Durham probe: Lawyer indicted on charges of lying to FBI as part of probe into
According to the indictment, Sussmann — a prominent cybersecurity lawyer whose law firm Perkins Coie worked for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign — lied at a September 2016 meeting with then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in which Sussmann shared information about possible connections between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank.
Sussmann told Baker he wasn’t working on behalf of any client, yet prosecutors allege he was representing the Clinton campaign as well as a tech industry professional who had provided the server data, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors allege Sussmann repeated the lie to other government employees.
An FBI investigation didn’t find evidence of surreptitious communications between the Russian Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization, according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report. And the bank and the Trump Organization have denied the claims.
The provenance of a thumb drive provided to the FBI by Sussmann has been a major focus of the probe, the people briefed on the matter said.
The drive contained information about possible connections between Trump’s company and a Russian bank.
The FBI investigated the claims that servers in Trump Tower were communicating with servers belonging to Alfa Bank, a Russian bank, as part of the broader investigation of ties between Trump campaign associates and Russians.
Former Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report didn’t discuss the Alfa Bank claims and when asked about it during a House hearing in 2019, Mueller said he believed the claims weren’t true.
Sussmann’s legal team learned about three weeks ago that Durham investigators are preparing to seek an indictment against him, according to the person familiar with the case, for allegedly making a false statement during a 2016 meeting with then-FBI General counsel James Baker on the Alfa Bank matter.
Sussmann’s team appealed that decision to Justice Department leadership, which is possible in a case like this, but was rejected. An indictment could come as early as Thursday, according to the person familiar with the case.
Attorneys for Sussmann said in a statement to CNN on Wednesday night that he had committed no crime and if he were to be charged, he would go to trial to “vindicate his good name.” The attorneys, Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth, noted that Sussmann has served in the Justice Department during Democratic and Republican administrations.
The Perkins Coie law firm, working for the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party in 2016, paid the research company Fusion GPS to produce a series of reports from a former British intelligence operative detailing connections between Russians and Trump and his associates.
Separately, a group of cyber experts in 2016 said that they had analyzed thousands of unexplained computer connections between Alfa Bank and Trump Organization servers, and the claims made their way to the FBI through various intermediaries, including Sussmann.
Durham’s probe falling short of Trump’s expectations
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