Sussmann, who worked for Clinton, acquitted of lying to FBI in 2016

[Yonnie3]

Source: Washington Post

A federal jury found Michael Sussmann, a lawyer for Democrats including the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, not guilty of lying to the FBI when he brought them allegations against Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential race.

Tuesday's verdict was a major setback for Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed during the Trump administration and has spent three years probing whether the federal agents who investigated the 2016 Trump campaign committed wrongdoing.

Sussmann was the first person charged by Durham to go to trial. Another person charged in the investigation is due to face a jury later this year.

The Sussmann jury began deliberating Friday, weighing testimony of current and former FBI officials, former Clinton campaign advisers, and technology experts. In closing arguments, prosecutors told the jury that Sussmann thought he had "a license to lie" to the FBI at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign. Sussmann's defense lawyers countered that the case against Sussmann was built on a "political conspiracy theory."

----snip----

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/05/31/sussmann-not-guilty-lying-fbi-hillary-clinton/

---

Gift link from WaPo and me that bypasses the paywall https://wapo.st/3PUR7Ww

[Midnight Writer]

1. Can Sussman sue?

[Ocelot II]

7. No, probably not. Malicious prosecution is a tough case to prove,

especially when a court let the charges go to a jury. I'm glad he was vindicated, though.

[Budi]

2. Can John Durham now be removed?

Or is his Trump nominated position untouchable.

This was a revenge hit.

[Mr.Bill]

8. I don't know, but it's clear now

why Biden let him finish the job.

[Budi]

25. Biden knew the only way to play hardball with this mob style revenge,is to simply keep handing them.

...all the rope it would take.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. Apparently it would have to be a "for cause" removal by Garland

Why Special Counsel Probe of FBI continues: Explained (Correct)


Feb. 18, 2022, 12:36 PM; Updated: Feb. 28, 2022, 10:59 AM

(snip)

Can’t Biden Fire Him Like Other Appointees?

No. Even though Durham was appointed under Trump, only the attorney general can fire a special counsel, and only for cause such as violating Justice Department rules or breaking the law.

Any firing must be accompanied by a detailed explanation to Congress.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/white-collar-and-criminal-law/why-special-counsels-probe-of-fbi-can-go-on-and-on-explained

[Bev54]

15. Well this prosecution should be enough to get him fired. It was shit and they made

things up, charged Sussman before they even did their investigation of him. Really really shoddy legal work.

[BumRushDaShow]

23. The timing might end up being tied to

whether there are any other outstanding trials that are going on related to this. I haven't really followed this since Barr originally made sure to keep that whole thing mostly secretive, and of course he is no longer there anyway.

And considering there was another impeachment after this and the President is no longer in office, I would think the subject would be moot, and this "investigation" considered as "retaliatory" for the first impeachment.

[Bev54]

26. There is at least one more charged and I thought 2 but can only find this one.

"Igor Danchenko, the analyst, was charged in a grand jury indictment with five counts of making false statements to the FBI about the so-called Steele dossier during interviews with agents in 2017." from CNBC

I will be watching empty wheel to get a feel for it as well.

[BumRushDaShow]

29. I literally just found an article that mentioned a 2nd person and posted it

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2924146

(it mentioned the estimated cost through to December 2021!)

[50 Shades Of Blue]

3. K & R!

[gab13by13]

4. Finally an example of a witch hunt.

This was a distraction away from the Trump tower server connected to Alfa Bank in Russia. Too bad that couldn't have been investigated more.

[Bev54]

16. I do believe this whole sham of an investigation and lawsuit was used to

distract from the Russia/Trump relationship and to prevent any further investigations of that relationship until the statute of limitations ran out. It succeeded at that.

[Botany]

19. "This was a distraction away from the Trump tower server connected to Alfa Bank in Russia." Yup!

