The verdict came midway through the second day of deliberations following a two-week-long trial on a single count of making false statements to a federal agent. Prosecutors unsuccessfully sought to prove that Sussmann deliberately lied to then-FBI general counsel James Baker by claiming not to be acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign and an Internet executive when the two met in 2016.
May 31, 2022
"Ex-Clinton campaign lawyer Sussmann not guilty in Trump-Russia trial."
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145 comments:
There is no doubt that there are two standards of justice in this country depending on your political persuasion. The judge put a heavy thumb on the scale by including Clinton partisans on the jury and in limiting what the prosecution could present. It is not healthy for the country that fifty percent (at least) of the country has no faith in the judicial system. There is a great rot.
A DC jury with 3 Clinton donors and a friend of Sussman's daughter. What a surprise !
As predicted.
The 98% partisan democratical jury pool of DC comes thru for Team Dem as we knew they would.
Toss in a Clinton donating judge whose wife is Lisa Page's lawyer and jury members who literally work for democraticals, the dems have established precisely what they wanted: a one party town that handles all politically charged cases.
This is the DC jury we expected. Sad. He’s “not guilty” in the same way OJ was. For similar tribal reasons.
Of course.
Durham was only ever there to provide the appearance of consequences.
Everyone knows the Democrat Regime is corrupt and vile. The only people that face consequences are people who oppose the Regime.
We approach climax.
What a shock.
DC Jury.
Corruption reigns on team D.
This also proves that the FBI... LIES.
Turley said this about the jury:
’I mean, he is facing a jury that has three Clinton donors, an AOC donor, and a woman whose daughter is on the same sports team with Sussmann’s daughter. With the exception of randomly selecting people out of the DNC headquarters, you could not come up with a worse jury.’
Equal justice under the law, my ass.
Everyday, Americans like me lose faith in our Justice system. People associated with Corrupt Government officials get away with a lot...whilst normal everyday Americans are being accused BY our Justice Department of being Domestic Terrorists for complaining about the subjects being taught at schools at School Board meetings. Upside down fucking world.
Surprise, surprise.
The fix was in from the git-go.
John LGKTQ Henry
It is nice to be the Nomenkultura.
We don't live in a serious country.
He is on record lying in his own words.
Any republican would have done a plea deal, but Sussmann knew that he'd never be convicted in DC.
What a fucking joke. This is how you get Trump again.
Also, his crime affected the entire nation. The entire nation should have standing, and prosecutors should have had the ability to move the trial to Alabama or Idaho.
Bonchie
@bonchieredstate
This will be it for Durham. Sussmann was the building block toward bigger fish. But when even literal receipts showing Sussmann was working for Hillary and even charged her for the USBs he delivered the false information on aren't enough, nothing will be enough.
12:05 PM · May 31, 2022
With that jury, it would have been an earth-shaking surprise if they had found him guilty.
I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if the prosecution can ask for a change of venue for a trial or if that's something only the defense can do, but, why, in God's name, did the prosecution proceed with a jury like that?
Was the prosecution trying to throw the fight?
New National Anthem courtesy of Tom Petty...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lWJXDG2i0A
Context. The jury was filled with Clinton donors, and one juror had a daughter that crewed with Sussman's daughter. The Judge had a personal connection to Lisa Page. Anyway, this was all just Kubuki theater. Dunham was appointed by Barr to look like he was looking into the wrong doing committed by Hillary, Comey, the FBI, etc. to keep Trump and his supporters happy.
Remember all those Right-wing "Anyday now Dunham's going to drop a bombshell" in 2020? And here it is 2022 and Dunham finds Hillary's lawyer lying to FBI and giving them fake made up documents to tie Trump to Russia collusion. And we get a biased jury and a biased judge and no conviction.
Just as expected. BTW, there's an actual email from Sussman to the FBI saying he was NOT working for Hillary campaign, AND a record showing he billed the time for the FBI meeting to the Hillary campaign. And we got sworn testimony, supported by FBI records, that Sussman claimed he was just a "concerned citizen".
Did Comey and McCabe, really think this data didn't come from the Hillary Campaign? Of course not. But Dunham thought he had Sussman in a clever trap. And he lost because he was absolutely could not win with a DC jury.
