9 Big Things We Learned From The Michael Sussmann Prosecution

Margot ClevelandJune 6, 2022

Lower than one week ago, a Wa D. C. jury acquitted former Hillary Clinton advertising campaign attorney Michael Sussmann associated with lying to former F General Counsel James Baker. Since then, pundits on both the particular left and the right have got painted the verdict being an indictment of Special Advice John Durham, suggesting their investigation into the perpetrators associated with Spygate is a bust.

This myopic look at of the prosecution, however , ignores the many revelations exposed because the special counsel indicted Sussmann last September. Here are 9 significant details learned in the Sussmann prosecution.

1 . The Scheming At the rear of the Crazy Alfa Financial institution Hoax

The particular special counsel’s indictment towards Sussmann alleged he humiliated to Baker when showing Baker data and whitepapers purporting to show a key communication network between the Russian-based Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization. While the trial centered on whether Sussmann had informed Baker he was using the FBI that material by himself, when he was really symbolizing the Clinton campaign plus tech executive Rodney Joffe, the indictment and different court filings exposed the particular birth and nature from the Alfa Bank hoax.

The Alfa Financial institution hoax originated when cybersecurity expert April Lorenzen contributed supposedly suspicious data along with another tech expert, Joffe. Joffe then told their attorney, Sussmann, about the information, claiming it showed the back-door communications network in between Trump and the Russian-based Alfa Bank. Sussmann shared that will information with lead Clinton campaign attorney Marc Elias and employees of the investigative firm Fusion GPS.

Joffe then used both his relationship to tech experts and his entry to proprietary and sensitive information from the Executive Office from the President. Among other things, Joffe forced an executive at one more tech company and a specialist at Georgia Tech to find broadly for data purporting to connect Trump to The ussr. Not only was no link found, but in emails revealed in the case, Georgia Tech’s Manos Antonakakis told the others they will needed to regroup and re-think their theory, noting hate of Trump was their own motivating factor.

Instead, Joffe forged forward, drafting a whitepaper that will hid the fallacies from the theories. Sussmann then peddled that data and whitepaper, along with two others, towards the FBI and later the particular CIA. Meanwhile, Fusion GPS NAVIGATION pushed the Alfa Financial institution hoax to the media, using the assistance of Georgia Tech’s David Dagon, whom Blend GPS connected with reporters in order to supposedly authenticate the research as well as the conclusion.

Whilst Joffe and his crew believed the whitepaper adequately disguised the problems with the Alfa Financial institution theory, trial testimony uncovered that the FBI quickly came to the conclusion the data did not support the presence of a secret communications system. In fact , after reviewing a single whitepaper an agent noted this sounded “5150ish”—crazy. According to prosecutors, one CIA agent proceeded to go further, believing that the fundamental data had been created.

In total, this proof revealed not just that the Alfa Bank theory was incorrect, but that those pushing this knew or should have recognized it was a hoax. And several individuals were involved in both crafting and peddling from the hoax.

second . Hillary Clinton Greenlighted Pressing the Alfa Bank Scam to the Media

Many players took component in crafting and offering the Alfa Bank scam, but the bottom line proven throughout the Sussmann trial was that Hillary Clinton both paid for plus personally okayed her strategy minions giving the push the fake story in regards to a Trump-Russia secret communication system. Former Clinton campaign supervisor Robby Mook testified that will Clinton personally greenlighted the particular pushing of that Alfa-Bank scam, and Sussmann’s acquittal are not able to erase that fact.

Further, given that her advertising campaign team sought Clinton’s private approval to peddle the particular Alfa-Bank hoax to the mass media, logically one would expect that will Mook or others near to Hillary likewise sought the girl permission to push additional angles of the Russia collusion conspiracy, such as those emanating from the Christopher Steele file.

