the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts put a temporary hold on the appeals court ruling upholding the subpoena, but that hold has now been lifted meaning that the company is again financially liable for failures to turn over demanded information. A compounding fine is included in the contempt citation.
Mueller has now found himself one step closer to getting whatever information the foreign government-owned company has.
In theory, it could be connected to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who has certainly proven intertwined with foreign interests and remains under close legal scrutiny. Ironically enough, just this week, it came out that he stands accused of sharing internal polling data from the Trump campaign with associate and former Russian intelligence officer Konstantin Kilimnik, which only adds to his long list of problems.
He’s currently going at it with the special counsel’s office over claims he’s lied to them and therefore broken his plea agreement.
He’s one of four former Trump associates to have already faced or soon be facing jail time. Others include his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and his former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.
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