Michael Sussmann, an attorney for the Perkins Coie law firm who was bankrolled by Hillary Clinton and the DNC to peddle the Trump-Russia hoax was indicted on Sept. 16 by special counsel John Durham on a single charge of making a false statement to the FBI.
Sussmann is accused of lying “about the capacity in which he was providing allegations to the FBI” when he met with a top lawyer from the bureau in September 2016 and provided information about alleged ties between a Russian bank and computer servers in the Trump Organization.
Kash Patel, a key advisor to President Donald Trump, does not believe Sussmann will be the last hoax player to be indicted by Durham and spelled it out in a detailed interview with Epoch Times. Following are excerpts:
So people forget, this isn’t John Durham’s first indictment, it is his second. John Durham charged Clinesmith with doctoring a document, an email to the federal judge in federal court that was reviewing the FISA application search warrant. So it was a pretty big deal that someone who worked at the FBI was charged with lying to a federal court, because he changed what was in an actual email, submitted that email to the court, and did it knowingly.
That first individual, Clinesmith, pleaded guilty, so he’s a convicted federal criminal. That was the first indictment from some months ago. This is the second one. Now we’re moving on to the private sector, to the lawyer for the Hillary Clinton campaign.
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In the indictment John Durham is alleging that Michael Sussmann on behalf of the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign went into the FBI and met with the general counsel. Let’s just hit pause for a second. The FBI maybe has 40-some-thousand employees. The general counsel is the number one lawyer at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Every other lawyer works for him. Sussmann was able to, based on his relationships with this lawyer and his service at DOJ before he went to Perkins Coie, get a meeting and walk into the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s headquarters and sit down with the general counsel of the FBI, which is a big deal in and of itself.
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He presented it to James Baker of the FBI and said, “I’m just being a good Samaritan, I need you guys to review this, and thanks for meeting with me.” What the indictment alleges as criminal conduct is not the handoff of that information. It’s that Sussmann, according to the indictment, lied about who his client was, who he was doing on behalf of, and who paid him to collect that information and submit it to the FBI.
Which is a lie. You’re lying to the FBI about it. He never revealed to Baker, according to the indictment, that his client was the Hillary Clinton campaign. In fact, according to the indictment, Sussmann actually goes out of his way to say that he is not there on behalf of anyone. He has just stumbled upon this information and is presenting it to James Baker at the FBI.
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We deposed principals, attorney generals, FBI directors, deputies, private individuals, and Clinton campaign officers. One of the people we interviewed and deposed was Michael Sussmann, and I actually took that deposition. That deposition of Michael Sussmann’s sworn testimony from 2016 is cited in John Durham’s indictment from just the other week.
It takes part of the questioning and asks, “Were you, Michael Sussmann, working on behalf of anybody in regards to this Alfa Bank information?” In the deposition that I took he said, “Yes, it was on behalf of a client.” He repeated it and confirmed it. The deposition is in the indictment. It speaks for itself. But back then in 2016 he wouldn’t tell me who the client was, even though we knew.
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So, just to simplify, the money goes from the Hillary Clinton campaign, to Hillary Clinton campaign’s lawyers, to the people doing the internet research, Fusion GPS, and then to Steele. So the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign are paying for this research.
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[Question: At the same time, from what we know from this UK legal case where Christopher Steele was actually on the stand, we also know that it was Sussmann who introduced this Alfa Bank-Trump connection into the Steele dossier in the first place.]
Right. You’re talking about another track of this entire operation that’s outlined in Durham’s indictment. Not only did Sussmann, on behalf of the Clinton campaign per the indictment, take this information to the FBI, he’s also taking the information and seeding it into areas of the media.
