John Durham and the Michael Sussman Trial

The Sussmann trial is the first public airing in a courtroom of how much special counsel John Durham has uncovered in his investigation into whether federal law enforcement officials illegally investigated the 2016 Trump campaign.

I had hoped to see a BBC report on the trial and drew a blank noting its main headline was “Depp-Heard trial: Jury sides mostly with Depp in defamation case”.

According to Wikipedia: “Michael A. Sussmann (born 1964) is an American former federal prosecutor and a former partner at the law firm Perkins Coie, who focused on privacy and cybersecurity law. Sussmann represented the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and retained CrowdStrike to examine its servers after two Russian hacker groups penetrated DNC networks and stole information during the 2016 U.S. elections. The Trump administration appointed John Durham as special counsel to investigate the origins of the FBI probe into links between Trump associates and Russian officials. Durham spent three years on the investigation and, in 2021, brought a single charge of making false statements against Sussmann, accusing him of having lied to the FBI in one meeting in 2016, with no witnesses. Sussman pleaded not guilty. After a jury trial in May 2022, Sussman was unanimously acquitted”.

For a fairly neutral account of what is going on, CBS News reports: “Washington – A District of Columbia jury has acquitted Michael Sussmann, a prominent Democratic lawyer, on one count of lying to investigators during a Sept. 19, 2016, meeting during which he conveyed now-debunked data that purportedly linked Trump Tower to Russia’s Alfa Bank. Michael Sussmann was accused by special counsel John Durham — a holdover from the Trump administration — of hiding his ties with a technology executive and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign when he brought the allegations to then-FBI general counsel Jim Baker. Durham was tasked with probing allegations of misconduct by those investigating former President Donald Trump’s alleged ties with Russia. Sussmann was the first of Durham’s handful of defendants to stand trial. “

For what seems to reflect much of MSN’s Trump antipathy, Time Magazine reports: “Russia’s efforts to help Donald Trump win the 2016 election are well established. Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that Russia tried to damage Hillary Clinton and help Trump win, as did the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee panel that investigated the election. Russian operatives used social media accounts to sow discord and disinformation among the U.S. population and set in motion real-life rallies that helped Trump’s campaign. And Trump’s public embrace of Russia’s efforts are also well-known. During a news conference in July 2016, Trump publicly encouraged Russian hackers to break into Clinton’s email system. And on Oct. 10, 2016, after the website Wikileaks published emails stolen from Democratic National Committee servers, Trump said, “I love WikiLeaks.””

For a collage of what Trump sympathising alternative news has to say about the trial, check out: “EXPLOSIVE exposures > Sussmann trial evidence on DNC & FBI points to Obama!” on Richard’s Watch. Also shared by Richard are the following … “Purpose of Sussman trial 1.  Get some things “on the record” 2. Build conspiracy case 3. SHOW the public, a fair trial needs to outside of DC” and “Devin Nunes on the Sussmann verdict: “Durham had to know when he walked into the DC courtroom that it was highly unlikely that he was going to prosecute a well known, prominent Democrat… in the cesspool… He ripped off the band-aid, so it’s exposed… They can actually see just how bad it’s really become in Washington, DC… I would also be shocked if Durham does not bring additional indictments, and I think what he’s trying to drive for is a conspiracy indictment.””

I laid out my own interest six weeks ago in my “The Mueller Report and the Durham Report”, noting the obsession of MSM with the Mueller investigation but not the Durham one. I expressed the view: “But truth and justice are of paramount importance and given bad people, along with their media allies, pour in iniquity onto the world, this should be a spur for us to want to find out the truth and demand justice. Maybe John Durham will help in this regard, for truth matters, because among other things it sets us free.” The trial despite the Not Guilty verdict indicates Durham is on track and that the truth will come out and justice will be done.