I don’t think Durham needs evidence that he was directed by a client, only that he was coming on behalf of a client, which is what Sussman denied.
Beyond that, if you look at the link to Sussman’s congressional testimony in my earlier post, Sussman says he was directed by his client.
Q: so what was – so did your client direct you to have those conversations?
A: Yes.
Did he? Got a cite?
If you keep posting that Sussmann’s claims are not consistent with new information, I’d really like to see which specific claims you’re referring to.
Maybe I just haven’t had my coffee yet, but all this seems like a bunch of procedural corner-cutting than actual malfeasance. Dig out the Sister Mary Elephant Memorial Ruler, slap the back of Sussman’s hand a couple of times, and let’s get busy on some actual crimes, like a foreign power trying to manipulate a presidential election.
Whether a foreign power generates false propaganda against the US government or a domestic person generates false propaganda against the US government, it is a severe blow to the nation.
To be sure, Trump almost certainly deserves to have been dealt such a blow but, from a legal standpoint, it is worth making sure on that point since the next time it might not be.
Not disputing anything you said there, but this indictment of Sussman is being treated as being on same level as Watergate. It’s political theatre masquerading as a special investigation, and not doing a great job of it. It’s maybe a step above the Whataboutism you can find in any bar on a Thursday night in the flyover states.
A larger quote from the document:
He’s saying that a client directed him to engage the FBI. But that client was not the DNC nor Clinton. E.g., it may have been Joffe.
Joffe doesn’t have as clear of a motive to screw with Trump as Clinton does, so it may fall under the heading of immaterial.
Let’s say that he’s representing Shrdlu, a random person with no motive to do anything any which way or another, and Shrdlu comes across evidence of a crime. Shrdlu brings the crime to his lawyer, asking what to do with the information and, in the conversation, they agree that Sussman should take the information to the Feds.
It would seem reasonable - given that Shrdlu has no advantage from this, beyond wanting to see that the law is carried out - for Sussman to say to the Feds that he’s simply reporting a crime and it’s not on behalf of anyone. Practically speaking, it was simply the clear understanding of the law of the land and the decision for him to come forward to the FBI was the product of a question by his client, not a pre-decided command by said client, and - again - it’s the law that you report evidence of crimes.
And, likewise, it would seem reasonable that once under legal danger himself that Sussman would give a more technically correct answer later to say, “Well, no, technically I was doing the bidding of Shrdlu if you want to get technical about it.” Ultimately, Shrdlu was the client and could have decided to not go to the Feds - so it is more technically accurate to say that he was performing on the behalf of his client and his desire to abide by the law. But it would probably be unreasonable to say that he was lying in any material way, previously.
(And, one might note, if Clinton and the DNC were the client, that still might not change things much.)
I generally go with the principle that there’s not much to be done about stupid people doing stupid things. But that shouldn’t stop you from talking about those same things in a factual and reasonable way, divorced from the stupid elements.
I tend to agree. The problem is that a simple indictment/trial/sentencing for Sussmann and/or Danchenko would not accomplish what Barr and Durham’s actual goal is: trying to sell the right wing media talking points that Trump wasn’t involved with Russia and that the Mueller investigation was a witch hunt. THAT is the goal of this entire investigation. THAT is the reason we’re now 18 months, almost $3 million dollars into it and have 2 indictments that read more like a political screeds than indictments. And that’s why every couple months you get another “bombshell” that gets the right wing talking heads screaming about it again.
I do not doubt these two might be guilty (I’ll actually wait to see the actual evidence), but this is much more than just a criminal prosecution.
That’s a fair point.
Durham is alleging that Joffe was himself acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign. This is based on alleged testimony that Joffe told his people he needed to produce results to please VIPs in the Clinton campaign, and also a text from Joffe in which he said he would have been offered the US Government Chief Cybersecurity post had Clinton won.
Also, Durham says that Sussman billed the Clinton campaign for work connected to the Alfa-bank allegations (though he did not allege - AFAICT - that Sussman billed the campaign for the specific meeting with Baker).
So Durham’s story hangs together, in that there was one big effort by the Clinton campaign, via Perkins Coie, to discover possible links between Trump and Russia, and to disseminate these, in part, by getting the government to investigate them, and this effort involved both Sussman and Joffe.