Now why was a server in a little town in PA that was owned by Trump having daily contacts with the Alfa
Bank's computers? People need to be in prison for this shit. And it is time we see the full unredacted
Mueller report. Every time Trump said "fake news" about Trump/Russia connections he was lying.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/15/was-there-a-connection-between-a-russian-bank-and-the-trump-campaign

As Max and his colleagues searched D.N.S. logs for domains associated with Republican candidates, they were perplexed by what they encountered. “We went looking for fingerprints similar to what was on the D.N.C. computers, but we didn’t find what we were looking for,” Max told me. “We found something totally different—something unique.” In the small town of Lititz, Pennsylvania, a domain linked to the Trump Organization (mail1.trump-email.com) seemed to be behaving in a peculiar way. The server that housed the domain belonged to a company called Listrak, which mostly helped deliver mass-marketing e-mails: blasts of messages advertising spa treatments, Las Vegas weekends, and other enticements. Some Trump Organization domains sent mass e-mail blasts, but the one that Max and his colleagues spotted appeared not to be sending anything. At the same time, though, a very small group of companies seemed to be trying to communicate with it.

Examining records for the Trump domain, Max’s group discovered D.N.S. lookups from a pair of servers owned by Alfa Bank, one of the largest banks in Russia. Alfa Bank’s computers were looking up the address of the Trump server nearly every day. There were dozens of lookups on some days and far fewer on others, but the total number was notable: between May and September, Alfa Bank looked up the Trump Organization’s domain more than two thousand times. “We were watching this happen in real time—it was like watching an airplane fly by,” Max said. “And we thought, Why the hell is a Russian bank communicating with a server that belongs to the Trump Organization, and at such a rate?”

Only one other entity seemed to be reaching out to the Trump Organization’s domain with any frequency: Spectrum Health, of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Spectrum Health is closely linked to the DeVos family; Richard DeVos, Jr., is the chairman of the board, and one of its hospitals is named after his mother. His wife, Betsy DeVos, was appointed Secretary of Education by Donald Trump. Her brother, Erik Prince, is a Trump associate who has attracted the scrutiny of Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Trump’s ties to Russia. Mueller has been looking into Prince’s meeting, following the election, with a Russian official in the Seychelles, at which he reportedly discussed setting up a back channel between Trump and the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. (Prince maintains that the meeting was “incidental.”) In the summer of 2016, Max and the others weren’t aware of any of this. “We didn’t know who DeVos was,” Max said.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. Good news.

[machoneman]

6. Yes, the DOJ should now remove Durham STAT! He'll now lose the 2nd trial anyway.

Bet Fox is slow to report this if at all!

[deurbano]

14. I called my 91-year-old right-wing mom this morning to see how she is doing,

and Fox was blaring (and I mean BLARING) in the background, with over-the-top, breathless expectation: "The verdict is in!" It took me a minute to even process what trial they were talking about, since it seemed to be of OJ verdict-level interest. (At first, I thought it might be the Depp case, which I haven't been following.) I had to crush her hopes during the call as I googled the verdict, but she told me she assumed it would go that way because of the "minorities" on the jury. And I said I assumed it would go that way because he wasn't guilty.

[mcar]

10. ...

[LetMyPeopleVote]

11. This was a very weak case

Link to tweet

[Cha]

36. Rt🤷‍♂️💖TY.. Perfect!

💙💛

[TlalocW]

12. So is this the end of what Durham was working on

Or are there more aspects to his "investigation?"

TlalocW

[Lasher]

27. From the OP

Another person charged in the investigation is due to face a jury later this year.

So I am guessing Durham will be kept on the payroll until this other case goes to trial, and then after that he will be shown the door.

[kairos12]

13. Well. Ok.

I was hoping Biden would pardon him and drive MAGA insane

[StevieM]

17. A pardon would be thrilling to them.

It would let them convince themselves that there is an ongoing cover-up of the so-called crime. A not guilty verdict is the best way to torment them. They have convinced themselves that Russia-gate was a crime committed against Donald Trump and we were just watching a heroic effort to bring the "offenders" to justice.

[Mustellus]

18. I guess Durham was arguing....

.. that Sussmann should have taken his concerns about Alfa Bank to the Hillary Clinton Ad Makers, instead of going ( like a patriot ) to the FBI....