It must be truly sad for you Ann, having devoted your life's work to creating a collection of cesspool clowns.
"I mean, (Sussman) is facing a jury that has three Clinton donors, an AOC donor, and a woman whose daughter is on the same sports team with Sussmann’s daughter. With the exception of randomly selecting people out of the DNC headquarters, you could not come up with a worse jury.” - Historian Jonathan Turley.
Hey - here's a strawman. Let me knock it down.
Gee, anybody see that one coming?
There's no justice in DC.
"Acquitted" would be better in the headline than "not guilty." Whatever the actual jury found, the real deliberations about whether he's guilty continue.
There was no way that he was going to be convicted by q DC jury. Susseman could have gotten up in the witness stand and admitted that he lied to the FBI and they still would have voted not guilty because orangemanbad.
This was yet another DOJ attempt to use a process crime to compel someone into snitching against a prominent politician.
A few years ago, Robert "The FBI Whitewasher" Mueller and his gang of Trump-hating lawyers tried to compel Michael Flynn and several other Trump supporters to snitch against President Donald Trump.
Now DOJ's John Durham has tried to compel Michael Sussman to snitch against Hillary Clinton.
A lot of times, this process-crime tactic does not work.
=======
Of course, DOJ usually does not use its process-crime tactic against its own DOJ employees.
For example, DOJ did NOT use a process crime to compel Kevin Clinesmith to snitch against his DOJ superior who told him to falsify that CIA message that was needed for the FBI to get a FISA warrant against Carter Page.
In general, Durham should be informing the public about the DOJ/FBI shenanigans to undermine Trump. That should be a higher priority than informing the public about Sussman's shenanigans.
Not surprised. National Review's Andy McCarthy had a good column on this last week. Here's a relevant passage:
This should be a slam-dunk case for the government. Sussmann made a false statement: He claimed not to be representing anyone, when he was in fact representing the Clinton campaign, in bringing what essentially was bogus, anti-Trump opposition research to the FBI and urging the bureau to investigate.
In addition to falsity, the prosecution must prove materiality. In the abstract, Sussmann’s false statement was obviously material: He concealed his Clinton-campaign connection (and his other client, Rodney Joffe, the tech executive Clinton devotee who compiled the anti-Trump data) because if he had revealed it, the FBI would have known he was peddling partisan propaganda and would have been far less likely to investigate.
Should be an open-and-shut case for a guilty verdict.
Here, however, there is abundant evidence that the FBI was not duped, as the prosecution insists. Headquarters officials were well aware that Sussmann was a Democratic political operative with a partisan motive to derail Donald Trump’s presidential bid, and they shared that objective — having already started down the road of seeking surveillance warrants from the FISA court on the theory that Trump could be a clandestine agent of Russsia.
Not only was the FBI, at its top level, not duped; headquarters misled the agents tasked with assessing Sussmann’s information. Headquarters concealed Sussmann’s identity as the source in order to hide what investigators would instantly have seen as the political nature of the tip. So misleading was this effort that the document by which the FBI opened the investigation falsely claimed that the information came not from Sussmann but from — of all places — the Justice Department.
That is, Sussmann’s counsel is already positioned to make a strong argument that the FBI was misled not by Sussmann but by its own bosses in Washington. Moreover, Sussmann’s lawyers are poised to contend that his false statement was not material: Even when line agents determined that Sussmann’s information was deeply flawed and did not show ties between Trump and Russia, headquarters would not permit agents to shut the investigation down; they just recast it as a counterintelligence probe and kept pushing.
Archived link (does not require registration or paywall access)
Hillary, Baker, Sussman...
Filthy dirty corrupt craw weasels. Lying liars who lie.
Pedo Joe is happy. Hes got his arms around a kid as we speak.
So was OJ.
As if there was any doubt, we now have a protected class living in the federal city that can break any law they want. The Clintons, the Bidens and the Pelosis are all immune.
I don't understand the basis for this verdict.
“Guilty as hell, free as a bird. Is this a great country or what?” Bill Ayers.
I agree with Julie Kelly:
We live in a country of 2 separate and unequal systems of justice. Politically-charged trials held in a highly partisan city that favors powerful interests tied to Democratic Party. Those connected get a pass—those on the outside get destroyed.
Expectedly! Given the jury.
