Russian operatives caught using evidence from Mueller's team in effort to discredit investigation

When filing documents in a federal case, special counsel Robert Mueller revealed new information about the election 2016 hackers. According to Bloomberg News, more than 1,000 of the confidential files Mueller obtained prove a friend of Vladimir Putin footed the bill.

The information came from a filing involving Concord Management and Consulting LLC, which is controlled by so-called Putin chef Yevgeny Prigozhin.

"In the filing, Mueller’s team said 'non-sensitive' evidence that had been shared exclusively with Concord’s U.S. law firm, Reed Smith, had wound up being disseminated, purportedly as a result of a hacking operation targeting the law firm," Bloomberg reported.

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said that he expects the investigation to be wrapped up soon, but judging from FBI Director Christopher Wray's face, that might not actually be the case.

CNN also reported Wednesday that confidential documents ended up on a pro-Russia Twitter account that linked to a website where they were dumped online. Some of the documents were also fraudulently created, seemingly to discredit the Mueller investigation. The FBI has investigated and found it was directly linked to Russia for the purpose of discrediting the Mueller investigation.

"At least now we know where the attacks on Mueller are coming from — Russia," noted former ethics czar Richard Painter.

"When Russia is brazenly spreading disinformation to discredit our own government's ongoing investigation into Russia spreading disinformation (see 👇), you really get the sense that we haven't sufficiently punished such activity," agreed former White House and Justice Department lawyer Joshua A. Geltzer.