The Three Reasons Why Michael Sussmann Was Acquitted of Lying to the FBI and CIA
Special Counsel John Durham’s team presented the jury with incontrovertible evidence that Michael Sussman told the FBI and CIA that he wasn’t representing a client when he delivered a thumb drive that purported to show collusion between Putin and Trump. Durham’s team then showed the jury the receipt for the thumb drive and the billing record showing that Sussmann had billed Hillary Clinton for the drive AND his meeting with the FBI. The jury concluded that Sussmann had lied but that the case should have never been prosecuted acquitting Clinton’s lawyer. The case was doomed from the start for three simple reasons: the judge, the jury, and the evidence.
THE JUDGE
If you thought President Trump was exaggerating when he talked about just how deep the swamp was in Washington DC all you need to do is to look at the judge in the Sussmann trial. Prior to his appointment to the federal bench Judge Cooper worked closely with Barack Obama and Joe Biden on their first presidential campaign, their transition, and matters related to the Justice Department.1 During his second term Obama rewarded Cooper by appointing him to US District Court for the District of Columbia.2
Judge Cooper’s roots in the Democratic Party are deep. In fact, Attorney General Merrick Garland officiated Judge Cooper’s wedding to Amy Jefferess.3 And Amy Jefferess just happens to be former FBI lawyer Lisa Page’s lawyer.4 Lisa Page and her former lover Peter Strzok are both under investigation by Durham creating yet another conflict for Judge Cooper.5 Finally, Judge Cooper saved the best for last when he admitted to John Durham that he and Sussmann had worked together at the Department of Justice during the Obama administration and knew each other professionally.6
In most other jurisdictions a judge with this many potential conflicts of interest would have recused himself but Judge Cooper assumed, likely correctly, that almost every other DC District Court judge would have similar conflicts. That is just the nature of the swamp.
THE JURY
The chances of seating a politically unbiased jury in Washington DC are almost zero. The nation’s capital has approximately 670,0507 residents and only 485,629 registered voters eligible to serve on a jury. Of those, almost all of them are Democrats with fewer than 6% of them registered as Republicans.8 To top that off 60% of these potential jurors live in a household with a government employee and 39% of them are government employees themselves.9
Despite these demographic hurdles John Durham decided to bring his prosecution of Michael Sussmann in Washington DC. Robert Gouveia covered jury selection by reading the court’s transcript of the judge, prosecutor, and Sussmann’s lawyers on his YouTube livestream and detailed voir dire on a MindMap. Suffice it to say the jury eventually seated in this case was almost exclusive filled by Democrats many of whom were donors to Hillary Clinton and even volunteers working on her phone banks. The exchange between Juror 0517 and the judge is revealing. When Judge Cooper asked the executive from the Smithsonian if he could be impartial he said, “I think if it’s not, like, directly about Trump, then probably.” When the judge pressed further suggesting that Trump’s name would be involved the potential juror said, “I could try [to be impartial], I could try, I don’t know.” Over and over potential jurors made it clear they could NOT be impartial if the case might hurt Hillary Clinton or help Donald Trump.
In any other jurisdiction, very few of these people would have been allowed to serve on a jury together, and certainly not one as politically charged as the Sussmann case.10 Perhaps more troubling is the fact that after the trial began one of the jurors decided to disclose to the judge that her daughter is a classmate of Sussmann’s daughter at a private high school and that they are both on the crew team. The juror assured the judge that her daughter was not friends with Ms. Sussmann and did not think her connection to the defendant would be a problem. Again, in any other jurisdiction, the judge would have thanked the juror and dismissed them; but in this case even after the prosecution asked the court to remove the juror Judge Cooper refused.11 At the end of the day, Durham was stuck with a jury that contained three Clinton donors, an AOC donor, and a juror whose daughter rowed crew with Sussmann’s daughter.
The jury delivered their verdict in record time before their lunch break. Only one juror stayed behind to answer questions and only agreed to do so anonymously. The juror explained that while the government proved that Sussmann lied to the FBI the case should have never been prosecuted. Here are the Washington Times’ Jeff Mordock’s tweets from the courthouse:
THE EVIDENCE
The biggest problem Durham faced was Judge Cooper’s rulings that prevented him from putting on his actual case - the fact that Hillary Clinton’s campaign knowingly manufactured and pushed defamatory claims about Donald Trump and his campaign and administration.12 Durham couldn’t tell the jury about the conspiracy to defraud both the FBI and CIA using fabricated evidence that showed Trump was colluding with Putin to steal the election from Hillary Clinton. As a result, Sussmann’s lawyers were able to tell the sympathetic jury that their client was a hero attempting to stop Russia from taking control of our government - an attempt that, sadly, did not succeed.
After preventing Durham from presenting the context of Sussmann’s lie to the FBI and CIA Judge Cooper hammered the final nail into the prosecutor’s case by issuing this instruction to the jury prior to deliberations:
This instruction allowed the jury to acquit Sussmann if they believed that Sussmann was acting in good faith, regardless of his guilt or innocence. The jury admitted that Sussmann lied to the FBI and CIA but only did so in an effort to get his information taken seriously - information that could help stop Putin and Russia from interfering with our elections. The jury believed Sussmann was a good person acting in good faith to save America - Durham wasn’t allowed to tell the jury that, in fact, Sussmann was part of Hillary Clinton’s conspiracy to commit sedition against the United States of America (at least according to former Attorney General Bill Barr).13
The fix was in from the start of this trial. There was no way Sussmann was going to be held accountable for his part in Hillary’s conspiracy against President Trump and ultimately the American people.
P.S. We now know that the DNC through Perkins Coie operated a classified FBI workspace in their offices for more than a decade and for the last five years that workspace was under Michael Sussmann’s control. The story is developing but here is what we know now as described by Rep Gaetz on Tucker Carlson:
https://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2013/08/covingtons-casey-cooper-chosen-for-dc-district-court.html
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/08/01/president-obama-nominates-six-serve-united-states-district-courts
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/02/style/weddings-amy-jeffress-casey-cooper.html
https://www.foxnews.com/us/judge-sussman-case-recusal-wife-lisa-page-lucas
https://theglobalherald.com/news/lisa-page-peter-strzok-in-durhams-crosshairs-next-kash-patel/
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/sussman-judge-previously-professional-acquaintances-lawyer-indicted-durham
https://wtop.com/dc/2021/12/dc-had-largest-percentage-drop-in-population-in-nation/
https://www.dcboe.org/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=08691cdc-9fc9-47fb-b5d5-adb1c5e962b2
https://dcist.com/story/13/05/14/company-town-see-how-many-dc-area-r/
https://nypost.com/2022/05/31/michael-sussman-acquittal-slammed-by-experts-donald-trump-jr/
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/may/19/judge-sussmann-trial-denies-prosecution-request-re/
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/20/politics/hillary-clinton-robby-mook-fbi/index.html
