Report: Durham Is Believed To Bring Charges Against Clinton Lawyer In Next Few Days
Reports say special counsel John Durham is planning to charge attorney Michael Sussmann, who was purportedly linked to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, on allegations that he intentionally lied to the FBI during a meeting regarding Trump-Russia issues.
As stated by The New York Times, “The case against Mr. Sussmann centers on the question of who his client was when he conveyed certain suspicions about Mr. Trump and Russia to the F.B.I. in September 2016,”
Sussmann’s attorneys informed The New York Times that they anticipate their client to be indicted and that they believe he is innocent of the charges. Because of a five-year statute of limitations on such instances, Durham will have to file charges within the next few of days.
The report went on to say that “internal billing records Mr. Durham is said to have obtained from Perkins Coie show that when Mr. Sussmann logged certain hours as working on the Alfa Bank matter — but not the meeting with Mr. Baker — he billed the time to Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 campaign. ” According to reports, Mr. Sussmann’s attorneys maintained that their client was representing the cybersecurity expert he referenced to Congress and that he was not there on behalf of or at the instruction of the Clinton campaign in an effort to avoid an indictment. They are also reported to have contended that the billing records are deceptive since Mr. Sussmann was not invoicing his client for work on the Alfa Bank issue, but rather wanted to demonstrate to his colleagues that he was engaged in some activity. Mr. Sussmann was addressing the issue with Mr. Elias, and since the campaign paid a fixed monthly retainer to the company, Mr. Sussmann’s hours did not result in any extra costs, according to the campaign.
External observers are led to think, says the report, that Durham is pursuing the theory that the Clinton campaign utilized Perkins Coie to submit questionable material to the FBI about Trump and Russia in order to harm his campaign.
According to the New York Times, during the meeting with James Baker, “Sussmann relayed data and analysis from cybersecurity researchers who believed that odd internet data could be evidence of a covert communications channel between computer servers associated with the Trump Organization and with Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked Russian financial institution,” according to the newspaper. “The F.B.I. eventually decided those concerns had no merit. The special counsel who later took over the Russia investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, ignored the matter in his final report.”
During the meeting in 2016, according to reports, Sussmann said that he was not representing any clients when he requested the meeting. Durham concluded that this was true. The meeting was requested on behalf of an unidentified client who specializes in cybersecurity, according to Sussmann, who testified in a 2017 deposition before the House of Representatives.
