Deliberations begin in trial linked to Trump-Russia probe
WASHINGTON — A lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign hid his partisan interests from the FBI as he pushed “pure opposition research” related to Donald Trump and Russia in the weeks before the election, a prosecutor asserted Friday during closing arguments of the attorney’s trial.
But Michael Sussmann’s legal team denied prosecutors’ claims that he lied. And even if jurors believed Sussmann did lie, the defense said the alleged false statement did not matter because he was presenting national security information that the FBI would have looked into no matter the source. At the time of Sussmann’s meeting in September 2016, the bureau was already investigating whether Russia and the Trump campaign were colluding to sway the election won by Trump that November.
“It very contentious time. The Russians had hacked the DNC. They were leaking emails. And there was an ongoing FBI investigation irrespective of this,” Sussmann lawyer Sean Berkowitz told jurors, referring to the Democratic National Committee. “And that was viewed as incredibly serious.”
The case is the first courtroom test of special counsel John Durham’s work since his appointment three years ago to search for government misconduct during the investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s campaign. Jurors began deliberating on Friday afternoon.
A guilty verdict would be cheered by Trump and his supporters, who have looked to the Durham investigation to undercut the original Trump-Russia probe that they have long seen as politically motivated. But the case against Sussmann is narrow in nature, involves a peripheral aspect of that probe and alleges misconduct by a tipster to the government rather than by anyone at the FBI or any other federal agency.
Nonetheless, the two weeks of testimony in federal court in Washington have exposed the extent to which Democratic interests, opposition research, the media and law enforcement all came to be entangled in the run-up to the presidential election.
Prosecutors have portrayed Sussmann as determined to gin up investigations into Trump that could then be disclosed to the media and yield stories negative to his campaign.
“It wasn’t about national security,” said Jonathan Algor, a Durham team prosecutor. “It was about promoting opposition research against the opposition candidate, Donald Trump.”
Sussmann is charged with a single count of making a false statement. That charge carries a maximum five-year prison sentence, though if convicted, Sussmann is likely to get far less — if any — prison time. He did not take the stand during the trial.
The case turns on a Sept. 19, 2016 meeting in which Sussmann presented the FBI’s top lawyer, James Baker, with computer data that Sussmann said suggested a secret communications back channel between a Russia-based bank and the Trump Organization, the candidate’s company.
Such a back channel, if it existed, would have been explosive information at a time when the FBI was examining links between Trump and Russia. But after assessing the data, the FBI quickly determined that there was no suspicious contact at all.
Prosecutors say Sussmann lied to Baker by saying he was not participating in the meeting on behalf of a particular client. They say he was actually there on behalf of the Clinton campaign and another client, a technology executive whom the Durham team says tasked researchers with looking for internet traffic involving Trump associates and Russians.