By Aaron Miller-
A lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign is facing trial over allegations that he lied to the FBI to “manipulate” the agency in order to win the election, a court has heard.
Prosecutors claim Michael Sussman acted deceptively and hoped to create an “October surprise” in the race’s final weeks.
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Mr Sussmann has pleaded not guilty over a charge with a single count of lying to investigators that year, after he brought the FBI unverified evidence that may have connected Trump Tower with Russia’s Alfa Bank.
It is not the content of Sussmann’s tip that will be at issue at trial, but his alleged representation that he had brought the information to investigators on his own and not on behalf of any legal client.
The defendant to go on trial in an investigation into the FBI’s original probe to establish whether Donald Trump was conspiring with Russia.
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The charges arise from a meeting between Mr Sussmann, a cyber-security lawyer, and an FBI agent in 2016.
Mr Sussmann presented what he claimed was evidence of suspicious internet traffic connecting the Trump Organization to Russia’s Alfa Bank. The FBI looked into the allegation and found nothing suspicious.
Sussmann is accused of lying to the FBI in asserting he had brought the cyber data to Baker of his own volition, and not on behalf of a client. He claimed not to be working for the Democratic campaign, but purely as a concerned citizen.
According to the indictment filed last September, Sussmann “acted on behalf of specific clients,” namely a tech executive named Rodney Joffe who allegedly worked with the cyber analysts, and the Hillary Clinton campaign.
“Sussmann’s false statement misled the FBI General Counsel and other FBI personnel concerning the political nature of his work,” Durham’s team argues, adding the investigators might have more carefully scrutinized the data had they known about his alleged ties to Joffe and the Clinton campaign.
A lawyer for Mr Sussmann denounced the trial as an “injustice” at Tuesday’s hearing in a Washington DC federal courthouse.
Mr Sussmann is being charged by US Department of Justice Special Counsel John Durham, who was picked by the attorney general under President Trump in 2019 to investigate FBI misconduct in the original Trump-Russia investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The Mueller inquiry concluded in 2019 that it could find no evidence of any criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, though it did determine Russia had sought to help Mr Trump win.
In court on Tuesday, prosecutor Brittain Shaw argued that Mr Sussmann had hoped to drop a bombshell in the final days of the November 2016 race.
“This case was about privilege,” Ms Shaw said, describing the defendant as a “high-powered DC lawyer”.
Lawyers for Mr Sussmann called the government’s argument “nonsensical”, arguing that the FBI would have known he had represented the Democratic National Committee earlier that year after their computer servers were hacked.
Prosecutors also revealed what led the FBI to conclude that the evidence provided by Mr Sussmann did not prove any Russian collusion.
The server at the Trump Organization uncovered by Mr Sussmann “was merely a spam email server used for sending out marketing emails”, Ms Shaw told the jury.
“The server did not reflect a crime, nor was it a threat to national security,” she added.
Two other people have been charged with crimes as part of Mr Durham’s probe. One pleaded guilty in 2020 to altering evidence that was used to secure an FBI wiretap on Trump aide Carter Page.
In a separate case, a Russia analyst has been charged with lying to the FBI about his sources.
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