An anonymous Washington, D.C. jury will now consider the case against former federal prosecutor-turned-Hillary Clinton and Democrat Party lawyer Michael Sussmann in the Trump-Russia Collusion hoax. Sussmann is charged with lying to the FBI after he claimed that he brought Trump dirt out of civic duty, and not for his client, Hillary Clinton.
The two-week-long trial was dominated by testimony. This cast doubt on Sussmann’s defense claims. FBI testimony, expense reports, billing records, emails, and texts clearly showed that Sussmann’s information came not from one, but two clients, Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and Rodney Joffe, a cybersecurity executive.
John Durham’s special counsel prosecutors subpoenaed FBI Investigators. They testified that they knew Sussmann had provided suspicious DNS data, whitepapers, and flash drives that purported to show a nefarious link between Donald Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin. This was due to it being so close to the election.
That’s the core of the case. Was Sussmann lying about who sent him? Did he lie about who sent him? It was, in other words, did that change the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton Campaign disinformation?
This trial saw Durham walk a fine line. His special prosecutor team highlighted the befuddled FBI agents who believed they had been tricked into investigating the mess. This opened the door to criticism of FBI brass like Bill Priestap, his direct reporting, Peter Strzok, and Jim Comey, as well as the other 7th Floor executives rooting for Hillary.
The 7th Floor’s “Fired up” executives ordered the agents to continue the investigation into the bogus super-secret server between Donald Trump, and Alfa-Bank, the Kremlin’s favorite bank. This story was written by me for PJ Media. I found that nothing Sussmann presented as “evidence of a connection” between Trump and Russia failed the smell test.
The “connection” was actually a hotel and tourism marketing company sending spam emails. Trump is the owner of hotels, you might have noticed.
Agents prevailed upon their boss to ask them at the 7th Floor FBI headquarters about the source of the flash drives and white papers. According to the official referral to investigators, the DOJ brass claimed that the information was provided by them. Michael Sussmann is not mentioned in the Sept. 24, 2016, referral.
Sean Berkowitz, the defense attorney for Sussmann, said that the FBI’s efforts were “shoddy” as well as an embarrassment. He claimed that the FBI didn’t know who had sent the intel and FBI Headquarters refused to reveal the source, which “made your investigation incomplete.” Curtis Heide, FBI agent, replied, “yes.” In fact, all the investigators pleaded to know the origin of the disinformation. They were denied.
Berkowitz also argued that everyone knew that Sussmann and his firm Perkins Coie were Hillary for America and DNC representatives. “Mr. Sussmann had DNC and HFA tattooed on his forehead; they assumed that’s where the information came from.”
Berkowitz claimed the Durham case was about misdirection — that Sussmann didn’t have the right to lie to the FBI, because he had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
It’s amazing that jurors didn’t get whiplash.
When it came down to it, Sussmann sent James Baker a text claiming that he wasn’t coming on the behalf of any client. Baker, Priestap, and other participants wrote in their notes that Sussmann was actually coming on behalf of Hillary’s campaign. According to his billing records, he had charged Hillary’s campaign for supplies and time. The 7th Floor did not tell line investigators who brought in the fake information.
Both sides argued for justice, but federal prosecutors appealed the D.C. jury’s wokeness by arguing that Sussmann used his privilege when he bypassed normal channels and got a meeting to poison the media and FBI with Hillary’s disinformation.
We may never know. Perhaps such an appeal would work with a jury of Leftists, Trump haters, and Democrat donors in a town rife with conflicts of interest.
Friday afternoon saw the jury begin deliberations. They will resume deliberations on Tuesday, barring a verdict on Friday (which is unlikely since the judge was out of town for Memorial Day weekend).