3. The particular Clinton Campaign Abused Attorney-Client Privilege

Clinton’s full involvement in the The ussr collusion hoax, either straight or through her numerous Perkins Coie and Blend GPS agents, remains shrouded from view, in part, due to the former presidential candidate’s misuse of the attorney-client privilege. The particular Sussmann trial exposed this particular reality when prosecutors transferred for access to 38 files of some 1, five hundred withheld from the grand court based on claims of attorney-client privilege.

The particular court in the Sussmann situation ruled that the Clinton strategy had improperly secreted many documents from prosecutors, plus ordered Fusion GPS to show the unprotected material to the special counsel. However the court’s order only tackled the wrongly withheld files from the batch of 37 at issue. The courtroom did not rule on how most of the approximately 1, 500 leftover documents had likewise already been withheld based on a missing reliance on attorney-client freedom. Hopefully, the special advice will force manufacturing of those documents soon.

4. The Ruskies Yota Phone Hoax Had been Even Worse

As the Sussmann prosecution focused on the particular Alfa Bank hoax, the particular prosecution also revealed another crazy conspiracy theory pressed by Sussmann and Joffe—this one to the CIA. Within court filings, the particular counsel detailed exactly how, in February 2017, Sussmann used his connections to get a meeting with CIA agents.

During that meeting, along with providing the CIA along with updated Alfa Bank accusations, the special counsel stated “Sussmann provided the company thumb drives with individual data files for the YotaPhone by location of the ‘domain title system’ or DNS searches, including one for Trump’s Central Park apartment, one particular for the EOP, one designed for Spectrum Health Care, and one for your Trump Tower. ”

Sussmann told the CIA that the DNS data “indicat[ed] that a Russian-made Yota-phone have been seen by [Sussmann’s contacts] connecting to the Wi-fi from the Trump Tower within New York, as well as a from a place in Michigan, at the same time that will then-candidate Trump was considered to be at these locations. ”

But the unique counsel’s investigation revealed that will Joffe and his crew got obtained more complete information about the Yota phones which data showed “the DNS lookups involving the EOP started at least as early as 2014, ” meaning before Trump emerged on the scene. The data offered to the CIA, however , disregarded those DNS lookups from your material given to the CIA, misleading the agency.

Other court filings suggest an even more scandalous truth: that Trump’s enemies had been tracking his physical motions. This scenario seems likely provided a CIA memorandum incorporated into a filing by the particular counsel. That stated Sussmann stated , “the phone has been never noticed in two areas at once, only around the President’s Movements. ”

Sussmann’s acquittal does absolutely nothing to lessen the value of him peddling towards the CIA “fraudulent-by-omission data in order to prompt an investigation into the seated president of the United States. ”

5. Rodney Joffe’s Super Shady Involvement

The special counsel’s prosecution of Sussmann, simply by necessity, revealed Joffe’s participation in curating the Alfa Bank data and creating the hoax. But the a lot of pre-trial filings and following testimony during the two-week Sussmann trial exposed Joffe’s participation in several additional suspicious strategies.

First, along with working on the Alfa Financial institution hoax, Joffe took the lead role in creating the Yota phone conspiracy theory. Sussmann purportedly visited the CIA on Joffe’s behalf, albeit without identifying Joffe as the client at the rear of the “intel. ” In order to cull the Yota telephone data, Joffe also used his access to the data from the Executive Office of the Leader and pressured other cyber-experts to mine proprietary info to frame Trump.

A second significant thought came during trial, whenever witnesses testified that Joffe had served as a private human source (CHS) for your FBI during the relevant period of time and until 2021, whenever he was terminated. Even though Joffe was a CHS, rather than presenting his handler the particular supposedly suspicious Alfa Financial institution data, he used Sussmann to feed it towards the upper echelons of the F. Simultaneously, Joffe provided one more FBI contact—again, not their handler—a similar warning concerning the supposed Alfa Bank-Trump link, producing in rounded reporting of the hoax.