[Grins]

20. Well there goes the Reich-wing's raging boner! Along with Durham's "valid reasons."

Total horseshit from the git-go.

I got one of "those" emails back in February, the day Durham filed his motion (NOT an indictment) with the court saying it was proof of Hillary's sabotage of the Trump campaign. They were ABSOLUTELY SURE this would "Lock her up!"

I just let them know this news. What a great day!

[djacq]

21. Wonder how much this rabbit hole cost the taxpayers?

[BumRushDaShow]

24. As of last December, it was almost $4 million

Since October 2020, Durham has spent $3.8 million probing Russia investigation


By Matt Zapotosky
December 22, 2021 at 4:31 p.m. EST


Special counsel John Durham’s review of the FBI investigation into possible coordination between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian government has cost U.S. taxpayers about $3.8 million since October 2020, according to a Justice Department report released Wednesday. From April through September, Durham reported a tab of about $2.36 million, including about $1.89 million his team spent and about $471,000 recorded by other Justice Department offices as being in support of his work.

More than $670,000 went toward personnel costs, more than $280,000 went toward travel and more than $797,000 went toward IT and litigative support, according to the report. An accounting released earlier this year showed Durham’s investigation cost U.S. taxpayers about $1.45 million from mid-October 2020 through March 2021. The latest report includes some expenses from that prior time frame, which came in higher than had been estimated. John Durham has a stellar reputation for investigating corruption. Some fear his work for Barr could tarnish it.

The tally is not a complete accounting of Durham’s expenses since his investigation began in the spring of 2019. Durham was the U.S. attorney in Connecticut when then-Attorney General William P. Barr first asked him to review the FBI investigation; at that time, he was not a special counsel who was required to publicly report investigative expenses. Barr gave him the special counsel designation in October 2020 — signing an order that protected the investigation from any potential change in political leadership and required the submission of a final report that could be made public.

Democrats and others have long asserted that Durham’s investigation is a political stunt meant to undercut a legitimate FBI probe that dogged Trump’s presidency. Though Durham initially focused on whether law enforcement and intelligence agencies acted inappropriately as they investigated the Trump campaign, the probe in recent months has seemed to zero in on whether people outside of government misled the FBI in an effort to keep attention on exaggerated claims of Trump ties with Russia. Durham has so far charged two people with lying to the FBI.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/durham-expenditures-russia-investigation/2021/12/22/976829ee-6332-11ec-8ce3-9454d0b46d42_story.html

(this article confirmed to me that there is apparently 1 more trial to go)

[Scrivener7]

37. And Sussman. Something like this could financially ruin most people.

[wishstar]

22. Baseless accusation because the Fed interviewer already knew Sussman worked for Clinton campaign

making it impossible to prove Sussman lied about his intent in contacting FBI. He claims he acted for himself out of concern of Russia influence rather than in his official capacity working for the campaign and DOJ could never prove Clinton campaign had tasked him with going to FBI, so there was no case to begin with.

[exboyfil]

30. Yes. Both can be true

If he never denied about working for the Clinton campaign (which like you said was common knowledge) how can a particular alarming piece of information that he conveyed be considered lying to the FBI. The only way to prove it was to show that he knew the information was false which it wasn't. The servers were talking to each other. We still don't have a good reason except coordination for them talking to each other. Probably not enough for a court of law, but common sense tells you it was happening.

[H2O Man]

28. Recommended.

[BlueIdaho]

31. Stick a fork in Durham

He’s done.

[calimary]

32. From your keyboard to God's screen.

[Mr.Bill]

33. In the real world his career would be damaged.

In his case, he will probably wind up with a seven figure job at some right wing think tank or being head of the NRA or any other republican organization.

[BlueIdaho]

34. Well, he's just incompetent enough

To fit right in…

[Cha]

35. TY for the Gift, Yonnie!

“Personally, I don’t think it should have been prosecuted,” she added, saying the government “could have spent our time more wisely.” A second juror told The Post that in the jury room, “everyone pretty much saw it the same way.”

💙💛

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

38. Durham now joins Benghazi and Whitewater on the Clinton conspiracy trash heap