Flynn to be sentenced that day, in the end, he was not sentenced. It was sort of a shocking day in court. You might remember. Flynn of course had plead guilty to lying to investigators about his contacts with the russian government while he was serving in the trump transition. When he plead guilty, he became a cooperator, became a cooperating witness. The special counsels office thereafter told the court repeatedly and officially that flynn was a good cooperator, that he had cooperated extensively with them and helped them with multiple investigations. As such, the special counsels office advised the judge in the flynn case that despite the seriousness of flynns own confessed crimes, his cooperation had been so valuable to prosecutors that they believed the judge should give him little to no jail time. But nevertheless, a week before christmas last december, the judge in the mike flynn case balked. He told flynn in open court that day that he could not hide, quote, his disdain, his disgust for flynns criminal conduct. In open court, he asked prosecutors from the special counsels office if they had considered putting mike flynn on trial for treason, of all things. That was a shocking enough almost suggestion from the judge that later in the hearing he actually walked that back in open court. But whatever that judge was looking at in terms of the evidence, the evidence that we could see, also the sealed filings, any of the Background Information he had been provided in terms of flynns conduct and his cooperation, whatever the judge was seeing in the universe of information he had access to about mike flynn, it had that judge fired up enough that day in that courtroom that honestly, the real mercy that judge showed to mike flynn that day was when the judge repeatedly asked to flynn multiple times throughout the hearing if flynn was really sure that he wanted to go ahead with the sentencing. The judge repeatedly went back to flynn over the course of that hearing, are you sure you want me to sentence you right now . Basically, are you sure today ought to be the day . Are you sure you might not want to take more time as a cooperating witness and see if there is anything else you might possibly be able to do for your country that might possibly mitigate the size of the book that im about to throw at you for your crimes, which ive already said to your face in open court are crimes that disgust me . You sure you want to go ahead with this today . It was interesting as a sort of moment of human drama. During that hearing that day, flynn repeatedly rebuffed those questions suggestions from the judge, basically saying no, your honor, no, youre good. Go ahead. Im ready to be sentenced. Eventually there was a little break where flynn had time to have some quality time with his own lawyers, and after that break, flynn did i think figure out what was going on. He did then concede to the judge that, yeah, maybe today wasnt good. Maybe it might be a good idea to take a little more time. And so the outcome of that hearing was that mike flynn was not sentenced. That was the week before christmas. They put off his sentencing hearing sort of indefinitely. They put it off for months. He went back to being a cooperating witness after that shocking day in court. Hes not even going to have a status conference on the state of his case until deep into next month. They put this thing off for a while. Go see what else you can do, sir. But in that case, the case of mike flynn and his aborted sentencing hearing, you might notice a little a little melody, a little tune that recurs that is becoming sort of a theme song for all of the various cases, for all of the various people who have been charged and or plead guilty in the russia investigation thus far. I think there is a theme that even us nonlawyers can recognize now when we look at these cases, when we can now see over time with all of these cases and all these dozens of indictments and dozens of defendants, we can now see a little bit of a recurring melody, a little theme that you can recognize in how judges react when they hear about, when they see evidence about the alleged or confessed crimes of the people who have been caught up thus far in this investigation, this investigation that centers around the special counsels office, but has been disbursed into these multiple cases. We see how judges react when they get access to information about these defendants. We saw that with flynn dramatically in november. We also see that theme all over todays news in multiple cases. The day before mike flynns disastrous sentencing hearing in december, the day before that went so wrong for him in court, you might also remember that flynns business partner, his longtime business partner, a guy named bijan kian, was also indicted, also charged in his case with acting as an agent of a foreign government. This is sort of more serious version of the charge that a number of mueller targets have faced, which is failing to register as a Foreign Agent. What bijan kian was charged with in middecember is sort of the more serious version of that crime. According to his lawyers, it is something that has only been charged in the United States a handful of times since the law was created. But bijan kian plead not guilty. He is not pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate like most of the other people who were charged in the Mueller Investigation thus far. Kian has plead not guilty. He wants to go to trial. Today there was a hearing in his case to among other things set a trial date. Kians lawyers plead with the judge hearing that case in the Eastern District of virginia that they needed quite a lot more time to prepare their defense before they would feel comfortable proceeding with a trial, and mostly their basis for arguing that