Jury nullification.
what if Durham had gone for fraudulent billing a la The Firm [Tom Cruise in mustash/beard]
Nobody will be convicted in relation to RussiaGate.
Well, Paul Manafort was convicted -- for not paying his taxes correctly several years earlier.
And well, Roger Stone was convicted for some nonsense, but his sentence was commuted.
And well, Kevin Clinesmith was convicted for falsifying a FISA application, but he got just a slap on the wrist for it.
=====
Everyone else knew how to cover his own tracks and also can argue persuasively that he always acted with pure, non-partisan motives.
Much of the shenanigans were just political "dirty tricks" that are not illegal.
=====
I myself would be happy if John Durham would give up trying to convict people and rather would give the public a frank and detailed history of all the RussiaGate shenanigans.
I myself would like to know when and how the FBI really began to investigate Donald Trump on the suspicion that he was involved wrongly with the Russian Government. FBI Counter-Intelligence began developing that suspicion long before 2015. Let's get that whole story told to the public.
Let's allow the public to read that entire memo that Australian diplomat wrote to the US Government about his conversation with George Papadopolous.
Let's get to know who in the FBI or CIA was involved in sending Papadopolous to meet with Joseph Mifsud.
There are many, many details that should be revealed to the public. Let the chips fall where they may.
=======
In defense of DOJ/FBI, I will say that it tried to keep its investigations secret from the public.
Those investigations were revealed to the public by US Senator Harry Reid, who had been briefed about them by DOJ/FBI and who was supposed to keep that information secret.
OJ jury redux.
Hey! No harm; no foul.
It's not like the Feds didn't KNOW Sussmann was lying. He lie didn't add or detract from what they might or might not have done.
Everybody in D.C. (with the possible exception of former employees of the White House Travel office, plus Linda Tripp) wanted and expected Hillary to be the next president and gaining her attention and favor was vital to their own success.
All of these Government trials cry out for a change of venue. This should have been tried in Omaha.
Makes sense since it's obvious Trump is Putin's biggest cheerleader.
A fabulous in-your-face Pyrrhic victory for the imperious Democrats, especially given all the facts that Durham got on the record just months before the midterms. Well done.
This a case of highly corrupt jury nullification -- All Democrats are innocent even if they confess.
D.C. is an abbreviation of DAMNED COLLABORATORS.
Everyone knew that Sussman worked for Hillary. Everyone. There was never any question about that. He shopped it around to media and the FBI. Analysts at the FBI rejected the story initially- quickly. Yet those higher ups at the FBI so hated Trump that they decided it was worth initiating the 'investigation'. Once the FBI ran with it, the media hacks jumped on it (and were fed regular 'leaks' from the FBI).
Everyone knows this was nothing but a fiction, a lie, a corruption of our laws and processes used as a cheap October Surprise. And with the help of Democrats in Congress and our press, it was used as an anchor around the Trump administration for his entire term. You still have half the country who thinks it's a real thing.
And no one is held responsible. No one is held accountable. No one pays. No one goes to jail. Nothing is done. The corrupt continue to work in government at all levels. The media continues to spoonfeed lies to the public. Book contracts are made. TV appearances are secured. New government positions and opportunities await the corrupt who created and carried this fraud.
And I'm told that there are still experts who cannot understand why Trump got elected. Once. So far.
At least Trump was honest about his voter's bias with his 5th Ave quip.
DC Swamper jury with one juror’s daughter a teammate of Sussman’s daughter, three Hillary Clinton donors and an AOC donor. DC “justice” is “just us,” where “us” = Democrats. Democrats can shoot someone in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenueand be found Not Guilty. Republicans would be railroaded, as the current plight of the J6 political prisoners shows. TANJ!
James Baker fell for Sussman's story?? Why isn't Baker being scrutinized? He gets away with a "I'm stupid" defense.
Uvalde, the bump rifle in Las Vegas, none of this shit makes sense. There are so many unanswered questions that no one is asking. Soon, the FBI will declare the case closed.
The common thread here seems to be the FBI.
Turley predicted the jury pool is impossible when it comes to prosecuting Dems.
I mean, he only texted Baker saying he wasn't coming on behalf of a client, and then billed the campaign and even used USB drives paid for by Hillary campaign.
