Remember Alfa Bank?

Anyone might be forgiven for imagining that the Russia Hoax is over and done with. But it's not. And Techno Fog has a very interesting article to remind us of that fact. As you may recall, during the final month or two of the 2016 election campaign, outlandish accusations were leveled against Alfa Bank. The basic idea was that a Russian bank, Alfa Bank, was laundering money on behalf of Donald Trump, money that the Putin regime was paying Trump as their supposed agent. These outlandish accusations came from the Hillary campaign and its oppo research branch--in other words, Fusion GPS (remember?), Glenn Simpson, and shady Clinton campaign lawyers.

The whole story quickly collapsed under the weight of its own absurdity, after a brief flurry of excitement ginned up in the Dem media proxy outlets. Even oppo research stories require some minimal factual content, and this story lacked the bare minimum. Apparently the Clinton campaign thought the whole thing would be water over the dam, but Alfa bank had other ideas. They sued, and Techno Fog brings us up to date:

Why is a Fusion GPS attorney risking sanctions?

Fusion GPS appears desperate to settle a potentially catastrophic case.

First, some minimal background:

In 2017, the owners of Alfa Bank ... sued Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson for their publication of false statements accusing Alfa Bank of “bribery, extortion, and interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.”

As a reminder, it was Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson who, along with others, created and spread bogus Trump/Russia dossiers to government officials and the media. This was then used to justify the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance warrants on Carter Page to spy on Page those associated with President Trump.

Here we are, nearly four years later, and things are getting interesting. During the discovery process--still ongoing--Simpson attempted to deny Alfa's request for certain documents by claiming that they were covered by attorney-client privilege. There are 500 documents at issue. In an article dated May 25 of this year Techno Fog explained why Simpson's legal argument based on privilege was very weak. He also went into detail regarding the nature of the documents that Alfa is seeking:

Fusion GPS is losing the fight to keep its records secret.

What will Fusion's internal e-mails reveal?

Current developments indicate that Techno Fog was right. It appears that Simpson is increasingly desperate to settle the case, to prevent disclosure of the documents in question. The problem is, Alfa has no interest in settling. They want the documents.

The way this came to light is in a filing by Alfa. Alfa is alleging in this latest filing that Simpson's lawyers have been reaching out to third parties, trying to enlist them to intercede and to persuade Alfa to engage in settlement negotiations. That, it turns out, this attempt at a back-channel outreach was a bad move, born of desperation.

It turns out that "it is against the DC Court’s local rules, as well as the DC Rules of Professional Conduct, to establish such back-channel lines of communication." Rather than play footsie with Simpson in this way, Alfa brought the matter to the attention of the court. According to the DC rules--and the judge, of course is well aware of these rules, as are the lawyers--settlement offers are to be made through the attorneys for the parties.

As Techno Fog argues--persuasively, it seems to me--the decision of Simpson's attorneys to embark on this very risky path is almost certainly a measure of how damaging the documents in question are. Since most of the documents involve communications between Simpson and other persons, we can assume that there are greater interests at stake here beyond those of Simpson and Fusion GPS.

Here is Techno Fog's thumbnail sketch of the matters that are discussed in the documents:

May 2016 correspondence among Fusion GPS employees/principals, including Glenn Simpson, regarding their early work on Trump/Russia.

August 2016 between Fusion GPS and DNC lawyers Perkins Coie.

The early work on the Carter Page research from July 2016.

I need scarcely remind readers that when the law firm of Perkins Coie comes up, we're getting very close to the very heart of Dem election lawfare ops. This is potentially a very big deal.