A Washington, D.C., jury found Michael Sussmann not guilty on Tuesday morning of lying to the FBI in 2016 about working on behalf of Hillary Clinton when he presented debunked information that he claimed showed a connection between Donald Trump and Russia — a report made to the FBI that would set off years of Russian collusion hoax-fury that ultimately was found to be nothing by Robert Mueller's independent investigation.
As Mia explained at length here, the single charge brought by Special Counsel John Durham centered on the alleged false statement Sussmann made to the FBI when he denied he was working on anyone's behalf, thereby concealing his connection to Hillary Clinton:
Durham and the government allege that Sussmann told FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016 in the lead-up to the presidential election that he was not working "on behalf of a client or company." The Democratic cybersecurity lawyer is accused of lying during the meeting with the FBI attorney and "falsely stating to the general counsel that he was not providing the allegations to the FBI on behalf of any client." Durham claimed in a previous filing that the night before Sussmann met with Baker, he "conveyed the same lie in writing and sent the following text message to the general counsel’s personal cellphone."
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Durham disclosed that the government would try to show in the trial that "exploited" data was weaponized to mine "derogatory information" about Trump to establish "an inference" and "narrative" tying the 45th U.S. president to Russia.
Mia also noted in her deep-dive on the first trial to come from Durham's probe that the jury which acquitted Sussmann didn't exactly have the appearance of impartiality and featured several Democrat donors who claimed they would be able to weigh the facts of the case without considering the partisan factor at play:
The jury includes a Treasury Department employee who told the judge he donated to Democrats in the 2016 primaries and another government worker who admitted she "strongly" dislikes former President Donald Trump. According to The Washington Examiner, the juror said in an eyebrow-raising statement that she didn’t think she could be impartial if the case was about a Trump team member but emphasized she could be fair "if it's not directly about Trump." Both of the questionable jurors insisted they could be impartial throughout the high-profile trial, per Fox News. The overwhelming majority of jurors selected had maintained to Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper that they had not previously heard of the case.
Also on the jury deciding whether or not Hillary Clinton's lawyer lied to the FBI to spur the beginning of the Russia Collusion Hoax(TM) were "[a]s many as three Hillary Clinton donors — including one who also supported US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," according to additional reporting from The New York Post.
Concerns raised by the prosecution regarding jury impartiality were overruled by the judge — Christopher Cooper — who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.
Tuesday's verdict casts a shadow of uncertainty over what's next for Durham's probe. Already, Democrats — who pretended the case was much ado about nothing — seized on Sussmann's acquittal as supposedly monumental proof that there was nothing shady going on inside Hillary Clinton's campaign. But that's a reality that conservatives, and any honest observer, knows is simply not true.
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