Special prosecutor John Durham has charged Washington-based lawyer Michael Sussmann, who represented former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, with lying to the FBI during Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
Sussmann works for the high-powered law firm Perkins Coie—which has long done legal work for the Democratic Party and top Democrats, including filing election-related lawsuits.
The lawyer was indicted (pdf) on a single felony count of making a false statement during a meeting with FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016. Prosecutors allege that Sussmann lied by denying he represented any client when he told the federal law enforcement agency about evidence that allegedly linked then-candidate Donald Trump’s Trump Tower to a bank in Russia.
Sussmann met with Baker to hand over papers and data files containing evidence of the alleged link between the Trump Organization and the Russian bank, which wasn’t disclosed. Unconfirmed media reports have stated that it was Alfa Bank.
The indictment is the second criminal case brought by Durham since he was named by former Attorney General William Barr in 2018 to investigate officials who investigated the Trump–Russia probe. Durham, a former U.S. attorney, was asked to stay as a special counsel and continue his investigation after President Joe Biden’s administration took office in January.
Sussmann, the indictment alleges, didn’t turn over the information as a “good citizen,” but rather as an attorney representing Clinton, a technology executive, and an internet company.
“Sussmann’s lie was material because, among other reasons, Sussmann’s false statement misled the FBI General Counsel and other FBI personnel concerning the political nature of his work and 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,” the indictment reads.
A report from The Epoch Times in 2019 found that Sussmann had provided the information to Baker and at least one journalist ahead of the FBI’s application for a FISA warrant to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Perkins Coie, on behalf of the Democratic National Committee, also hired Fusion GPS, which in turn hired Christopher Steele to produce the dossier that contained since-discredited claims against the former president.
About a month later, The New York Times and other large news outlets reported on the FBI investigation into the alleged Alfa Bank–Trump Organization connection. The FBI said it looked into the matter, but found no connections.
Trump and other former administration officials have long described the FBI investigation into his campaign as a witch hunt designed to politically wound his reelection chances.
Lawyers for Sussman, a former federal prosecutor, said on Sept. 16 that their client never made false statements to the FBI and that there’s no evidence that the alleged falsehood affected the agency’s work.
“Mr. Sussmann has committed no crime,” they said in a statement, according to The Associated Press. “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.”
In 2017, Sussmann was asked by congressional investigators about his interview with Baker and testified that he passed along information on behalf of his client.
When trying to access Sussmann’s page on Perkins Coie’s website, a “page not found” message was displayed.
Representatives for Perkins Coie and Sussmann’s lawyers didn’t respond to requests for comment by press time.
It looks like nobody may be held accountable for the massive corruption starting up and continuing the Witch Hunt/Mueller investigation....because they operate with impunity??
More Mueller corruption!
Started by metmike - Sept. 11, 2020, 6:44 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/59031/
FISA report: DOJ watchdog releases findings on Russia probe surveillance Started by metmike - Dec. 9, 2019, 1:12 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/44076/
IG testimony today
Started by wglassfo - Dec. 11, 2019, 5:09 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/44129/
Alan Dershowitz: Stone indictment follows concerning Mueller pattern
This is exactly like what Mueller did for 3 years!
More Mueller corruption!
Started by metmike - Sept. 11, 2020, 6:44 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/59031/
Re: Re: Pardon for Michael Flynn
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/61735/#61805
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/60589/#60599
Reviewing Muellers corruption with facts:
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/55925/#55961
They got away with this one too:
June 2016: Loretta Lynch-Bill Clinton meeting.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/24146/#24224
Durham has 0 convictions
https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/02/06/the-john-durham-investigation-turns-1000th-days-old-today/
& multiple walkbacks - https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/03/06/john-durham-drops-claim-that-rodney-joffe-mined-eop-data-for-derogatory-information-on-trump-from-boilerplate/
"In his response to Sussmann, Durham obstinately repeated most of the inflammatory claims first floated in the conflicts memo that elicited the calls for death and other lies from Durham’s sources and witnesses. But there are two passages that Durham took out.
Durham removed the two passages italicized below.
