A Washington, D.C, jury on Tuesday acquitted former Hillary Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann of lying to the FBI, but the most important outcome of the case for special counsel John Durham was the confirmation of Hillary Clinton’s role in a plot to weaponize the FBI to launch an investigation of her Republican opponent in the 2016 election.
The jury saw compelling evidence that Sussmann falsely presented himself as a concerned citizen rather than as a member of Clinton’s campaign when he gave the FBI data to support the bogus claim that Donald Trump had a secret communications channel with the Kremlin through computer servers owned by a Russian bank.
The jury foreman told a reporter after the verdict that she didn’t think the case should have been prosecuted.
“There are bigger things that affect the nation than a possible lie to the FBI,” she said.
But during the trial, former Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook testified that Hillary Clinton “agreed with the decision” to feed the evidence-free Trump-Russia claim to the FBI.
In Durham’s indictment of Sussmann, he said the evidence against the Clinton lawyer reveals “a scandal much deeper than merely Sussmann’s role in a second Russian hoax — a scandal that entangles the Clinton campaign, multiple internet companies, two federally-funded university researchers, and a complicit media.”
The prosecution said during the trial that the material Sussmann gave to the FBI was “pure opposition research” for the purpose of concocting an “October Surprise” in the 2016 election.
The case also revealed that the FBI’s top brass were excited about Sussmann’s claim. An agent told a colleague in a text, “People on 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server,” referring to James Comey and the bureau’s top brass.
And further, the Sussmann prosecution confirmed the Clinton campaign paid the opposition research firm Fusion GPS to produce the infamous dossier of unverified and now debunked claims against Trump compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.
The dossier, fueling the Trump-Russia probe, was used as evidence to obtain warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.
Next for Durham is the trial in October of Russian-national Igor Danchenko, the primary source for the Steele dossier. The indictment presents evidence that the Clinton campaign hired people to feed the contents of the dossier – which turned out to be Russian disinformation – to law enforcement, intelligence agencies and the media to influence the election.
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Durham issued a statement after the verdict Tuesday.
“While we are disappointed in the outcome, we respect the jury’s decision and thank them for their service,” he said. “I also want to recognize and thank the investigators and the prosecution team for their dedicated efforts in seeking truth and justice in this case.”
Sussmann read a prepared statement to reporters after the trial ended Friday say he “told the truth to the FBI and the jury clearly recognized that with their unanimous verdict today.”
“I’m grateful to the members of the jury for their careful and thoughtful service. Despite being falsely accused, I’m relieved that justice ultimately prevailed in my case,” he said.
“As you can imagine, this has been a difficult year for my family and me,” Sussmann continued. “But right now, we are just grateful for the love and support of so many during this ordeal and I’m looking forward to getting back to the work that I love.”
The jury pool in the trial came from Washington, D.C., which gave Donald Trump only 4% of the vote in the 2016 election and a little more than 5% in 2020. Judge Chris Cooper, an Obama appointee, had a professional relationship with Sussmann, and his wife once represented former FBI lawyer Lisa Page. It was Page’s texts with FBI agent Peter Strzok, the lead in the Trump-Russia probe, that revealed personal animus toward Trump was driving an investigation that even Strzok admitted lacked evidence.
Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley summarized the jury bias in an interview with Bret Baier of Fox News.
“I mean, he is facing a jury that has three Clinton donors, an [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] donor, and a woman whose daughter is on the same sports team with Sussmann’s daughter,” said the George Washington University professor of law.
“With the exception of randomly selecting people out of the DNC headquarters, you could not come up with a worse jury.”
See Turley’s remarks:
TURLEY: “I mean, he is facing a jury that has three Clinton donors, an AOC donor, and a woman whose daughter is on the same sports team with Sussmann’s daughter. With the exception of randomly selecting people out of the DNC headquarters, you could not come up with a worse jury” pic.twitter.com/RHqen6AMAc
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 26, 2022
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