Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
“The prosecutor [John Durham] tasked with examining the U.S. government’s investigation into Russian election interference charged a prominent cybersecurity lawyer [last] Thursday with making a false statement to the FBI five years ago. The indictment accuses Michael Sussmann of hiding that he was working with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign during a September 2016 conversation he had with the FBI’s general counsel, when he relayed concerns from cybersecurity researchers about potentially suspicious contacts between a Russian bank and a Trump Organization server. The FBI looked into the matter but ultimately found no evidence of a secret back channel.” AP News
The left is skeptical of the indictment, arguing that it fails to prove a conspiracy against former President Trump.
“The indictment doesn’t allege that the computer data itself was false or was doctored to implicate Trump… Nor was the FBI deceived about who Sussmann was. The indictment itself says the FBI knew Sussmann represented the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign…
“But when he brought them computer data allegedly implicating Trump less than two months before the election, the FBI supposedly thought Sussmann was there simply as a ‘good citizen’ who had somehow stumbled across that information? If that’s really true, someone at the FBI should be indicted for aggravated naivete…
“Even if the charge is legally sound, proving it will be a huge challenge. The alleged false statement was not written down or recorded. There were no witnesses other than the FBI attorney. Given the nature of human language and memory, it’s almost impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt precisely what was said during a portion of a single conversation five years ago. Bringing such a ‘he said/he said’ charge as a stand-alone case is basically unheard of.”
Randall D. Eliason, Washington Post
“It appears that the whole case is built on the testimony of one witness, [FBI General Counsel James] Baker. And in a he said, he said faceoff, the ties goes to the defendant. In addition, it is not clear that Baker will be a strong — or even willing — witness. In a closed-door meeting with Congress in 2018, Baker testified that he did not recall whether Sussmann had represented himself as working on behalf of the Democratic Party or Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Hardly the star witness needed to convict in the absence of all other evidence…
“In his 2018 congressional testimony, Baker was [also] asked whether it would have mattered if Sussmann had told him he was there on behalf of the Clinton Campaign. He said it wouldn’t, a devastating admission for Durham’s case…
“The final problem with Durham’s investigation [is that] his assignment was to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation. The DOJ inspector general already found that the investigation opened in July 2016 was properly predicated on information received from a government ally about statements Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos [made] regarding stolen email messages. Any statement made by Sussmann months later could not possibly have sparked the Russia investigation.”
Barbara McQuade, MSNBC
“The indictment claims that had Mr. Sussmann informed the FBI of his ties to the Clinton campaign, they might have taken a different view of the information he presented. This is not the same as saying that investigators would have taken substantially different actions as a result. Indeed, the indictment admits that federal officials knew about Mr. Sussmann’s associations. Investigators would have examined the strange Internet traffic anyway, and dismissed the alleged Trump-Alfa Bank connection, as they did…
“This, to put it mildly, is not the confirmation of some broad 2016 deep-state conspiracy against Mr. Trump that the former president apparently desired. The danger of special counsel investigations is that, given unlimited time and resources, they often find some bad action tangentially related to their original inquiry that may have had little or no substantial negative impact…
“Mr. Durham has uncovered alleged wrongdoing that has little to do with whether federal officials tried to sabotage the Trump campaign… If Mr. Durham has nothing more compelling coming, he should bring an end to this long-running exercise.”
Editorial Board, Washington Post
The right applauds the indictment as evidence that the Russia collusion scandal was manufactured by the Clinton campaign.
The right applauds the indictment as evidence that the Russia collusion scandal was manufactured by the Clinton campaign.
“The big trick in 2016 was the general effort to create a Russia collusion scandal with the help of Justice Department insiders and an eager, enabling media. It was only last October, for instance, that we learned that then-President Obama was briefed by his CIA director, John Brennan, on an intelligence report that Clinton planned to tie then-candidate Trump to Russia as ‘a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.’ That was on July 28, 2016 — three days before the Russia investigation was initiated…
“According to Durham, the Alfa Bank allegation fell apart even before Sussmann delivered it to the FBI. The indictment details how an unnamed ‘tech executive’ allegedly used his authority at multiple internet companies to help develop the ridiculous claim. (The executive reportedly later claimed that he was promised a top cyber security job in the Clinton administration)…
“Notably, there were many who expressed misgivings not only within the companies working on the secret project but also among unnamed ‘university researchers’ who repeatedly said the argument was bogus. The researchers were told they should not be looking for proof but just enough to ‘give the base of a very useful narrative.’”
Jonathan Turley, The Hill
“What Durham describes in the indictment will confirm many people in their most cynical perceptions of a sinister Washington deep state. Tech Executive-1 owned Internet companies that offered domain name system ‘resolution services.’…
“These private companies have arrangements with the government that provide them with access to a great deal of nonpublic information about Internet traffic. The government provides this privileged access because the companies are supposed to help with cybersecurity. But Tech Executive-1 and [the law firm] Perkins Coie are said to have exploited this access for political purposes…
“In a nutshell, then, people closely connected to the Clinton campaign use privileged access to nonpublic information for political purposes. They concoct it into a political narrative that they know is baseless but can be convincingly spun to suggest Trump is in cahoots with Putin…
“They then simultaneously peddle that storyline to the media and the FBI — the latter of which opens an investigation of Trump because the Clinton team, in this instance Sussmann, misrepresents its intentions. Sussmann was supposedly bringing this alarming ‘evidence’ to the FBI not for political purposes but because he and his associates were well-meaning citizens concerned about national security. Naturally in this cozy world, Sussmann is a former Department of Justice cybersecurity official who traded on his long-standing professional relationship with Baker, the bureau’s lawyer.”
Andrew C. McCarthy, New York Post
“According to the indictment, ‘approximately one week before the 2016 Presidential election’ the actions of Sussmann and the others resulted in ‘multiple media outlets’ reporting that ‘U.S. government authorities had received and were investigating allegations concerning a purported secret channel of communications’ between the Trump Organization and the Alfa Bank…
“In other words, the alleged operation resulted in a strategically timed media blitz that the Trump campaign was being investigated by law enforcement for clandestine ties to the Kremlin… Far from being a departing valedictory, the 27-page indictment appears to be a teaser for coming attractions.”
George Parry, American Spectator