The Government’s evidence at trial will also establish that among the Internet data Tech Executive-1 and his associates exploited was domain name system (“DNS”) Internet traffic pertaining to (i) a particular healthcare provider, (ii) Trump Tower, (iii) Donald Trump’s Central Park West apartment building, and (iv) the Executive Office of the President of the United States (“EOP”). (Tech Executive-1’s employer, Internet Company-1, had come to access and maintain dedicated servers for the EOP as part of a sensitive arrangement whereby it provided DNS resolution services to the EOP. Tech Executive-1 and his associates exploited this arrangement by mining the EOP’s DNS traffic and other data for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump.)
The Indictment further details that on February 9, 2017, the defendant provided an updated set of allegations – including the Russian Bank-1 data and additional allegations relating to Trump – to a second agency of the U.S. government (“Agency-2”). The Government’s evidence at trial will establish that these additional allegations relied, in part, on the purported DNS traffic that Tech Executive-1 and others had assembled pertaining to Trump Tower, Donald Trump’s New York City apartment building, the EOP, and the aforementioned healthcare provider. In his meeting with Agency-2, the defendant provided data which he claimed reflected purportedly suspicious DNS lookups by these entities of internet protocol (“IP”) addresses affiliated with a Russian mobile phone provider (“Russian Phone Provider-1”). The defendant further claimed that these lookups demonstrated that Trump and/or his associates were using supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the vicinity of the White House and other locations. The Special Counsel’s Office has identified no support for these allegations. Indeed, more complete DNS data that the Special Counsel’s Office obtained from a company that assisted Tech Executive-1 in assembling these allegations reflects that such DNS lookups were far from rare in the United States. For example, the more complete data that Tech Executive-1 and his associates gathered – but did not provide to Agency-2 – reflected that between approximately 2014 and 2017, there were a total of more than 3 million lookups of Russian Phone-Provider-1 IP addresses that originated with U.S.-based IP addresses. Fewer than 1,000 of these lookups originated with IP addresses affiliated with Trump Tower. In addition, the more complete data assembled by Tech Executive-1 and his associates reflected that DNS lookups involving the EOP and Russian Phone Provider-1 began at least as early 2014 (i.e., during the Obama administration and years before Trump took office) – another fact which the allegations omitted.
The second of these passages was an innumerate claim that falsely suggested Russian YotaPhones were common in the United States because between 2014 and 2017, there had been three million such look-ups. As William Ockham explained, these three million look-ups aren’t much more than his own family’s DNS requests during the same four (or even three) year period.
Contra Durham, 3 million DNS requests for a related IP addresses over a four-year period means these requests are very rare.
For comparison purposes, my best estimate is that my family (7 users, 14 devices) generated roughly 2.9 million DNS requests just from checking our email during the same time frame. That’s not even counting DNS requests for normal web browsing.
This seeming concession that Durham was wrong makes the other removal especially interesting, particularly given Joffe’s motion to intervene."
Thanks patrick!
I've not been following the Durham investigation that closely. As you can see, you had to make this post from a thread/post that I last made 6 months ago......with only 2 posts in that thread.
Durham could have very well done some unethical/dishonest things. In fact, in that business, it's almost expected.
Still doesn't negate 1 iota of the documented evidence that I showed proving indisputable Mueller corruption here during that investigation using many dozens of posts in half a dozen threads.
Nobody can disprove rock solid authentic facts.
I'm guessing this is all about me pointing out that you used an extremely biased source that was attacking Bill Barr for something that they were dead wrong about.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/82392/#82437
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/82392/#82449
When the facts are there, like this time, its usually best to just acknowledge them and go on.
You can attack Durham all you want and convince yourself that it means something about the Mueller investigation and I won't defend Durhan and don't need to.
It doesn't change the facts....regarding what happened with the Mueller investigation
Again, it's all there in the threads:
.https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/75018/#75019
But I'm very happy to continue this thread about the Durham investigation and appreciate you making a contribution.
Also, not disagreeing with the points about this current legal situation involving the removal of passages in a specific document.
I speculated much of the time that it would be almost impossible for Durham to get any evidence from the people that know how to destroy evidence and cover their tracks for a living:
The investigation of the investigation lasts WAY longer and all Durham gets is one conviction for lying?
