Former federal prosecutor Joseph Moreno is predicting that the Supreme Court will weigh in on whether an unnamed foreign company should comply with a subpoena that is potentially related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russia’s election meddling.
“We’re learning step by step there’s actually a lot going on, and one of the things that appears to have been going on was this behind the scenes court battle between the special counsel’s office, and this mystery witness, who was refusing to either appear or provide documents to a subpoena,” Moreno told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball.
“Originally we assumed it was a person, now we’re coming to learn it looks like it’s more likely a company that’s owned in part or in whole by a foreign government,” he continued.
“In countries like China, Russia, Ukraine, [United Arab Emirates], that can be fairly common. You can have banks, real estate companies, other kinds of joint ventures that are partially owned by the government,” he said. “So that seems like what we’re dealing with here, and so far this company has said ‘we don’t think we need to respond to this subpoena,’ whether it’s to provide bank records, or emails, or documents, the courts have said ‘hey not so fast, it looks like you do.’ Ultimately the Supreme Court is going to weigh in on that.”
Moreno’s comments come after the federal government filed a sealed response on Friday to a temporary pause the Supreme Court put on an order holding an unnamed, foreign government-owned company in contempt.
CNN reported that the move would be the first known challenge to a case apparently related to the Mueller probe to reach the nation’s highest court.
The unnamed company claims it is immune from criminal proceedings under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and that the subpoena is unenforceable because it would require “the Corporation” to violate “Country A’s” domestic law.
Speculation has swirled around whether Mueller is involved in the case due to its secrecies and similarities to another Mueller subpoena.
— Julia Manchester
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