Joffe also bypassed his handler a third period, in March 2017. That is when he used Sussmann to provide the Department associated with Justice’s inspector general info that “a specific OIG employee’s computer was ‘seen publicly’ in ‘Internet traffic’ and was connecting to some Virtual Private Network inside a foreign country. ”

Given that Joffe utilized Sussmann on two before occasions to directly give food to the government misinformation about Trump and those connected to Trump, it could not be shocking to find that will Joffe repeated the process whenever he had Sussmann approach the particular OIG on his behalf. For the moment, however , the public knows a bit more than those basics, although the particular counsel also knows that Joffe remains a subject of analysis and there are still crimes that the statute of restrictions has yet to run out.

6. DOJ’s OIG Is Not a Group Player

Because noted, little is known concerning the details of the tip Sussmann communicated to the DOJ’s OIG within March of 2017 for Joffe. What is known, nevertheless , is that the OIG’s office help back information from the special lawyer about that meeting.

From various filings within the Sussmann case, Durham’s group revealed that the DOJ’s OIG did not inform prosecutors that will Sussmann had actually fulfilled with the inspector general regarding Joffe’s tip. The OIG also originally withheld several documents related to Sussmann’s ending up in the IG about Joffe’s tip, only providing the particular material to the special advice after Sussmann had informed prosecutors of his ending up in the IG.

In addition to withholding information about Sussmann’s meeting with the IG, throughout the proceedings in the Sussmann situation, the special counsel uncovered the DOJ’s OIG acquired two of Baker’s mobile phones, as well as other cell phones of individuals coupled to the Russia collusion probe, yet had not provided those in order to Durham’s team. From this, the general public discovered that the DOJ’s OIG is not a group player.

seven. The FBI’s Team Is really Swampy

The particular prosecution of Sussmann furthermore exposed that the FBI is not really “our” FBI, but the swamp’s. Baker’s trial testimony produced that clear when this individual was pushed by prosecutors on why he had just recently discovered an old e-mail from Sussmann in which Sussmann texted that he wanted to satisfy on his own behalf. Baker informed the special counsel’s group, “I’m not out to obtain Michael. This is not my analysis. This is your investigation. In case you ask me a question, I actually answer it. You requested me to look for something, I actually go look for it. ”

That’s the shocking attitude for the previous general counsel of the F to take, given that Baker furthermore testified he was “100 % confident” Sussmann said throughout their September 19, 2016 conference that he was not representing a customer. “Baker also informed the jury he probably wouldn’t have taken the conference if he knew Sussmann represented the Clinton strategy. ”

Instead of condemn Sussmann, “Baker blamed himself for tossing Sussmann ‘into a maelstrom’ and expressed outrage from how the congressmen investigating the particular investigation into Trump great campaign behaved when they asked Baker about his ending up in Sussmann. Baker displayed not really a sliver of the exact same distress over his buddy lying to him. ”

Bill Priestap, another high-level FBI formal during the relevant time frame, appeared similarly reticent in helping the government in its prosecution associated with Sussmann.

That are just those who testified with Sussmann’s trial. The Cross-fire Hurricane team, up to and including the leaders—then-FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andy McCabe—as well as many from the FBI agents working for previous Special Counsel Robert Mueller likewise proved on their own not out to find the reality, but out to get Trump.

The Sussmann trial revealed that Trump may be gone, but the F still belongs to the swamp.

8. The Heritage Media Swims in the Swamp

The Sussmann prosecution also proved that the legacy media swims in the swamp. Emails changed between Fusion GPS’s co-founders Glenn Simpson and Philip Fritsch exposed the symbiotic relationship between the Clinton marketing campaign and reporters working for the brand new York Times, the Wa Post, Yahoo! News, DASAR News, Reuters, and more.

While anyone focusing already knew the press was in on the Russia-collusion scam, seeing the tag-team hard work to destroy Trump within the black-and-white of emails supplied indisputable proof of the data corruption of the supposed standard-bearers associated with journalism. If those email messages weren’t enough, the damaged media’s failure to cover the particular Sussmann trial until their acquittal provides the repeat of the lesson, training Americans that journalistic sincerity no longer exists at major business outlets.

nine. The FBI Lied towards the DOJ

The following revelation discovered because of the Sussmann prosecution arrived unwittingly from the defense group when they disclosed three units of handwritten notes used during a March 6, 2017 meeting in which high-ranking F officials briefed acting Lawyer General Dana Boente. (Boente stood in at the conference for Attorney General Shaun Sessions, who had lately recused himself from the analysis. )

The particular FBI’s McCabe, Priestap, plus Counterintelligence Deputy Assistant Movie director Peter Strzok updated Boente and his staff during that conference. As part of the discovery in the Sussmann case, the special lawyer team provided Sussmann along with notes taken by DOJ authorities Tashina Gauhar, Mary McCord, and Scott Schools.

As Hans Mahncke and Stephen McIntyre earlier comprehensive at The Federalist, those notes indicate the FBI lied to the DOJ during the March 6, 2017 meeting in numerous ways. For example, the notes reference “‘CROWN reporting, ’ implying the fact that dossier was an official Usa intelligence product when it has been actually made-up stories plus gossip and paid for by Clinton campaign—a fact the particular FBI knew from their [Igor Danchenko] interview. ”

Significantly, since Mahncke and McIntyre tension, the FBI had evaluated Danchenko in January 2017 and at that time Danchenko disavowed much of the intelligence Steele attributed to Danchenko in the file under the moniker “Primary Sub-Source. ” Yet the March six, 2017 notes omit any kind of mention of Danchenko, suggesting the particular FBI concealed the falling apart of Steele’s reporting in the DOJ.

The particular notes from the March six, 2017 meeting, while talking about the Alfa Bank information, also omitted any reference to the fact that the FBI’s cyber analysts who looked into the data Sussmann provided got concluded soon after receiving the information that it “did not recommend any covert communications among Trump and Russia. ” Instead, the FBI’s expert concluded the whitepaper pressing the theory sounded delusional.

The FBI realtors handling the Crossfire Storm investigation withheld these details while others from the DOJ during the Mar 6, 2017 meeting. The particular notes further indicate Strzok “lied to DOJ authorities about the opening of the Cross-fire Hurricane investigation, ” informing them that Trump’s request Russia to find Clinton’s lacking 30, 000 emails motivated “the Australian diplomat to supply his tip about Trump aide George Papadopoulos towards the U. S. embassy working in london. ” But the Australian “diplomat supplied his suggestion before Trump made the particular joke. ”

Not only were these details possibly omitted or misrepresented throughout the March 6, 2017 briefing to the DOJ, the fourth plus final FISA application in order to surveil Carter Page, out dated June 29, 2017, ongoing to rely on the disavowed portions of the Steele file. And from the notes from the March 6, 2017 conference, it now appears that this FBI agents in charge keep responsibility for the material omissions, as they either lied in order to, misrepresented, or withheld key points from the DOJ.

What remains unclear, nevertheless , is what Durham intends to undertake about it. So , while we now have learned much from the Sussmann prosecution, we still do not know whether Durham expects to hold the Crossfire Storm team responsible for their function in the scandal. However , using the five-year statute of restrictions set to expire later this particular month on any is situated that made their method into the final FISA program, we should know soon when the special counsel sees criminal offenses in play that prosecutors can prove.

Otherwise, justice may still arrive, just without jail. The particular Sussmann prosecution proved that will, because even an acquittal cannot erase the historical record of the complicity of these involved in the worst political scandal of our country’s history.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She actually is also a contributor to Nationwide Review Online, the Wa Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall. com, and has been released in the Wall Street Journal and UNITED STATES Today.

Cleveland is an attorney and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, exactly where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s greatest honor. She later offered for nearly 25 years as a long lasting law clerk for a federal government appellate judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Is of interest. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and today teaches as an adjunct occasionally.

As a stay-at-home homeschooling mother of a young son along with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland often writes on cultural problems related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is upon Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The particular views expressed here are the ones from Cleveland in her personal capacity.