On May 9, Concord pleaded not guilty to charges filed by Mueller in February of allegedly interfering in the 2016 US election.
"Violations of the relevant federal campaign laws and foreign agent registration requirements administered by the [US] DOJ [Department of Justice] and the FEC [Federal Election Commission] require the defendant to have acted ‘willfully,’ a word that does not appear anywhere in Count One of the Indictment," the document said on Monday. "Defendant Concord is seeking… an in camera [private] inspection of the legal instruction the Special Counsel provided to the grand jury with respect to Count One."
If the court determines, the document added, that Mueller’s team "did not provide a complete and accurate mens rea [criminal intent] instruction then the instruction should be disclosed to the Defendant because there may be grounds to dismiss Count One of the Indictment on that basis."
"Different from any election case previously brought by the DOJ, the Special Counsel used the catch-all provision of the federal criminal code, the defraud prong of conspiracy… to allege that a foreign corporate defendant with no presence in the United States and having never entered the United States, engaged in the make-believe crime of conspiring to ‘interfere’ in a United States election," the document said.
On February 16, the Justice Department in court documents revealed that the United States had indicted 13 Russian nationals and three entities for allegedly trying to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Moscow has repeatedly denied interfering in US elections, calling the allegations absurd and part of a broader politically-motivated campaign to smear Russia.
