To years into his probe into the Russia investigation, Special Counsel John Durham has charged Michael Sussmann, a lawyer with Democratic ties, with lying when he brought information to the top lawyer at the FBI.
Durham, a US attorney who was brought on during the Trump administration and provided protections by former Attorney General Bill Barr, obtained a grand jury indictment of Sussmann, a lawyer with the major law firm of Perkins Coie.
The indictment stems from when Sussmann brought information to the FBI in the fall of 2016, when Sussmann says computer experts brought him information about a potential link between the Trump Organization and Russian Alfa Bank.
According to the indictment, Sussmann 'lied about the capacity in which he was providing the allegations to the FBI' when he met with top FBI General Counsel James Baker.
That prompted to Baker to assume he was acting merely as a 'good citizen' rather than as a 'paid advocate or political operative.'
He stated falsely that he was not doing the work 'for my client,' according to the indictment. Sussmann had handed over three 'white papers' as well as computer files containing evidence of the reported secret channel.
At issue is whether Sussmann was truthful when he stated to Baker that he was not acting on behalf of a client. Perkins Coie also was representing Trump rival Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Marc Elias, a former lawyer with the firm, retained the company Fusion GPS, which ultimately hired ex British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who compiled the infamous dossier on Donald Trump.
The indictment notes media reports on a 'mysterious computer back channel' between the Trump Organization and Russia – at a time when Trump was already under heavy scrutiny for his favorable comments about Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But when the FBI investigated it, the allegations did not pan out.
The indictment calls Sussmann's 'lie' a 'material' one, because it 'deprived the FBI of information that might have permitted it more fully to assess and uncover the origins of the relevant data and technical analysis including the identities and motivations of Sussmann's clients.'
It states that Sussmann, a law firm, and a tech executive 'had coordinated' with 'representatives and agents of the Clinton Campaign' about the data and 'written materials that Sussmann gave to the FBI and the media.'
Sussmann represented the Democratic National Committee in connection with 'the hacking of its email servers by the Russian Government,' according to the indictment, and was 'advising the Clinton Campaign in connection with cybersecurity issues.'
The FBI found there was 'insufficient evidence' of such a back channel, and that an email server at issue was not in fact owned or operated by the Trump Organization.
Sussmann, a former federal prosecutor, 57, who now works as a partner at the Perkins Coie, which represented the Democratic National Committee when Russia hacked its servers back in 2016.
Sussmann's lawyers deny the charges.
'Michael Sussmann is a highly respected national security and cyber security lawyer, who served the U.S. Department of Justice during Democratic and Republican administrations alike, lawyers Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth said. Any prosecution here would be baseless, unprecedented, and an unwarranted deviation from the apolitical and principled way in which the Department of Justice is supposed to do its work. We are confident that if Mr. Sussmann is charged, he will prevail at trial and vindicate his good name.'
Durham told the Justice Department he is now seeking to indict the lawyer in a case questioning who Sussmann's client was when he initially expressed suspicions to the FBI about Trump's relationship with Russia in September 2016.
The accusation centered around a meeting Sussmann had in Russia on September 19, 2016 with James A Baker, the FBI's top lawyer that year, according to people familiar with the matter. As reported by the New York Times they spoke on condition of anonymity.
At the meeting Sussmann allegedly gave the FBI data and analytics from cybersecurity researchers who thought the numbers might be evidence of hush-hush communications between Trump Organization's computer servers and Alfa Bank - a Kremlin-linked Russian financial institution.
Special counsel John Durham (left) told the Justice Department he is seeking to indict Democratic cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann (right) in a case questioning who Sussmann's client was when he initially expressed suspicions to the FBI about Trump's relationship with Russia in September 2016
The Times reported that the FBI concluded the researchers' concerns had no merit. The special counsel who proceeded Durham, Robert S Mueller III, ignored the matter completely in his final report.
According to The Times investigators are now examining whether Sussmann was secretly working for the Clinton campaign, although he has denied