today was that there is a ton of evidence to go through in the governments case, what they described of terabytes of data on multiple hard drives that they had received from the prosecution outlining their case against bijan kian. But one of kians lawyers also told the judge today there was a more personal reason they wanted to delay. They wanted to delay specifically until this fall. And we got a transcript of that hearing today in which we can see bijan kians lawyer telling the judge today, quote, i know it is not of utmost concern to the court, your honor, but our clients daughters wedding is the first week of august. So we would like to make sure that we dont jam him up in that regard as well. His lawyer saying that, please, can we put the trial off to the fall. There is so much to do. There is so much evidence to get through, but also his daughters wedding is the first week of august. Couldnt we do it after that . The judge responded to that effectively at this hearing today by saying, sorry, when is his daughters hearing . Its the first week of august. You dont want to, what did you say, jam him up right before that . Okay, then. The judge said we will set his trial for july 15th. So maybe he can just wear his father of the bride tux to the trial in case thats going to be the closest he gets to celebrating his daughters wedding the first week in august. On the Concord Management case, there was another blunt ruling from a federal judge today in that case. Concord management youll remember thats the Russian Company charged in conjunction with the Internet Research agency case. This is the indictment brought early on by mueller charging a bunch of russian citizens and the Internet Research agency in st. Petersburg and the Russian Oligarch who funded and ran that and his management company. Theyre all charged with conspireing to defraud the United States by interfering with the lawful functions of our election process, among a whole bunch of other crimes, including identity theft. Theyre basically charging these defendants with having run the social media and propaganda element of the russian governments interference in our 2016 election to benefit president trump. Now none of the russian defendants in that indictment have set foot in a u. S. Courtroom since this indictment was handed down. Russia as a rule does not extradite their citizens to stand trial in the United States. But the Russian Oligarch who is charged in this indictment, Russian Oligarch close to putin, close to the russian government, the guy who allegedly runs the Internet Research agency and ran this part of the operation, he appears to have decided to try to use the u. S. Court system against the United States of america, and specifically, against the Mueller Investigation by taking materials obtained over the course of that criminal case and disseminating them in russia in an effort to try to gain intel on what mueller has figured out about russian interference, and prosecutors in that case say theyve also used the materials obtained in that court case in what amounts to another russian intelligence operation. An effort to take the case materials from this Concord Management case that the lawyers representing Concord Management in that case have obtained through the American Court system. Those materials were obtained through this criminal case through judicial proceedings in the United States. Those materials then turned up online being shopped by prorussia twitter accounts as supposedly hacked material from the Mueller Investigation, that they were shopping to u. S. Journalists trying to undermine and discredit what mueller is doing and what evidence he has found. So this Concord Management case, none of the russian defendants have turned up in court. For Concord Management, this russian corporate entity, they did hire american lawyers to represent that russian entity. Theyve used those american lawyers basically to obtain information from the Mueller Investigation that russia appears to be turning around in another op intending to target the u. S. Public. So that that case has definitely taken a bunch of weird turns. This is an odd duck case among all of the mueller and mueller derived investigations weve seen thus far. Its ultimately important to know, though, about this Concord Management case that at every turn, at every incremental step that we have been able to see thus far in the case, Concord Management and their u. S. Defense team have lost against muellers prosecutors. Everything they fought on, they have lost. Today was no exception. Today the judge in the Concord Management case issued her order on yet another request by Concord Management that they should get yet more discovery materials as part of this case. The judge ruled flatly no, ruled against them full stop. No, they cannot have those New Discovery materials theyre asking for. They have lost at every step of this case thus far, including today. That same theme, that same little melody also seems to be applying when it comes to the new case of roger stone, the longtime trump political adviser who was arrested at his home in florida two and a half weeks ago. Stone was charged with seven felony counts for allegedly lying to congress and tampering with witness and obstruction of justice. Tried to tell the court that the prosecutors acted illegally on the day that roger stone was arrested. His lawyers told the court today that the indictment, the actual written indictment of roger stone, it was illegally sent out to reporters before roger stone was arrested while the indictment was supposed to still be under seal. That was their contention to the judge in the stone case today. To back it up, mr. Stones lawyers then provided evidence to the court that in fact the indictment of mr. Stone was emailed out to