If Hillary had said to him, “Go to the FBI and tell them this story we just made up.” then that’s one thing. But, if in the course of opposition research, someone comes across evidence of a crime, it’s their duty to report that, even if it might help the person they are working for.
It’s not uncommon. Durham’s primary purpose was to investigate the basis for the Trump-Russia investigation, and any prosecutions are kind of a byproduct of that. ISTM that it’s hard to argue that Durham has not accomplished much of his primary purpose.
In addition, sometimes people get prosecuted for small items because you think they’ve done other things that are either morally-wrong-but-not-illegal, or are outside the SOL, or are harder to prove.
It seems pretty similar to the prosecution of Michael Flynn, on similarly narrow grounds.
I don’t know what Fox or anyone else may be saying about her role in this. What actually happened at the trial is that her campaign manager testified that she had endorsed going to the press with the Alfa Bank story, despite uncertainty as to whether it was legit. (The guy was a defense witness, making the point that the campaign wanted the story peddled to the press and not the FBI.)
So that would support the theory is that Sussmann was not going to the FBI on behalf of the campaign, despite his connection with it?
Exactly. That’s why he was up there as a defense witness.
The counterargument is that while Mook may be saying that now, it’s quite possible or even likely that Sussman was going for the campaign anyway. Because obviously the ultimate goal of the Clinton campaign was the media, but a story which is being investigated by the FBI is a much bigger story than a story which is just being peddled by an opposing campaign. So by getting the FBI involved, Sussman would be both making it more likely that media outlets would report the story and also making the media reports themselves much bigger impact stories than they would be otherwise.
But was it reported in the media that it was being investigated by the FBI? Honest question. My mind is fuzzy on the order of events 4 years ago but I don’t recall any public claims that the Trump campaign was being investigated until after Nov. 2016. If not then it seems odd that Clinton sent Sussman to frame Trump but then didn’t actually use the frame to try to win the election.
According to Mook, Clinton did not directly send Sussman to go to the FBI, but that doesn’t preclude the notion that Sussman - whose task was to drum up interest in that story - went to the FBI on his own initiative but as part of the effort that he had been tasked with.
Clinton did issue a tweet highlighting the Alfa Bank issue on October 31, 2016, shortly before the election. Though that tweet did not mention that the FBI was currently investigating.
One thing I am pretty sure of is that if the jury convicts, the right wing will shout about it from the rooftops, and will claim (completely falsely) that the trial somehow nullifies the entirety of the Mueller investigation.
I am also pretty sure if the jury acquits, the right wing will shout “unfair!” from the rooftops, and will continue to claim (completely falsely) that the trial somehow nullifies the entirety of the Mueller investigation.
Except the text opens the door for reasonable doubt.
Baker, for years, couldn’t remember what Sussmann told him on the 19th. It was only after he saw Sussmann’s text from the 18th that his memory changed of what Sussmann told him on the 19th, but he could easily be conflating the text on the 18th and the meeting in the 19th.
Sussmann is only charged with lying on the 19th and his memory shifting due to reading a text he received on the 18th, a text that Sussmann is not charged for, plus all of Baker’s under oath testimony before viewing that text that does not support the charge, should be enough that there’s a reasonable doubt about what Sussmann said on the 19th.
At least three prosecution witnesses’ versions of events evolved in a way contrary to documentary evidence but in support of Durham’s conspiracy theory after several meetings with Durham’s team occurred in which Durham’s team raised the specter of these witnesses being prosecuted.
Here’s a text between two of the first FBI agents to respond to Sussmann’s meeting with Baker. Timestamp is UTC, so about 4 hours after the meeting.
So the day of the meeting the FBI was internally referring to Sussmann as a lawyer representing the DNC and Clinton. Even if the prosecution can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Sussmann affirmatively lied on the 19th (which is impossible and the only thing he’s charged with), this text shows, fairly definitively, that such a lie could not have been material.
