Posted on 05/31/2022 9:44:30 AM PDT by JonPreston
Michael Sussmann has been acquitted.
The acquittal is no surprise. This is a DC jury, after all. In the Roger Stone case, for example, we documented how a juror lied to get on the panel. (That judge didn’t care.) Making matters worse, the Sussmann judge wrongly allowed for a woman to remain on the jury, despite the fact that her daughter and Sussmann’s are on the same high school crew team. One can’t help but think that juror had her own daughter’s interests in mind – the cohesion of the crew team – when she reached a decision.
On the facts, there was more than sufficient evidence to prove Sussmann’s guilt. Sussmann lied to then-FBI general counsel James Baker in order to get a meeting to pass the Alfa Bank hoax materials to the FBI. Sussmann lied again during the meeting – stating he was not there on behalf of a client – in order to get the FBI to open an investigation into the Trump Organization’s purported ties with Alfa Bank. Later, during testimony to Congress, Sussmann admitted he met with Baker on behalf of a client. Billing records proved he had been working on the Alfa Bank project on behalf of the Clinton Campaign.
I won’t say the verdict doesn’t matter. Of course it matters. It would have proven that a DC jury can convict one of their own. It would have resulted in accountability for lying to the FBI. Not the gravest of crimes, but it is still a crime.
In large part, the prosecution of Sussmann was hamstrung by the FBI’s investigation into the Alfa Bank allegations. That goes to materiality. How can the lies be material if the FBI’s investigation was so sloppy? (Answer: they were material because the lies helped open the investigation in the first place.)
On the issue of materiality, look to the testimony of FBI Special Agent Curtis Heide, whose repeated requests to interview the source of the Alfa Bank information were denied by headquarters. FBI Headquarters didn’t want this thing thoroughly vetted - even though they demanded the investigation be opened. As we stated during the trial:
Relatively early on in the investigation - on September 26, 2016 - Agent Heide sent a message to Pientka, requesting an interview of the source of the Alfa Bank white papers. By that time, Heide knew the white paper was bunk. He received no response from Pientka. He repeated this request on October 3, 2016. Agent Heide’s requests were rebuffed by his liaison at FBI headquarters:
That’s not the say the public hasn’t benefited from the trial. The information disclosed during the trial was important to understand the broader Clinton/Fusion GPS/Perkins Coie effort to poison the public, the press, and the FBI with their Trump/Russia lies. This included:
Data from the Executive Office of the President of the United States, including data from the Trumansition period, was exploited by Sussmann and Rodney Joffe and then passed to the CIA.
Rodney Joffe was a longtime Confidential Human Source (CHS) – and generally a resource – for the FBI. Joffe worked with the FBI on cyber threats from countries like Russia. From former FBI Agent Grasso: “I’m sure the work that [Joffe] did touched on matters having to do with Russia.”
Joffe went to great lengths to make sure the Alfa Bank information he provided to the FBI did not go through his official FBI handler.
The decision to open the investigation came from FBI Leadership. According to one FBI Agent, “People on the 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server.”
Perkins Coie partner Marc Elias provided updates on the Fusion GPS “research” to the Clinton Campaign.
And - Hillary Clinton herself approved of the strategy to disseminate the Alfa Bank allegations to the media. Per Robby Mook:
Q: Mr. Mook, before the break you had testified that there was a conversation in which you told Ms. Clinton about the proposed plan to provide the Alfa-Bank allegations to the media; is that correct?
A: Correct.
Q: And what was her response?
A: All I remember is that she agreed with the decision.
Where does Durham go from here? That’s the real question. We already know that the investigation into Rodney Joffe remains open and that Igor Danchenko faces trial this year. Whether there is more remains to be seen.
The trial was rigged. The fix was in for Sussman even before the trial started. There was no way to get a fair trial.
The jury was nothing but partisan Democrats. All his lawyers really had to say was that he did what he did to stop Trump, and they would find him not guilty. If he were on video killing someone, all he’d have to say is that he did it to stop Trump.
Bam! Acquittal!
Remember that some evidence of the conspiracy was excluded because Durham didn’t charge conspiracy? Time to file the conspiracy charge.
I expected this but it is still depressing.
Maybe Durham will file an appeal over the jury consisting of three Clinton donors and one AOC donor, with one of them having a daughter who is on the same team as Sussman’s daughter.
Sussman trial:
- Judge’s wife is Lisa Page’s lawyer
- One of the juror’s kids is Sussman’s kid’s rowing teammate
- Multiple jurors were Hillary supporters/donors
There was never going to be a conviction.
The next BIG bomb should be dropped on that vile, corrupt city that is Washington, DC!
Kill them all and start over. We are faced by an enemy of elected crooks, appointed crooks, paid for lobby bastards and lifetime hangers on that are ruining our Country.
“Drain the Swamp,” was a good slogan but DC needs to be bombed and flushed.
Durham can go to Hell. He was never going to cross the Clinton Crime Family.
What a loser group in the DOJ!!!
“Do no justice,” is their motto.
The next BIG bomb should be dropped on that vile, corrupt city that is Washington, DC!
Kill them all and start over. We are faced by an enemy of elected crooks, appointed crooks, paid for lobby bastards and lifetime hangers on that are ruining our Country.
“Drain the Swamp,” was a good slogan but DC needs to be bombed and flushed.
Part of the Plan, Qtards. WINNING!!!
Apparently not enough. If you are going to convict a Democrat in DC, you pretty much need a video that clearly shows the person.
Even so, there was the disclosure that Clinton approved the release. That should be helpful to Trumps legal team for a lawsuit.
I was expecting this, but it is discouraging nonetheless.
Very discouraging.
extremely discouraging- The innocent get railroaded- while the guilty go scott free- woudl be nice to have some actual true justice in the country for once- but looks more and m ore like that isn’t going to happen
They acknowledged that the Russian Collusion scam was fake. His defense said that he didn’t know that at the time he went to the FBI. He went in a good faith effort to expose the collusion. Had he known it was fake he would not have gone. He was going as a private citizen not as a part of the Hillary campaign. I know it is BS, but it is hard to prove he was acting for the campaign or on his own. I do know that it is a pretty big deal that people on her campaign are now acknowledging that the collusion deal was false.
https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/01/the-special-counsel-proved-the-fbi-belongs-to-the-swamp/
Yet Baker blamed himself for throwing Sussmann “into a maelstrom” and expressed outrage at how the congressmen investigating the investigation into Trump and his campaign behaved when they questioned Baker about his meeting with Sussmann. Baker displayed not even a sliver of the same distress over his friend lying to him.
On the contrary, when asked why he had just discovered the text message Sussmann sent him the night before their meeting, in which Sussmann wrote, “I’m coming on my own – not on behalf of a client or company. [W]ant to help the Bureau,” Baker told prosecutors: “I’m not out to get Michael. This is not my investigation. This is your investigation. If you ask me a question, I answer it. You asked me to look for something, I go look for it.”
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