Tuesday 17 May 2022 06:52 PM Hillary Clinton's lawyer Michael Sussmann accused of 'lying to the FBI' on day ... trends now
The first trial to emerge from Special Counsel John Durham's probe finally got underway Tuesday – as prosecutors accused former Hillary Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann of trying to engineer an 'October surprise' when he sought out a top FBI official to discuss an allegation about Trump and Russia.
The allegation didn't pan out, but the meeting itself constituted an effort to 'use and manipulate' federal law enforcement for political ends, prosecutors argued.
Sussmann's defense team argued he was forthright when he acted on his own to bring information to authorities, and said the intervention did not benefit the Clinton camp in any way.
It all comes years after the first media reports about was described as suspicious computer traffic between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank, at a time when Trump and his campaign were under scrutiny for Russia ties in the election.
Lawyer Michael Sussmann contacted FBI general counsel James Baker with a 'tip' of information about apparently unusual traffic between Trump Organization and a Russian bank. He is charged with lying to the FBI when he said he wasn't working on behalf of a client
Sussmann is charged with lying to the FBI early in the Trump-Russia probe in the final weeks of the election. Defense lawyers told jurors he never lied.
Sussmann is accused of misleading the FBI during a September 2016 meeting by telling the bureau's top lawyer that he wasn't acting on behalf of any client when he presented computer data that he said might connect Russia to then-candidate Donald Trump. In reality, prosecutors say, he was acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign and another client who had provided him with the data.
Tech executive Rodney Joffe had told Sussmann of 'communications between internet servers maintained for the Trump Organization and servers belonging to Russia’s Alfa Bank' – information he would share with a law partner and the FBI.
Special counsel John Durham, the prosecutor appointed to investigate potential government wrongdoing in the early days of the Trump-Russia probe, is seen leaving federal court in Washington May 16, at the start of Sussmann's trial. He is accused of misleading the FBI when he brought forward information, a charge he denies
Sussmann went to the FBI weeks before the 2016 elections. Prosecutors say he was trying to engineer an 'October surprise' in the campaign
Prosecutors, faced with a jury in Washington, D.C. that might have existing notions about Trump, Clinton, and Russia, described Sussmann as someone who abused his 'privilege.'
'This is a case about privilege ... the privilege of a lawyer who thought that for the powerful the normal rules didn't apply, that he could use the FBI as a political tool,' Assistant Special Counsel Deborah Shaw told jurors in the case.
'The defendant lied to direct the power and resources of the FBI to his own ends and to serve the agendas of his clients.
He lied, prosecutors told the jury, in hopes of generating an 'October surprise' of FBI investigations into Trump and negative news coverage of him, and because he knew the FBI would consider the information less credible if it thought it was being presented on behalf of the Clinton campaign.
'He told a lie that was designed to achieve a political end, a lie that was designed to inject the FBI into a presidential election,' said prosecutor Brittain Shaw.
Former FBI general counsel James Baker
But Sussmann's lawyers sought to counter each of the prosecution's allegations, presenting him as a well-respected attorney with deep experience in law enforcement intelligence matters who never lied to the FBI and never would. The fact that he represented Democratic clients was well-known to the FBI and not anything he intended to hide.
'He was someone the FBI knew represented partisan clients,' defense lawyer Michael Bosworth said in his opening statement. 'The FBI knew that he represented the Clinton campaign that