Muller, a Republican appointed by a Republican, gets way more convictions of real criminal slime and exposes security risks of the Russian's nefarious activities (fully half of the report). The forfeiture of Manafort properties paid for most of the Muller investigation.
The Putin wing of the GOP is frothing at the mouth over a nothing burger (AGAIN).
Putin is bombing civilians after promising a cease fire for their evacuation. And his puppy dog, Donald Trump, continues to lick his boots. Trump is clearly against Democracy. Ukraine (7-10% Russian ethnics) actually had a free and fair election.
Thanks Joj!
By your reckoning, I guess that OJ was also innocent (-:
This is what I always figured was going to happen with the Durham investigation.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/75018/#75019
Twisting the meaning of the current acts by the evil Putin as if it justifies the Mueller investigation years ago which determined early on that Trump was NOT in cahoots with Russia but its objective was clearly much more than that..........again, proven indisputably numerous times.
They had free reign to abuse the rights of Americans, investigate them, then set them up (to do things like perjure themselves for instance)because they knew they were bad people.
I agree, that most of them had major character flaws and were dishonest or were extremists in their belief system and it would not be hard for an investigation to find something on them or cause them to lie.
But that was not SUPPOSED TO BE the objective of the investigation.
They were associates of Trump which put the target on their backs. If Trump had NOT been elected, how many of them would have been investigated?
Zero?
Crazy world when your crimes depend on whether you supported Trump and whether he got elected.
"The Putin wing of the GOP is frothing at the mouth over a nothing burger (AGAIN)'
joj,
1. I'm not for Putin or part of the GOP
2. I'm not frothing.....just showing facts.
3. And this nothing burger as you refer to it, is one of the most corrupt investigation by the US intelligence in history.
4. Very impressive sounding, politically biased accusations! Maybe readers here will be impressed by that. Get's zero weighting from me though.
You want to score credibility points............use counter facts like the ones you are ignoring........but that's very impossible, unless you make things up because IT HAPPENED ALREADY and has been clearly documented in these threads.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/75018/#75019
MM,
I should have stated explicitly that you are not in the Putin wing of the GOP.
I am biased (EVERYONE including you is biased).
I did state facts. You ignored all of them.
Do I have to restate them? Naah... to what purpose is it?
I decided to look at the "documented evidence". Epoch Times and Judicial Watch have a history of making stuff up & working together, so no. And the cell phone nonsense was so weak even the Trump DoJ couldn't make anything of it. When a site passes regular disinformation - as they do on Covid, Election fraud, etc - I discount everything they say by 100%. Shouldn't you?
As far as the cell phones:
Everything was backed up - https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/andrew-weissmann-says-hes-debunked-conspiracy-theory-about-mueller-team-wiping-cell-phones/
Nice try Patrick. You're late to the party and just searching for anything that you can find on the internet that you think debunks the facts.
So 1 person, the prosecutor for Mueller comes out and says that all the wipes were intentional and backed up.........and nobody else backs up his story, including the ones that did the wipes and that's the story you're going with(because that's the only one that says what you want to hear).
And you show an article that states the wiped phones are like Hillary's emails with regards to whats important in the upcoming election.
That's your evidence?
Patrick,
C'mon man, you didn't do an honest objective search and you know it. All you did is look everywhere you could for any articles that you thought MIGHT support what you want to think!
When phones get "accidentally" wiped, as in the document below showing what happened, they obviously weren't backed up......and backed up data is stated on the document!
https://www.judicialwatch.org/mueller-team-phones/
Thanks joj,
Your tribalism is duly noted.
See my last post to patrick.
Judicial Watch has a long record of lying & you still use them as your source. Why?
Judicial Watch has a long record of lying & you still use them as your source. Why?
Ahh, you haven't been paying attention to the last 4 years of my posting.
I almost always use EMPIRICAL DATA, AND AUTHENTIC EVIDENCE/OBSERVATIONS with no concern with the political party they represent.
You are showing that you use sources that state things the way that you like to hear/read and slam sources that say things that you don't like to hear/read...........and ignore the data.
I didn't use Judicial Watch because of the source, I used them because they had the authentic data.
Why keep ignoring it and instead...........slamming the source of it because they are biased from the party that you don't belong to?