How Mueller's team fears Russia could learn US secrets in court case

Special counsel Robert Mueller's team argued Thursday that if it's forced to hand over millions of "sensitive" documents to Russian individuals as part of court proceedings, Russia could mine the material for operational secrets and use them against the U.S.

Prosecutor Jonathan Kravis made the argument at a pre-trial hearing for a case against a Russian firm accused of funding a St. Petersburg troll farm that allegedly conducted a widespread propaganda and disinformation campaign ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Kravis said that while most of the 3.2 million "sensitive" documents that have been collected in discovery for the case were relatively innocuous on their own, a shrewd reading of the whole lot could reveal important U.S. investigative secrets.

It might be possible, for instance, to determine from the information the government has what information the government does not have -- the "gaps in the coverage." One could also potentially use the information available to "recreate the steps of the investigation," Kravis said.

"That information, used by a foreign adversary, could be used to avoid detection in the future," he told the court.

The argument is the closest the government has come yet to articulating a concern that legal and national security experts shared with ABC News back in October. They said then that Russia might be using the U.S. court system to gather intelligence on Mueller's investigation or other U.S. secrets through the discovery process.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/how-muellers-team-fears-russia-could-learn-us-secrets-in-court-case/ar-BBUvgTZ?li=BBnb7Kz