Can't understand why Durham went through with this knowing the jury was packed with Hillary donors. He had to know he was never getting a conviction. Unless it was supposed to be a sham. Which would not surprise me.
He's about 2 years into this and besides getting Clinesmith guilty for altering documents, he's failed to produce results.
I no longer see a purpose behind him continuing.
Lying to the FBI is only a criminal act if you're a Republican, but not a criminal act if you're lying to the FBI on Hillary's behalf.
Can't say I'm too surprised. Proving that someone "deliberately lied" is probably hard, and that's kind of a pathetic charge anyhow.
I don't know if "conspiring to manipulate the FBI and DOJ into investigating the president" is actually a crime, even if it's a disgusting way to tear down the country.
I haven't been following this trial at all so I'm not sure how strong the case was. From the article this appears to be what the prosecution claimed was at least one of the false statements Michael Sussman made.
“Jim — it’s Michael Sussmann. I have something time-sensitive (and sensitive) I need to discuss. Do you have availability for a short meeting tomorrow? I’m coming on my own — not on behalf of a client or company — want to help the Bureau. Thanks,”
What I found interesting was another quote from the article, this one from a lawyer defending Michael Sussman, from what I presume were closing arguments.
“Mr. Sussmann had DNC and [Hillary for America] tattooed on his forehead,” attorney Sean Berkowitz told jurors in his closing argument Friday.
This makes it sound like the argument was everyone at the FBI knew Sussman worked for the DNC and Hillary so therefore no one could have been misled. What worries me, is that this not only sounds plausible to me, but probable. Everyone in DC who gets to a certain level must know who the players are, and which team they play for. When the FBI got the dossier they probably knew it was generated by the DNC and Hillary and they still used it as a basis to spy on Trump. I'm assuming because most established people in DC were very worried about a Trump presidency. It is like an ecosystem adapting to protect itself, sounds kind of swampy to me.
Au contraire, the prosecution successfully proved it.
The dirty Clinton campaign operative jury nullified it. There’s a difference.
Two Justice systems: one for them, another for the rest of us. This cannot be sustained. Civil war is coming.
Well, damn. The chicanery continues.
Sussmann certainly got a judge and jury of his peers. No way were they going to convict him.
The legal system is completely corrupt.
I guess I shouldn't be so naive, but I was hoping for even a little bit of justice. What a farce. Hillary and her team skate again.
Whatever happened to Huber's investigation? Maybe he and Durham can combine their forces, and get to the bottom of Hillary's malfeasance by the end of the decade.
The “just us” system strikes again. Hillary should be in jail for destroying government records of her meetings as Secretary of State in burn bags, as testified by Huma, at a time when she was collecting tens of millions from foreigners with business before the State Department, I could go on about Hunter lying on his handgun application, etc, but we don’t have a system of Justice, we have an enforcement arm of the Democrats, a rule of men, not of law.
The public probably never will learn what the FBI did with the FISA warrant against Carter Page:
* How many people did the FBI study?
* Who were they?
* What communications and other information was seized?
* What did the FBI do with that seized information?
* Did any of that information implicate anyone in Russian collusion?
Census “erroneously” undercounted red states and overcounted blue states for a swing of six electoral votes. Nothing to see here. 2000 Mules information will never come before a court. Joe Biden is openly corrupt.
Well, the justice system is going to play hell getting convictions across the flyover states following this farce. As much as I hate the "lying to the FBI charge", THIS case and others like it, where someone deliberately sets out to frame someone else, is the REASON for the charge. So, when someone frees a guy who was not as obviously trying to avoid a confrontation here in Tennessee, you can almost guarantee they will walk. Jury nullification has an old (and racist) history in the South. A shame that DC is reviving it, the Democrats just changed who they are protecting.
It was a high burden of proof, and a tough jury. Still, congrats to Sussman's lawyers.
James Wolfe, a staff member of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence leaked to a journalist the FISA application targeting Carter Page. The journalist was Ali Watkins, his former lover. Wolfe agreed to a plea bargain, admitting only that he had made false statements to investigators.
Will the public ever get an explanation of 1) that leak and 2) the non-punishment?
What was going on there?
I agree with Sundance's suspicion that Wolfe leaked the FISA warrant because that Senate committee's leadership told him to do so.
