By Moon Of Alabama

March 19, 2020 "Information Clearing House" -  The Justice Department dropped its case against a Russian company which was alleged of influencing the 2016 elections. But as one false claim about Russian influence campaigns is now thoroughly debunked new nonsensical claims about alleged Russian influence campaigns arise.

In February 2018 the Mueller investigation of alleged election interference indicted a Russian company and individuals. As we reported at that time:

Yesterday the U.S. Justice Department indicted the Russian Internet Research Agency on some dubious legal grounds. It covers thirteen Russian people and three Russian legal entities. The main count of the indictment is an alleged "Conspiracy to Defraud the United States".

The published indictment gives support to our long held believe that there was no "Russian influence" campaign during the U.S. election. What is described and denounced as such was instead a commercial marketing scheme which ran click-bait websites to generate advertisement revenue and created online crowds around virtual persona to promote whatever its commercial customers wanted to promote. The size of the operation was tiny when compared to the hundreds of millions in campaign expenditures. It had no influence on the election outcome.

We could claim that because the indictment said in its point 95:

Defendants and their co-conspirators also used the accounts to receive money from real U.S. persons in exchange for posting promotions and advertisements on the ORGANIZATION-controlled social media pages. Defendants and their co-conspirators typically charged certain U.S. merchants and U.S. social media sites between 25 and 50 U.S. dollars per post for promotional content on their popular false U.S. persona accounts, including Being Patriotic, Defend the 2nd, and Blacktivist.

The Russian trolls sold media space to advertisers. They had nothing to with the election. 

Our report then continued:

The indictment is fodder for the public to prove that the Mueller investigation is "doing something". It distracts from further questioning the origin of the Steele dossier. It is full of unproven assertions and assumptions. It is a sham in that none of the Russian persons or companies indicted will ever come in front of a U.S. court.

The last sentence of that quote has proven to be wrong. One of the legal entities the Mueller investigation indicted, the Russian company Concord Management, hired a U.S. attorney and challenged the justice department. The back and forth during the pre-trial discovery hearings in front of the court, which can be followed in the docket of the case, proofed to be highly entertaining as Concord attorney Eric Dubelier was running circles around the Special Counsel and DOJ lawyers.

On Monday the Justice Department dropped the case: