Russian spies? US unusually used Secret Court in alleged military export scheme

Voice of Russia New York correspondent Vasily Sushko spoke with Douglas C. McNabb, a federal criminal attorney who specializes in international extradition defense and foreign policy.

You read over this lengthy indictment, giving your expertise, is there anything that stands out in this particular case?

Well, the fact that there’re a number of counts, individuals charges isn’t surprising, the number of defendants isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that they went into special secret U.S. Court, the FISA Court, in order to secure warrants, wire intercepts. And FISA stands for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and those are only done in espionage cases. Additionally, the prosecutors are so bad on making sure that these individuals are not released on bond, that they prepared an 11-page letter to the judge who is going to be hearing this case in 30 minutes arguing that there’s overwhelming evidence with regard to each of the defendants. Well, the government always argues that they have overwhelming evidence with regard to all defendants. But these individuals have strong ties to Russia and the allegations are that they were selling Russian military and Russian intelligence agencies and they attached some documents to the letter, one of which looks as if maybe English translation and it is signed by a Committee Chair and two Committee Members of some Committee, but it was approved by the Head of a military division, I think by Russian, but I don’t know. So was attached and then there’s also the certificate, the Central Agency of Russian military of Defense and it looks like it is some articles, maybe of a corporation that was established in Russia. Anyway, the letter that was sent to the judge was signed by two Department of Justice Trial Attorneys in the Counter-Espionage Section. Certainly we’re going to see political ramifications and I will not be surprised, it would be interesting to see whether a question about it comes up in the presidential debate tonight. It might be interesting – to see if it comes up. I doubt that the President would bring it up, but Romney may very well do that in the sense of trying to show that he’s keenly aware of what’s going on on the international front or something like that.

Mr. McNabb, I’m not attack expert, either you are if I’m correct, but I want to read a part from this indictment. It says, “The micro-electronic ship to Russia included analog to digital converters, static random access memory chips, microcontrollers and microprocessors.” Now, I’ve logged on to the Internet today to see if these items were available for purchase. And I found out that most of these items were. An analog for digital converter I found for 44 dollars and either that microcontroller I found for 58 dollars. These are items that can be bought literally anywhere in the world on the internet. So, my question to you is what’s the big issue here? Do you think it’s the type of technology that was being exported or was it the fact that companies listed in the indictment were evading government export controls?

If it’s something that could be easily compiled and if it isn’t so big a deal, then my question would be, why is it prohibited under U.S. export law? I’d suspect that the U.S. government would argue – I don’t know! The U.S. government considers itself today something serious, considers it to be a big deal, otherwise it wouldn’t have prohibited the shipment of the goods outside. And require the license! These guys sufficiently didn’t have the license in order to ship them out and disguised the shipments as being something else other than what they were. But again, we see these cases not all the time, but frequently enough that they always make big headlines initially. But it’s not such a big deal! I represented an individual who sold defective computer parts, exported them to the marines in Afghanistan. And that’s a serious matter. But I’d suggest that the case we’re talking about today isn’t at the same level. It’s a typical export violation case.

So, Mr. McNabb, why do you think this case in particular is such a big deal?

Well, the feds are very serious about prosecuting cases that violate U.S. export norm. But I think what kicks this up from just ordinary federal prosecution of cases like that is the fact that it’s Russia, that it’s Russian military and intelligence agencies – I think that certainly takes it too a bit higher level than otherwise. I mean, we see a lot of cases on federal level where individuals will ship goods to Iran, for example, but transship them through U.A.E. And that’s serious and of course it’s ultimately going to a state that the U.S. doesn’t have the best relations with right now. But for to be going to the Russian military allegations and to Russian intelligence – that’s a serious stop. And for them to have gone to the FISA Court – that’s a big deal! That’s a secret court!

Mr. McNabb, you mentioned earlier that the items being exported were on a government list of some sort. Can you elaborate on this? Can you elaborate on the actual wrongdoing of these 11 individuals?

There’s a Department of Commerce export list that sets out different items, if one wants to ship them out of the U.S., that shipper must see approval or license from the Department of Commerce to do that and to tell Commerce what he wants to be shipping, the quantity and to whom. And then, before they can be shipped, Commerce has to approve it. And apparently the allegations are that none of this was done. That violates the law and this is a 25-count indictment, 25 serious allegations that carry up to 20 years without parole or per-count. And it’s not only the violation of export license law, but it’s also obstruction of justice. And this is a national security case! And obstruction of justice usually carries up to 5 years, but if it’s a national security case like this – it carries up to 20 years without parole.

Thank you very much!