That leak of that FISA warrant is part of the RussiaGate history that remains mysterious.
======
I am very critical of DOJ/FBI in this history, but I think that particular leak should be blamed on that Senate Committee.
In that case, the DOJ/FBI is guilty only of refusing to prosecute 1) Wolfe and 2) the Senate members who directed Wolfe.
More news from the People's Republic of Columbia.
Non biased jury?? Nahhh...but it was for Hillary, Her lies are not important.butttttt... Trump. We are totally fucked. There are two different tiers of justice in America, and the corrupt can do and say whatever they want.
Jeff Mordock
@JeffMordock
Juror speaks to some media after Sussmann verdict
“I don’t think it should have been prosecuted,” she said of the case. “There are bigger things that affect the nation than a possible lie to the FBI.”
1:06 PM · May 31, 2022
"Surprise: DC Jury Acquits Michael Sussman
Update: Jury Was Stacked with Literal Hillary Clinton Donors, One AOC Donor, and a Woman Who Was on the Same Crew Team as Michael Sussman's Daughter"
I strongly suspect that the jury felt Sussman was a patriot in trying to set up Donald Trump.
Politicians can't allow a businessmen to be POTUS. It screws up all their graft opportunities.
It is a Brave New World we live in.
Yet another reason to empty the J Edgar Hoover building and turn it into a homeless shelter.
It would have been better for the Democrats if justice was served.
They should have sacrificed Hillary long ago.
But the democrat party and all of it's voters are just corrupt people and they like showing it off.
Hey. The fix was in. Remember when I told you that if you elected Obama the whole country would be run like Chicago. Here ya go.
Howard (not that Howard) said...
Can't understand why Durham went through with this knowing the jury was packed with Hillary donors. He had to know he was never getting a conviction. Unless it was supposed to be a sham. Which would not surprise me.
Whatever Durham's motives are are irrelevant.
What he showed is that you are all just shitty people who do not care about the rule of law or equal justice under the law.
But it isn't like you shitheads were even pretending. The only family who could be more obviously corrupt and amoral than the Clintons are the Bidens.
Everyone sees who you are and what you support Howard.
Who cares if anybody lies to the FBI is what the juror said she acquitted for. Why have an FBI if some people CAN lie to them and divide the country??
Doesn't the prosecutor get to veto people in the jury pool? How did he let some of those get through? Or was he allowed only a certain number of rejections?
Howard Asked: "Can't understand why Durham went through with this"
Nothing would have prevented Durham from dropping the charges once the jury was composed and he knew who was placed on it.
He could have stood on the steps of the courthouse in a press conference covered by literally every reporter in Washington DC and announced he was not going to proceed with a prosecution in the face of blatant judicial corruption in allowing Hillary Clinton's donors and the defendants actual friends onto the jury.
This act not only creates an appearance of impropriety - it is actual impropriety and Durham should have refused to participate in it. It brings actual disrepute on the court itself and disgust in the law and legal system.
An honest man would have done that.
So we know that he's not honest.
Turley is worth quoting all over.
This is interesting;
In other words, there was no reason for the Justice Department to expect that Baker, a former top Justice lawyer, would help to make the case against Sussmann. It did not help the optics when Baker left the Justice Department and joined Brookings Institution, liberal think tank linked to key figures who framed the early Russian collusion claims. For some, it seemed like not just friends but “friends with benefits.”
Insiders game(D)
Just possibly the prosecutor didn't present a good enough case for a fair-minded jury to convict. Oh I forgot, all of you heard all of the evidence admitted at trial. Cause how else could a fair-minder observer have an opinion on guilt or innocence?
Howard (not that Howard) said...
Can't understand why Durham went through with this knowing the jury was packed with Hillary donors. He had to know he was never getting a conviction. Unless it was supposed to be a sham. Which would not surprise me.
***************
If it were really a sham, I doubt Durham would have pushed so hard to get Hillary's connivance in the public record.
"In the Halls of Justice, the only justice is in the halls."- Lenny Bruce
Next, Sussman is offered the opportunity to testify against the rest of his cohort, or go through the same thing again and again and again, along with his entire family. Oh, wait, that's General Flynn.
Can't understand why Durham went through with this knowing the jury was packed with Hillary donors. He had to know he was never getting a conviction. Unless it was supposed to be a sham. Which would not surprise me.
