Day: May 25, 2024

More than two years after the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine and an endless string of reports about dysfunction and chaos within the Russian military, the Kremlin is now openly admitting its army is a complete mess.

The latest indication came with the arrest of Russia’s fourth high-ranking military official in a month on Thursday: The army chief’s deputy, Lieutenant-General Vadim Shamarin, is being held in pre-trial detention and faces up to 15 years behind bars on corruption charges. The Investigative Committee says Shamarin accepted a bribe on an “especially large scale” while awarding state contracts.

Bizarrely, his arrest came just days after Vladimir Putin told a meeting of defense officials the General Staff was in great shape—running “rhythmically” and operating “successfully.” He said no changes were planned there.

The downfall of Shamarin, who was in charge of the military’s communications in Ukraine, was welcomed by Russian troops who blamed the general’s dreadful work performance for thousands of deaths on the battlefield.

It also seemed like posthumous greetings from Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose rageful demands for the ouster of top military leadership during his short-lived mutiny last year seem to increasingly be coming to fruition. He got his wish earlier this month to see Sergei Shoigu removed as defense minister, and now the Kremlin’s purge of military leaders has inched closer to Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff.

It’s perhaps no coincidence that Wagner-linked Telegram channels re-upped Prigozhin’s year-old comment this week that “Shoigu and Gerasimov turned this war into entertainment, and because of their whims five times more guys died than should have.”

Even with the arrest of Shamarin, it’s clear many troops still hold a grudge.

“Even 15 years in prison is nothing” compared to the “several thousand people who literally died” due to the poor comms he provided, one Wagner-linked Telegram channel wrote.

The Kremlin, meanwhile, has patted itself on the back for the anti-corruption spree, while insisting there is no widespread purge underway, despite the four high-ranking officials going down in rapid succession.

“The fight against corruption is an ongoing effort. It is not a campaign. It is an integral part of the activities of law enforcement agencies,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday.

Ex-Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov was the biggest name to be arrested last month, followed by Defense Ministry personnel directorate chief Yury Kuznetsov, and former army commander Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov (who investigators have since asked to release on house arrest). All are facing corruption-related charges.

Left unanswered is why Moscow has only embarked on this anti-corruption fight now, long after reports of humiliating losses on the battlefield and widespread dysfunction exposed the rot at the center of the army.

It seems telling that the Kremlin is cleaning house as it’s become more and more reliant on China to keep the war machine afloat. In his visit to China last week, Putin appeared to suck up to corruption-obsessed Chinese President Xi Jinping, revealing that his family was learning Mandarin and calling himself and his Chinese counterpart “as close as brothers.” All of this, of course, came as the Russian leader needs an ally more than ever—ideally one with money. Which would explain why Putin had the governor of Russia’s Central Bank, his finance minister, and his economics adviser in tow.

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Stein found the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause does not allow prosecutors to show jurors the evidence. The clause grants members of Congress a form of immunity that is mostly impenetrable in investigations relating to the official duties of lawmakers, their aides or other congressional officials.

Coincidentally, Stein based his order on a 1979 Supreme Court case about another New Jersey Democrat accused of corruption. In that case, the high court ruled the speech or debate clause barred prosecutors from introducing certain evidence against Rep. Henry Helstoski, who had been accused of accepting bribes.

Prosecutors had hoped to present the evidence in the Menendez case next week in the form of a summary of the years of text messages, phone records and other documents obtained during a multi-year investigation of the senator, his wife and various associates, including New Jersey business people accused of bribing him.

They wanted to show jurors two series of exhibits. First, 2019 text messages and phone records that allegedly show Menendez sought to assure bribers that he was not holding up military aid to Egypt after Egyptian officials heard he was. Second, a 2022 text message from Menendez’s wife about her husband having to sign off on military sales to Egypt, which prosecutors interpreted to mean she was signaling to “keep the bribes flowing.”

Citing the Helstoski case, Stein said “prior holds on foreign military assistance and prior sign-offs are precluded from coming in as evidence.”

Before the ruling, prosecutors called the evidence “critical” to parts of their case. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.

Menendez is also accused of taking other bribes to do other things, which are not immediately affected by Stein’s ruling.

So, while prosecutors can talk about alleged promises given in exchange for bribes, they can’t talk about legislative acts themselves.

Experts on the “speech or debate” protection for Congress have described this sometimes-awkward dynamic as a feature of the framers’ vision, not a bug. It is rooted in their desire to prevent members of Congress from being intimidated or coerced by the threat of prosecution from the Executive Branch. Punishing members for their official acts, therefore, can be extremely complicated — by design. This dynamic has frustrated several prosecutions of members of Congress, however, it has not precluded them altogether.

Unlike executive privilege, which shields a president’s private communication, or attorney-client privilege, the speech or debate protection is actually written into the Constitution, making it a far more absolute protection than the others. And though the text only explicitly protects their remarks on the House or Senate floor, it has long been interpreted by the Supreme Court to extend to any acts that are part “integral” to the legislative process.

Other recent battles over the issue have included a fight over the FBI’s seizure of Rep. Scott Perry’s cell phone — part of the investigation into Donald Trump’s effort to subvert the 2020 election. The ensuing legal fight resulted in the first-ever ruling that members’ personal cell phones are covered by the speech or debate clause. That, the court ruled, was a natural extension of perhaps the most significant ruling of its kind — a 2007 ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals forcing prosecutors to return some documents seized from the congressional office then-Rep. William Jefferson.

Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.