Michael Sussmann is charged by special counsel John Durham with one count of lying to the FBI. His defense calls the accusations «nonsensical.»
Special counsel John Durham’s first jury trial in the three years by Trump Attorney General Bill Barr commenced Tuesday with prosecutors alleging a noted cyber attorney with ties to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign planned to «create an ‘October surprise’ on the eve of a presidential election.»
Attorney Michael Sussmann, whose law firm represented Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, is charged with a single count of lying to investigators that year, after he brought the FBI unverified evidence that may have connected Trump Tower with Russia’s Alfa Bank. Sussmann’s alleged lie, however, was not the now-debunked evidence he gave to the FBI, but rather, his stated reason for bringing the material to the FBI – he said he was acting alone and not on behalf of any client. In opening arguments, prosecutors on Durham’s team focused on a Sept.19, 2016, meeting between Sussmann and then-FBI general counsel James Baker, who is set to be called as a government witness later in the trial. At that meeting, prosecutors alleged Sussmann was attempting to set a plan in motion that would help two clients, technology executive Rodney Joffe and the Clinton campaign. Sussmann delivered to Baker – who defense attorneys later described Tuesday as a friend of the defendant at the time – thumb drives and memos provided to him by Joffe that contained the data purportedly linking Trump to the Russian bank. According to Durham’s team, he did so to carry out an alleged and so far uncharged scheme to negatively impact Trump’s political campaign and allegedly lied about his clients to make the information appear more trustworthy.
«There was a crime in all of this: the defendant’s lie to the FBI general counsel», said prosecutor Deborah Shaw, «Whether we hate Donald Trump or like him, we have to agree that some things have to be above politics.
