U.S. prosecutors say they have a witness who will directly implicate a Russian businessman known as “Putin’s chef” in schemes to carry out election interference overseas.
The mystery witness is prepared to testify at a criminal trial set to open in Washington next month in a case special counsel Robert Mueller brought accusing three Russian companies and 13 Russian individuals of meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a prosecutor declared at a recent court hearing.
The anticipated testimony will focus on the most prominent Russian national charged in the indictment, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a St. Petersburg restaurateur who enjoys close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and who has expanded his business empire to become a key contractor for the Russian military.
Prosecutors say Prigozhin ran the Internet Research Agency, a Russian firm that allegedly sponsored and coordinated online troll activity during the 2016 U.S. election.
None of the charged individuals are known to have been arrested or surrendered to face the charges, but one of the charged companies linked to Prigozhin, Concord Management and Consulting, hired American attorneys to fight the case.
The prosecution’s mention at a Feb. 21 hearing of a live witness prepared to detail face-to-face dealings with Prigozhin about election-focused efforts came as a surprise.
Evidence at the trial had been expected to consist primarily of emails, budgets and similar records detailing the effort, described in the indictment as Project Lakhta. Where the United States obtained all the records is not clear, but some appear to have come from email accounts hosted by U.S. providers.
Relatively dry testimony was also anticipated from officials who enforce U.S. laws on election funding, foreign-sponsored political activity in the U.S, and visa issuance.
So, the prosecution’s mention at a Feb. 21 hearing of a live witness prepared to detail face-to-face dealings with Prigozhin about election-focused efforts came as a surprise.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Luke Jones said that the witness, who was not publicly named, is set to testify about election-related discussions at “a meeting” with Prigozhin.
Under questioning by U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich, the prosecutor said that the witness has knowledge of plans to interfere in elections in a country other than the U.S. It was not entirely clear whether the witness is also privy to similar details about the alleged U.S. election interference.
“We don’t anticipate testimony describing actual interference somewhere else. … The purpose of that testimony is purely to establish Prigozhin’s knowledge of the IRA’s activities and his oversight of that,” Jones said. ”It’s context for the conversation between Prigozhin and the person.”
Published reports have linked Prigozhin to similar influence campaigns in African countries, such as Madagascar, but Jones did not say which other country was a topic of discussion at the meeting the witness plans to recount.
Friedrich noted that the indictment in the case does contend that “Project Lakhta had multiple components, some involving domestic audiences with the Russian Federation and others targeting foreign audiences in various countries, including the United States.” However, she pressed Jones on why efforts directed at third countries should even be mentioned at the trial.
“We think it’s relevant because it’s a part of the facts surrounding the meeting and the reason for the meeting,” the prosecutor said.
“Well, it’s a conspiracy to defraud the United States, not any other country,” Friedrich responded.
When Friedrich sought to discuss the issue with the defense attorney representing Concord, the Russian firm set to go on trial next month, the lawyer said he couldn’t do so without getting into matters that are under seal.
“I wouldn’t be comfortable with that,” lawyer Eric Dubelier said.
Friedrich said she planned to take up the subject at a closed court session that followed the public one that day. “I want to continue this under seal at the end,” she said.
Jones provided few hints about the prosecution witness’ identity during the public portion of the hearing. However, in a court filing Monday, prosecutors said they plan to ask that one of their witnesses be permitted to testify under a pseudonym. It is unclear if that witness and the one prepared to talk about meeting with Prigozhin are the same person.
Trying to protect the witness’s identity because of fear of reprisals from the Russian government may be fruitless, one intelligence expert said.
“If the mystery witness is someone who met Prigozhin, then there is certainly a likelihood Priogzhin knows who he or she is,” said Steven Aftergood, who studies classified information for the Federation of American Scientists.
Aftergood said the U.S. government’s willingness to roll out a first-hand witness in the case is surprising because there is little concrete at stake in the trial. Concord could be fined if convicted, but the firm is not known to have any assets in the U.S., so the penalty might never be collected.
“It sounds like the prosecution is upping the ante, even though the ultimate outcome is speculative at best,” he said. “It seems like the government is risking quite a bit for a mostly symbolic outcome.”
While potential jurors are scheduled to report April 1 to fill out questionnaires and the trial is set to get underway in earnest the following week, the prosecution suggested during a hearing Monday that it might seek to postpone the trial if Concord doesn’t cooperate with a court order to turn over certain records.
The suggestion appeared to startle Friedrich, who has been pressing to get the trial started in the case, which was filed more than two years ago.
A number of former employees of IRA have spoken out publicly about social media work they did from the firm’s four-story St. Petersburg headquarters.
Separate teams of Russian and English speakers generated content aimed at bolstering Putin in Russia and fomenting strife in the U.S., the ex-workers said.
It is not clear whether any of the ex-employees who have spoken to reporters or offered public accounts in other venues had direct dealings with Prigozhin, who has denied any connection to IRA or election interference.
A Russian journalist who claims to have infiltrated IRA, Lyudmila Savchuk, told a story at an Atlantic Council conference on disinformation in 2018 about Prigozhin allegedly taking mannequins to the outskirts of the city, shooting them and pouring ketchup on them. However, Savchuk seemed to be relaying a story she had heard from an editor.
Another possibility is that the witness could be one of several Russian emigres who have reportedly provided information to the U.S. about Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.
Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward wrote in his 2018 book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” that six human sources backed up the CIA’s assessment that the Russians sought to undermine Hillary Clinton and advantage Trump in the 2016 race.
At least one of those sources, a former Kremlin aide, is believed to be living in the United States. Woodward said the man, who implicated Putin in the meddling, turned down an offer in 2016 from the CIA to be resettled in the U.S. CNN and the New York Times reported more recently that in 2017 the informant gave in and agreed to move to the U.S.
State-controlled Russian media identified the man publicly last fall as Oleg Smolenkov, downplayed his role at the Kremlin and suggested he was a heavy drinker who was making up stories.
CIA assets and officers have testified at criminal trials before, although typically prosecutors ask permission for such witnesses to wear disguises or testify behind a screen so the public cannot see them.
There is no public indication that prosecutors have requested any such accommodation for the witness prepared to talk about Prigozhin, beyond the mention of a pseudonym for someone involved in the case.
However, Friedrich has been dealing in secret with some request by prosecutors to limit the defense’s use of classified information during the trial, which is expected to last four weeks. The judge issued a written order on the subject last week, but it remains sealed.
The jockeying over classified information might be unsurprising in a case involving a subject that has been the focus of such intesive efforts by U.S. intelligence agencies over a protracted period of time. But it is at odds with a prediction from the prosecution soon after the indictment was filed two years ago.
Asked by Friedrich at a May 2018 hearing about the possibility of wrangling over classified information, Mueller prosecutor Jeannie Rhee suggested it was unlikely.
“We would hope not, your honor. So, we can address that as the proceedings continue, but we are hopeful that we would not,” she said.
A spokeswoman for the prosecution and an attorney for Concord did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday. Friedrich has imposed a gag order on both sides in the case.