Clinton 2016 campaign lawyer acquitted of lying to FBI
WASHINGTON — A lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign was acquitted Tuesday of lying to the FBI when he pushed information meant to cast suspicions on Donald Trump and Russia in the run-up to that year’s election.
The case against Michael Sussmann was the first courtroom test of special counsel John Durham since his appointment three years ago to search for government misconduct during the investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
The verdict marks a clear setback for Durham’s work, especially since Trump supporters have looked to the probe to expose what they contend was egregious bias by law enforcement officials who investigated the expresident’s campaign. The outcome is likely to hasten questions about the purpose of the inquiry and its cost to taxpayers, especially since the three criminal cases Durham has brought so far have fallen short of establishing any sort of sweeping conspiracy to frame Trump or derail his candidacy.
The trial focused on a narrow issue: whether Sussmann, a cybersecurity attorney and former federal prosecutor himself, concealed from the FBI that he was representing Clinton’s campaign when he passed along computer data that he said showed a possible secret communication backchannel between Russia-based Alfa Bank and Trump’s business company, the Trump Organization.
The FBI, which was already investigating potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, examined the data but quickly determined that there was no suspicious computer contact.
Prosecutors alleged Sussmann was actually acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign and another client, a technology executive, and that he hid that information to make the data seem more credible and to boost the chances of getting the FBI to investigate.
Lawyers for Sussmann denied to jurors that he lied, saying it was impossible to know with certainty what he told Baker in the meeting since they were the only participants and neither of them took notes.