So that’s the other problematic portion of the allegations in the indictment, because this information was false per the indictment. From my belief, and from my investigation of Russiagate, we knew it back then and now it’s coming out that it is so. ... So he gives it to Christopher Steele, and Steele starts giving it through Fusion GPS and others to people in the media. And Sussmann himself allegedly meets with people in the media to start planting these stories. And what happens? Right before the election there’s a story that breaks nationally that says, “It looks like President Trump is somehow connected with the Russian government through these Alfa Bank servers.” Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate, even tweets it and pretends like she didn’t know anything about it. “Look at President Trump, he’s connected with Russians, don’t vote for him.” That’s pretty damning information to put out a week or two right before an election.
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Back in 2016 and ’17 and ’18 when we were conduction the Russiagate investigation on House Intel, we knew this information was false. But at the time what Sussmann was doing was propping it up as true and accurate, or at least credible.
He asked his FBI friends to take it and then use it in their investigations into the Trump campaign. So now not only do you have a political media sort of scandal investigation on one side, but as we now know also the FBI was on the verge of obtaining a FISA warrant against Carter Page, then a Trump campaign associate.
A FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] warrant is extremely intrusive. It goes up on your phones, on your computers and everyone you’re talking to. You can see text messages, you can hear stuff, and you can read emails. It’s very, very invasive.
But as we now know, the FBI used that information, partly given from Sussmann, to help a federal judge obtain probable cause to go up and surveil this guy. So it’s a pretty big deal. Now for the first time that I know of in U.S. history, a presidential candidate is under surveillance right before the election, because of this information.
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For me, the 27-page indictment is the biggest signal that more is coming. Because when you issue an indictment for lying to the FBI, like they did with Sussmann, it’s two to five pages max. It’s unheard of to be 27-pages. So why put all that information out there? It’s exactly for that reason.
The public can now go and read the indictment and see what John Durham has been working on. It’s a way to announce pieces of investigation by name, by title — all of the six to eight individuals in the indictment identified as working with Sussmann, on behalf of Sussmann, who were paying Sussmann, and where the information was going. Because people are going to figure out who those individuals are.
The other thing is you talk about cooperation. Look, I’ve tried 60 trial cases to verdict in state and federal court, and sometimes people cooperate and sometimes they don’t. You don’t bring an indictment on the hopes that someone is going to cooperate. That’s not how federal trials are conducted. If you’re doing that, you’re going to fail.
You bring the best case that you can, and if someone cooperates along the way, then you can enhance your conspiracy charges, and maybe bring in other people that you weren’t initially looking at.
My question is, although we’ve got two people that have been charged, who hasn’t been charged and is cooperating? Are the Peter Strzoks of the world cooperating? Are the Lisa Pages of the world cooperating? James Baker, is he cooperating? He hasn’t been charged, but he’s been a central figure in all of this. Remember, he was the one who had to sign-off on the fraudulent FISA warrant.
So are those people cooperating? Are there people at Perkins Coie cooperating? What about at the Hillary campaign? This indictment cites individuals who are in communication at the Hillary campaign. The Hillary Clinton campaign manager, the communications director and one of their advisors were all in direct contact with Sussmann about all this Alfa Bank stuff. So have they been talked to?
I would imagine that you would put all those people in grand juries for interviews and then you obtain documents. I think that’s what is coming.
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Arguably, John Durham has been charged with investigating the biggest political scandal in U.S. history. Mind you, he’s only been on the job for two years. He didn’t come into play on day one, he came into play way later. So now, he’s bringing out charges inside of two years. I know it might not sound fast, but it’s kind of fast for federal level work, especially at that complicated level.
. . . In the United States of America in 2016, in 2020, in 2024, is it okay for a political opponent during a presidential election to go out and buy false information, know that information is false, and submit it to the U.S. media in an effort to castigate their opponent in the presidential election?
Then is it okay to take that same information used in the media and submit it to the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and know that this information is false, and think, “We’re not going to tell you guys.” But then say, “Please go up on a federal search warrant on my opponent to be the President of the United States, so we can dig up more dirt and make sure he does not become President of the United States.” Should that be allowed?
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