The jury in the Michael Sussman trial of the Clinton lawyer accused by US Attorney John Durham of lying to the FBI about the Trump/Russia collusion connection took less than six hours to come back wit a not guilty verdict, if you're still wondering how badly the Durham probe is going for Trump and the right.
A federal jury delivered a major setback to special counsel John Durham on Tuesday, acquitting well-connected lawyer Michael Sussmann on a charge that he lied to the FBI in 2016 while acting on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign — a trial that sought to revive old controversies about the FBI’s role in that election.
The verdict, coming after less than a full day of deliberations spread over parts of Friday and Tuesday, was not a close call or a hard decision, two jurors told The Washington Post.
“Politics were not a factor,” the jury forewoman said. “We felt really comfortable being able to share what we thought. We had concise notes, and we were able to address the questions together,” she said, declining to give her name as she left the courthouse.
“Personally, I don’t think it should have been prosecuted,” she added, saying the government “could have spent our time more wisely.” A second juror told The Post that in the jury room, “everyone pretty much saw it the same way.”
Sussmann was accused of lying to a senior FBI official in September 2016 when he brought the FBI allegations of a secret computer communications channel between the Trump Organization and Russia-based Alfa Bank. FBI agents investigated the data but concluded that there was nothing suspicious about it.
Durham, appointed three years ago during the Trump administration to find possible wrongdoing among federal agents who probed Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, alleged that Sussmann had lied to the FBI when he claimed that he was not bringing them the information on behalf of any client, when, the prosecutors alleged, he did so on behalf of the Clinton campaign and technology executive Rodney Joffe.
Sussmann, the first person charged by Durham to go to trial, said outside court that “justice ultimately prevailed in my case. … I’m looking forward to getting back to the work I love.”
Durham did not speak outside court, issuing a statement that said, “While we are disappointed in the outcome, we respect the jury’s decision and thank them for their service.” Durham plans another trial in the fall, of a researcher accused of lying to the FBI about his research into Trump.
Gregory Brower, a former U.S. attorney and senior FBI official, said the acquittal was “not a surprising result given the lack of evidence” and the way false statement laws have historically been applied.
“The special counsel was only appointed because the former president wanted an investigation that he could point to for political reasons during the campaign, and [former attorney general William P.] Barr gave him one,” said Brower, noting that much of what Durham was tapped to investigate had already been exhaustively examined by the Justice Department’s inspector general. “This quick acquittal,” he said, “should mark the end of this chapter.”
It should mark the end of the Durham probe as a whole. Both President Biden and Merrick Garland should hold a joint press conference explaining why Durham is being cashiered after this, but in the long run Durham will get a chance to write his report, and it will be just as disappointing to the right as the Mueller Report was to the rest of us.
Keep in mind if Trump is elected again in 2024 though, he will order his AG to arrest Democrats all over the place.
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