Thread by @ZoeTillman

Judge is holding a last-minute conference in alleged Russian agent Maria Butina's case. A brief portion was on the record, Butina's lawyer said they're okay cancelling a status conference set for 12/19, anticipate not needing to pursue a subpoena, then asked to seal the hearing

We've now left the courtroom as the judge hears from Butina's lawyer why this part of the hearing should be under seal (govt did not take a position)

(Deleted a previous tweet that referred to serving a subpoena, I'm actually not sure off the top of my head if the subpoena deadline referred to in court was for serving it or the deadline for the subpoena itself)

Recall that on Nov. 28, the lawyers said they were still in the process of negotiating a deal for Butina

And we're told the judge has left the bench, so it appears she'll let the latter part of the hearing in Butina's case today remain sealed and we're not going to learn anything else right now

To recap:
- There was a status conf set for 12/19, but the lawyers asked to have a telephone conference today instead
- We learned Butina's lawyer is okay cancelling the 12/19 hearing and he said they prob won't need to pursue a subpoena
- Butina's lawyer wanted the rest sealed

NEW: The court has appointed federal public defender AJ Kramer as "advisory counsel" to alleged Russian agent Maria Butina — no other information provided

We don't have any more info on this right now. This doesn't necessarily mean AJ Kramer is going to be her lawyer — he's been brought in before to advise defendants when there are issues related to their lawyers (this happened in the Inauguration Day rioting cases, for instance)

The judge has now given Maria Butina until Dec. 10 at 5pm to explain why the transcript of the sealed part of today's hearing shouldn't be made public