John Durham's 'bizarre' charges against Clinton lawyer

[UCmeNdc]

CNN legal analyst rips apart John Durham's 'bizarre' charges against Clinton lawyer

Appearing on CNN's "New Day" on Friday morning legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin and CNN "Early Start" host Laura Jarrett took a hard look at the one charge that Special Counsel John Durham came up with as part of his investigation of the FBI and said it looked like a desperate move to come up with something as he faced a deadline to wrap up his work after five years.

Addressing the accusation on Friday morning, attorney Toobin admitted he found the charge bizarre and likely to fall apart under further scrutiny, while Jarrett noted that Durham spent five years and came up almost empty-handed.

"I think counselor Jarrett gave a very accurate description of the charges here," Toobin began. "But, if I can just add how weird this case is and how unusual even this case is. First of all, Sussman isn't charged with lying to an FBI agent. He's charged with voluntarily going to a lawyer at the FBI, the top lawyer Jim Baker, and describing what might be a crime and saying you should look into this."


"In that conversation, he says, I'm not representing a client generally," he continued. "Specifically I'm just sort of reporting this. That's what's alleged. There are no notes of this conversation; there is -- this is a five-year-old conversation and in Baker's report to his colleague, the colleague writes down, everyone knows that Susman's firm represents the Clinton campaign, so there was no mystery about who Sussman was or where Sussman was coming from. So the idea that this was some lie that changed the FBI and changed their investigation just seems deeply bizarre to me, if this statement was ever said at all because there are no notes."


https://www.rawstory.com/john-durham-2655054134/

[Budi]

1. Garland knows Durham has no case. But please proceed John, prove your case.

Go ahead. Better hurry, times running out!

Garland is right to let Durham continue on.

"Durham's been laughed out of the headquarters of just about every intelligence agency in Europe. He is a literal laughing stock and this @perkinscoieLLP 'indictment' reflects that"
~quote

[Tomconroy]

2. Special prosecutor investigations take on a life of their own.

They are endless. The prosecutors become obsessed with finding something, anything. Maybe they were all bored with their old jobs and don't want to go back.
If main Justice can't investigate it maybe it shouldn't be investigated.

[edhopper]

3. Can Sussman sue

for false arrests?

[FBaggins]

4. Nope

False arrest isn't "you arrested me when it turned out I was innocent". It's "you didn't have an arrest warrant" or some other variation of "you claimed to have the legal authority to arrest me, but you didn't"

A grand jury did indict him. If an arrest results from that, it wouldn't be a false arrest even if the charges are later proven to be frivolous.

There could theoretically be some other form of prosecutorial misconduct. But that seems unlikely here if he actually did say that he wasn't working for the Clinton campaign at a time where his billing records say that he did.

[edhopper]

5. Thanks

[uponit7771]

7. What about some kind of abuse of process? This indictment looks janky AF seeing Durham is playing

... and twisting the phrase "representing a client".

He's not representing a client in the action he was taking at the time of the statement and that should go without saying.

Durham's investigation just went into hyper hackery

[WHITT]

10. Actually

his FIRM was working for the Clinton campaign. He was kinda/sorta there because of a cyber security expert who found the mysterious data transfers.

[FBaggins]

15. That's the claim, but the billing records reportedly contradict that

They're him billing hours to the campaign (not for the meeting with Baker, but for the Alfa bank work). His response is that he needed somewhere to book his hours to ("needed to show internally that he was working on something" ).

Which sounds like an odd defense. "I was actually defrauding my client, but ya got nothing unless they want to sue me for it"

It still wouldn't make it false arrest.

[uponit7771]

6. OK, looks like on its face this case should've been tossed quick fast. The "lie" isn't even material

... to what the FBI was going after at the time.

and Durham is playing with the phrase "representing a client" ... WTF ?! ... really ?!!?

They're doing this to a well off white man, they'd screw any one else into the ground

[PatSeg]

8. They got a few headlines

which is probably what they were hoping for, knowing that is what a lot of people will remember. This is so pathetic.

[exboyfil]

9. Does anyone realize how much of a chilling effect

this will have on conversations with the FBI. Good luck with your investigations boys. I long ago concluded that talking to the FBI is no win because an agent (or in this case a lawyer) can testify that you said anything and it is your word against theirs with lying being a crime.

Only answers through writing vetted by an attorney (if that).

The Alfa Bank thing still looks suspicious as crap. Why did it get turned off when the Newsweek reporter reported on it?

[StarfishSaver]

20. The chilling effect is reminding people not to lie to the FBI

[ck4829]

11. "FBI later ruled out the idea that Alfa Bank was involved in secret Trump-Russia communications"...

Jesus Christ, was this done by the same FBI agent that said in response when a letter coming into the FBI's office saying that anthrax attacks were going to happen soon after the 9/11 attacks and days before the anthrax attacks happened and blamed an innocent man for it that it was "Just a coincidence, nothing to see here, move along"?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/05/17/anthrax.probe/
https://www.salon.com/2002/01/26/assaad/

[edhopper]

13. It's the same FBI

who looked the other way at the Gymnast abuse scandal and ignored all the tips about Kavanaugh.

[4Q2u2]

14. Same FBI

That framed innocent men for over 30yrs.
Helped Boston Gangsters murder dozens.

https://www.courthousenews.com/u-s-must-pay-fees-for-1960s-mob-frame-up/
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/09/21/assets-and-liabilities

[Baitball Blogger]

12. Not to mention that the FBI is prone to ignoring tips.

So, what's the damage?

[LetMyPeopleVote]

16. This is a really stupid indictment

Link to tweet

[chowder66]

17. I thought Durham was only appointed to look into this in 2019. Confused about the 5 years.

Can anyone shed light on this? Did they mean going back 5 years?

[FBaggins]

18. The statute of limitations isn't from when investigators start looking at the supposed crime

It's from when the supposed crime occurred.

In this case, the statement that Durham claims to be false was made just a smidge under five years ago. As part of what was thought to be an investigation re: Russia's influence on the 2016 election.

[chowder66]

19. The excerpt refers to Durham working 5 years on this or at least that's how I keep reading it.

Thank you none-the-less though.

[WHITT]

21. This Is Obviously A Hail Mary

by Durham, with an audience of ONE