The sense I get is that everyone - and certainly Baker - knew that Sussman was a lawyer representing the DNC and Clinton. I don’t think anyone is denying that. The question was whether he was representing the DNC and Clinton (or anyone else) in this particular matter, or if he was coming to the FBI outside of his normal representation of the DNC and Clinton. He clearly claimed that he was not representing anyone in the text message when he set up the meeting, and the question is only if he also repeated that in the meeting itself.
The point of the claim is that a lawyer’s job is to advocate for his client, and there are a lot of things that a lawyer might say in the context of representing his client that he might not say if he was looking at it in a purely objective sense. So Sussman’s point was to say that this evidence is such that he was genuinely concerned about it as a citizen, and it was not the type of evidence that only rose to the level that a legal advocate might be pushing but is not objectively concerning, and that therefore the FBI should take this very seriously. In actual fact it was the latter and not the former, as it turned out.
I need a diagram for that last post, because I genuinely can’t figure out which position you’re promoting. The “latter” and “former” what?
“The former” = “evidence […] such that he was genuinely concerned about it as a citizen”.
“The latter” = “evidence that only rose to the level that a legal advocate might be pushing but is not objectively concerning”.
In that case, it’s quite clearly the former.
Closing arguments are done. Its to the jury.
Following up on another point which was discussed earlier in this thread, i.e. how Sussman intended to reconcile his claim to Baker with his congressional testimony in which he said he arranged the Baker meeting on behalf of a client, apparently his stance is that he was confused when he testified to congress.
Prosecution: ‘Overwhelming’ evidence of guilt for Clinton campaign attorney - POLITICO
But the prosecution noted that Sussmann’s claim in the text that he was coming on his own is in conflict with testimony he gave to the House Intelligence Committee in December 2017, where he said, “I think it’s most accurate to say it was done on behalf of my client.”
“There’s no way to reconcile those statements,” DeFilippis said.
The defense attributed Sussmann’s House testimony to “confusion” and argued that the whole question of whether he was or was not acting “on behalf of” the Clinton campaign or other clients is so vague that it shouldn’t be the basis for a criminal charge.
“These are not necessarily precise terms,” Berkowitz said.
Neither one of those statements is charged. Only the statement on the 19th with exactly one witness who has told six different versions of it under oath.
Berkowitz questioning Baker…
Q. Let’s start with the elephant in the room. Sitting here today, what is your testimony about what Mr. Sussmann told you relative to clients?
A. At the meeting in person on the 19th of September?
Q. Yes.
A. Okay. My testimony is that he said that he was not there on behalf of any particular client or words to that effect.
Could you send someone to jail on, “Or words to that effect”? What did he actually say? Is it possible that Baker misinterpreted Sussmann’s actual words which Baker can’t recall? Do people get convicted of making false statements based on one dude saying, “He lied to me, or at least said some words that were like a lie”?
Even if we do know for sure that he repeated the words from the text message on the 18th in the meeting on the 19th (which is impossible to know based on Bakers shifting memory), do we even know that Sussmann didn’t believe those words at the time? It does indeed look like he was there to help the bureau, because on the 21st he did help the bureau kill an Alfa bank NYT story.
Also, even if he did lie, there’s a ton of documentary evidence suggesting that the FBI acted as if the information came from the DNC and/or the Clinton campaign. The lie, even if it existed, could not be material because FBI treated the info that Sussmann gave them like politically biased info.
Sussmann acquitted.
So that’s one acquittal for Clinton election shenanigans, and multiple convictions for Trump election shenanigans.
Based on Barr’s mandate to Durham - prosecute anyone who interfered in Hurricane or the Mueller investigation - I’m still somewhat hopeful that Durham will start to go after team Trump.
Unlikely, but it does directly meet his mandate and there must be a variety of applicable cases that are sufficiently political, still lingering, to call for a special counsel. And hey, look, already one right there with that exact mandate.