[ad_1]
Searching for additional documents from Sussmann’s former law firm Perkins Coie, investigators in the Office of the Special Counsel appear to be focusing more on the Democratic political apparatus during the 2016 campaign and efforts to tie Trump to the Russia.
Perkins Coie’s clients in 2016 included the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The law firm also hired on behalf of the campaign a research firm that commissioned the case from former British spy Christopher Steele who alleged Trump had been compromised by Russia.
Durham has previously accessed a plethora of law firm records, such as billing records, meeting schedules and a log of documents the firm protects under solicitor-client privilege. Some of the newly sought documents have so far been protected by solicitor-client privilege.
A lawyer for the law firm did not respond to requests for comment.
Durham’s new subpoenas could lead to a legal battle over inside information and raise awareness of the Clinton campaign.
Durham’s continued use of the federal grand jury in Washington, DC, indicates that he might be interested in adding charges to Sussmann or suing other defendants.
The results disappointed Trump supporters who hoped former senior FBI and intelligence officials would be prosecuted for “spying” on Trump and his campaign.
The case against Sussmann
Durham’s sole charge against Sussmann relates to a September 2016 meeting he had with then-FBI General Counsel James Baker – and is largely based on details that seem to rest on faint recollection of Baker’s meeting. Baker told Congress in 2018 that he did not recall Sussmann “having specifically said he was acting on behalf of a particular client.”
According to Durham, Sussmann lied at that meeting, hiding from the FBI that he worked for the Clinton campaign, to whom he billed for FBI meeting time.
By the time Sussmann met with the FBI, the office was already investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. But Durham alleges that the Clinton campaign’s involvement with Sussmann could have made a difference to the FBI, potentially leading to the agency to change its approach to investigating information shared by Sussmann.
Federal judge overseeing the case, Christopher “Casey” Cooper of the DC District Court, will likely assess during pre-trial court proceedings whether Sussmann disclosing his client to the FBI mattered. If Cooper allows the case to move forward, he could refer this matter to a trial jury.
In interviews with CNN, several former federal prosecutors criticized Durham’s use of what is known as an indictment against Sussmann, laying out a larger case detailing the alleged political motives and conduct of several people outside of Sussmann’s legal practice that are not actually charged. Former prosecutors say a misrepresentation charge is usually straightforward and often presented on a single sheet of paper.
Sussmann’s legal team, in a statement, called the scale of the indictment political libel.
They have already told the court that they may challenge parts of his indictment for their irrelevance, in an attempt to hide them from the jury. And they maintain that Sussmann did not commit any crime.
Dirty policy
The larger narrative Durham describes describes a fairly common practice in politics and in a world that is generally opaque to the general public – in which campaigns spread stories that could hurt their opponents and sometimes attempt to get law enforcement to take over. initiate investigations into suspected wrongdoing. Sometimes the research and the authorities’ reactions to the research will be leaked to the media as part of partisan attempts to affect election results.
Washington-steeped lawyers are often involved in opposition research efforts. Justice Department officials suspected a similar effort was underway in 2020, when Rudy Giuliani requested to meet with senior justice officials to provide documents related to Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, while also providing to news outlets some of the same information, according to the former Trump. administration officials.
These practices themselves are not regulated by law, and Durham did not characterize any action essential to seeking opposition itself as a crime.
“It is certainly common for people with government contacts to be hired to try to get the government interested in launching a beneficial investigation for clients,” White said. “This is all part of the petition to the government.
John Podesta, chairman of the Clinton campaign in 2016, declined to comment on the tactics used by the campaign. But he called Sussmann of Durham’s indictment a “diversion and obfuscation”. He added that Barr had hired Durham specifically to conduct a partisan inquiry into the Democrats and that after two years “he had little to show”.
An attorney representing the Clinton campaign declined to comment.
The technological client
The indictment cites an email conversation in which one of the researchers suggests tightly tailoring their findings to make a “plausible” case that there was something worth investigating about. Trump and Alfa Bank. The remainder of the email – omitted by prosecutors in the indictment – continues: “If the white paper intends to say that there are at least communications between Alfa and Trump that are intentionally hidden by Alfa and Trump, I absolutely believe that’s the deal, “according to the email reviewed by CNN.
Full emails would likely become a key part of an essay.
Elsewhere in the indictment, Durham cites an email sent to Joffe and others involved in the effort, in which one of the researchers wrote: “Let’s think for a moment about the best of times, where we are able to show (somehow) that DNS communication exists between Trump and R[ussia]. How do we plan to defend ourselves against the criticism that this is not fraudulent traffic that we are seeing? There is no answer to that, ”notes the indictment.
The anonymous researcher continued, “We technically cannot make claims that would be subject to public scrutiny. The only thing that motivates[s] us at this point is that we just don’t like [Trump]. ”
Joffe also wrote that the suggestion that Trump is tied to a Russian bank would be a “jackpot,” according to the indictment.
But other emails reviewed by CNN appear to show that after voicing their skepticism in late August 2016, the researchers broadened the scope of their research and believed they should show their findings to the FBI.
Tyrrell said his client “supports the rigorous research and analysis that was carried out, resulting in the report he saw as his patriotic duty to share with the FBI.”
Trump-Russia suspicions
While Durham’s indictment details the alleged dirty tricks of the Clinton campaign, there is also much of the 2016 story missing.
By the time Sussmann met with the FBI, the office was already investigating a Russian hack-and-dump campaign aimed at damaging Clinton. Podesta and the Democratic National Committee have been targeted by Russian intelligence agencies and their private emails have been made public, and a separate Russian botnet has fueled anti-Clinton propaganda online.
Mueller’s report found that the Russian effort was at least in part aimed at helping Trump win the election, and that Trump’s allies praised and even encouraged this aid.
Trump himself has fueled suspicion. In July 2016, Trump publicly encouraged Russia to target Clinton. “Russia, if you listen, I hope you can find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be well rewarded by our press,” Trump said, referring to thousands of emails. who at the time. the FBI said it was deleted and not recovered as part of its investigation into Clinton’s private mail server. That month, the FBI closed the investigation into Clinton and recommended not to charge.
Durham also does not write in his indictment of Sussmann any additional reasons why the FBI had suspicions about Trump and Russia. U.S. intelligence was gathering intelligence on multiple fronts, and investigators eventually examined a handful of Trump’s advisers, including campaign chairman Paul Manafort, as well as foreign policy contacts George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, who had contacts with of the Russians.
Previously, Durham had spoken to witnesses and gathered information about federal government investigations into Papadopoulos and Page. A few of the interviews Durham considered never came to fruition this year, according to several sources familiar with Durham’s work.
This story has been updated.
[ad_2]
Source link