But you’re correct that if Sussman can successfully argue 1) that in his congressional testimony he referred to only Joffe and not the Clinton campaign, and 2) that Joffe was not himself acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign but only as a concerned citizen, then him telling Baker that he was not acting on behalf of any client would probably be immaterial and would not be contradicted by his congressional testimony.
He will definitely not have to argue this. How could it possibly be relevant?
The day the right wing has been breathlessly waiting for is scheduled to start today with jury selection. I expect the prosecution to go full on circus mode in an attempt to use a criminal prosecution as a political tool to smear libs and attempt (impossibly) to whitewash Trumps’ Russia connections. No matter the outcome, it will be ugly. I will be interested to see how much leeway the judge in the case gives the prosecutors to introduce evidence and make arguments to score political points rather than try a case.
A bunch of the things Durham tried to get admitted as evidence, but were really conspiracy theories masquerading as a false statement charge, have been tossed out in pretrial hearings.
I didn’t think this case would make it to trial, but I still think there’s zero chance of conviction. The single witness to the crime has testified under oath four different times in a manner that doesn’t support the indictment.
The prosecution has rested their case. They called 16 witnesses, including James Baker, who testified that he is now “100% confident” that Sussmann told him he wasnt there on behalf of any client. Additionally, Baker had a newly discovered text from Sussmann saying "coming on my own — not on behalf of a client or company — want to help the Bureau.” On cross, defense counsel got Baker to admit he didnt always have such certainty, and that his prior statements were “inconsistent”. But the text was pretty damning.
There is a ton of details (that Sussmann may have gone on behalf of Neustar and not the Clinton campaign and that the FBI had a briefing that very specifically said the report of the info was from an attorney “on behalf of his client”) that will likely impact the verdict.
There are other issues. Like that the investigation stemming from the information Sussmann provided only took a couple of days for the FBI to dismiss, which may effect the “materiality” of the “lie”. And that, while Sussmann did bill the Clinton campaign for work done on that day, it never listed the work as involving the FBI (which is something he reportedly did regularly) and that the expenses for the trip to the FBI were not billed to the campaign, but rather to the law firm.
And, as I was typing this out, it was just announced that Sussmann wont be testifying in his own behalf. So this case will likely go to the jury today.
All in all, I am still perturbed that Durham is spending somuch time, effort, and money in a prosecution that serves very little purpose outside of giving FoxNews more talking points about how bad Hillary is. And to lie about how Trump campaign was completely set up over their links to Russia.
We will see what the jury does…
I fail to see how any of this is Hillary’s fault. Did she tell him to lie?
I’m also perplexed about how its material whether he was there for a client or not. The information is either something they want to know or it isn’t.
I think you underestimate the right’s ability to manufacture outrage against Hillary.
The prosecution argues that if the FBI knew the info was coming from Hillary’s campaign, they would have been more skeptical about it. Then, they wouldnt have taken so long to dismiss it.
It’s simple. Lying to the FBI warrants the death penalty if it’s connected to the Democrats, and a pardon from Trump because it was all partisan persecution if it’s connected to the GOP/Trump.
Easy cross examination of each FBI witness. “Aren’t you trained to be equally skeptical of all information?” And then, “You wouldn’t have dismissed this information out of hand just because it originated with a campaign, would you? If a campaign comes into possession of knowledge of a crime, shouldn’t they report it? Shouldn’t you investigate it?”
I’ll be interested to know how the court defines “material” in the jury instructions. If I were on the jury, the case would probably turn on that.
Likely something like this: “[t]he most common formulation of that understanding is that a concealment or misrepresentation is material if it has a natural tendency to influence, or was capable of influencing, the decision of the decision-making body to which it was addressed.”
Defense rested without Sussmann testifying (they must be pretty confident that they raised reasonable doubt) and it sounds like they’ll do closing arguments and send the case to the jury tomorrow.
I (obviously) have not been following closely, but if the defense is “not a material misstatement,” then putting him on the stand adds nothing and shifts the focus back to his conduct, which isn’t helpful. It would be two hours of cross examination about his contacts with the campaign.