reporters after stone was arrested. So, again, their big allegation to the court today was, hey, this indictment was sent out before roger stone was arrested. They then provided written evidence to the court showing that the indictment was sent out after roger stone was arrested. So, i mean, thats a little bit like calling in sick to work and then turning in a note from your doctor that says rachels fine. Maybe the proof here, supposed proof didnt help. So its starting to look like the roger stone case is not going all that well either, although there is certainly lots to come. At this point he is still pleading not guilty, still planning on going to trial. Should be interesting. Now although this pattern seems to be clear on every legal case that weve seen thus far on the russia investigation, either directly from muellers office or from any of these associated prosecutions, so far we have seen this theme that nobody is faring well when it comes to these legal cases being prosecuted. That said, a lot of these things are still in process. Its obviously not all done. Its obviously not all settled. Even today, there is a bunch of intriguing stuff that isnt yet decided that could go any way at all. For example, the d. C. Circuit court of appeals, thats a court thats one level below the u. S. Supreme court. Today we found out from filings before that court that were likely to get Public Access soon to some of the core materials in the mystery case. This is the case that the special counsels office has been fighting out with an unknown company that is wholly owned by an unknown foreign country. We know the basics about this case. This Company Owned by a foreign country got a subpoena from mueller months ago in 2018. They have fought to it the highest levels of the u. S. Court system, including some elements of this case that have gone all the way to the u. S. Supreme court. Their contention is that they dont have to comply with the subpoena from mueller basically because theyre owned by a foreign country. But, again, like weve seen with all of these cases, as far as we can tell with the mystery case, it appears that at every turn in this court case thus far, they have lost. I mean, theyre fighting it out. Theyre fighting as i said all the way to the Supreme Court in some cases. But they appear to have lost at every stage. As far as we can tell from the heavily redacted filings that we have in the mystery case, the company is now paying 50,000 per day every day as punishment for them still refusing to comply with the subpoena because the courts have ruled that they really do need to comply with the subpoena. And this is a case that has been tied up in incredibly highfaluting litigation for months now. Its still not clear, i guess, in the end if mueller is going to get whatever it is he is demanding in the subpoena from this company, but we did find out today that we the public are going to have access to more material from that case within the next few weeks. If todays new Court Filings in that case are anything to go by. We also learned today that this man, sam patten, has finally been given a sentencing date. Sam patten plead guilty last august to failing to register as a Foreign Agent working on behalf of a prorussia Political Party in ukraine. He also admitted to prosecutors that he helped a prorussian ukrainian oligarch illegally funnel foreign money into the trump inaugural committee. Sam patten plead guilty last august. He became a cooperating witness. What we know of his business past and the filings in the case thus far show that the case and his cooperation may be tied up not only to the trump inaugural committee, which was just subpoenaed last week by federal prosecutors, but also to Konstantin Kilimnik with whom he was involved in business relationships. Konstantin kilimnik is the alleged russian intelligence figure who himself has been indicted by mueller on a witness tampering charge. He is central to some of the intriguing elements to the Paul Manafort prosecution. Sam patson tied to Konstantin Kilimnik. Sam patten is also tied to cambridge analytica, which is the Campaign Data firm during the election around which there has been lots and lots of intrigue. We found out today that sam patten will finally be sentenced on april 12th. So a couple of months from now. A week in advance of that sentencing and the first week of april, we will get filings in his case that we expect to detail the extent of his cooperation with federal prosecutors, since he pled guilty last summer. Given all of the different elements of the scandal that sam patten is potentially connected to, the inaugural, kilimnik, cambridge analytica, its going to be fascinating to see what hes helped prosecutors with when he finally turns up in court and his case, which has been totally opaque to us the public thus far, gets laid out for the public, we will understand how he fits into this puzzle as well. So theres definitely still stuff that remains to be explained and that we will eventually learn as members of the public who are watching all of this stuff. There is definitely cases that arent over, trials that havent been held, questions that havent been answered, stuff that hasnt been unredacted and unsealed for public viewing. But even in the middle of all those things, in general, the theme, the melody is now quite recognizable. I mean, whose won going up against the Mueller Investigation or any of the related prosecutions . Whose come out on the long end of the stick . If you had to decide right now which party you would want to be in any of these cases, if you were told, hey, the news gods are going to plop you personally into any of these ongoing cases that derive from the Mueller Investigation, would you rather be on the defense side or the prosecution side. What do