The guy was clearly guilty, and the system isn't perfect. I would have been even angrier if Durham wimped out and refused to try the case unless he was certain he could win.
If nothing else, Durham succeeded in getting some of the facts behind the Mueller debacle out into the open.
“I don’t think it should have been prosecuted,” she [the juror] said of the case. “There are bigger things that affect the nation than a possible lie to the FBI.”
Now do Michael Flynn and Roger Stone.
Don't forget the brilliant effect of the defense calling the prosecutions best witness out of turn. Real cynical shit there assuming the jury would have no idea what Meeks was talking about oh it must be exonerative testimony he's going on vacation. They brilliantly rely on their own little guys' stupidity. Vicious cunts all of them.
My great fear is that rogue individuals will start taking out scum like Sussman bullet in the neck on the way home from jogging like. They'll think why waste time on trying to kill the well protected when you can take out a pawn. At that point shit hits fan and the civil war goes hot. I'm not looking forward to it.
The false statements statute means that a person can be punished for lying even if he was not under oath in an official proceeding. Are we okay with this double standard? Lies to the government are punished, but lies by the government are protected.
Is this the point at which the media follows the jury to their homes and outs them to the public? Isn't that standard practice now?
Temujin: "And no one is held responsible. No one is held accountable. No one pays. No one goes to jail. Nothing is done."
A key feature of the collusion hoaxes.
From the outset, one question was why they did it--lie so blatantly, pushing the baseless Alfa and dossier hoaxes that were bound to be disproved. Of course, the Clinton mafia, the deep state, and the MSM wanted to derail the Trump campaign, distract attention from Hill's server problem, and interfere with the election by painting Trump as a Russian asset. When he got elected anyway, they more or less had to double down, partly to give the impression that they had not engaged in baseless dirty hoaxing, parity to make life as difficult as possible for the new administration--buying immunity by further obstruction.
But at the basis their calculations was the near certainty that the cost would be minimal. If no one pays, why not commit outrages against the public?
So if you lie to the FBI, its Ok, because "everyone" should "Know" you're lying. Okey Dokey. can someone explain why General Flynn was put through 3 years of Legal Hell and had to get a Trump pardon for "Lying to the FBI" - when its no big whoop?
The real question is this: Why did Dunham try his case in DC? Was he forced to? Could he have asked for a change in venue? WHy do we try these FEDERAL cases only in DC, if the DC jurories can't deliever justice?
We don't let Black criminals be tried by 12 white jurors. Why are we letting 12 liberal Democrats deal out justice in DC?
Meanwhile, Jan 6th protestors are still rotting in jail, or being sentenced to years on probation with prison time for "Tresspassing".
This turned out to be correct:
“This should be a slam-dunk case for the government. Sussmann made a false statement: He claimed not to be representing anyone, when he was in fact representing the Clinton campaign, in bringing what essentially was bogus, anti-Trump opposition research to the FBI and urging the bureau to investigate.”
“In addition to falsity, the prosecution must prove materiality. In the abstract, Sussmann’s false statement was obviously material: He concealed his Clinton-campaign connection (and his other client, Rodney Joffe, the tech executive Clinton devotee who compiled the anti-Trump data) because if he had revealed it, the FBI would have known he was peddling partisan propaganda and would have been far less likely to investigate.”
“Should be an open-and-shut case for a guilty verdict.
Here, however, there is abundant evidence that the FBI was not duped, as the prosecution insists. Headquarters officials were well aware that Sussmann was a Democratic political operative with a partisan motive to derail Donald Trump’s presidential bid, and they shared that objective — having already started down the road of seeking surveillance warrants from the FISA court on the theory that Trump could be a clandestine agent of Russsia.”
The key issue was materiality. Yes, Sussman lied, but his lie was not material because everyone knew he was working for Crooked Hillary, and the top brass at the FBI wanted desperately for hm to be right, even though they knew he was lying through his teeth. As I understand it, the key FBI witnesses were defense witnesses, not prosecution witnesses, introduced to prove that his misstatements were not material, because the FBI knew better. This is a good part of why Patel was able to claim that Trump, et Al, would win, even if Sussman was acquitted, as he was, because the way that he was acquitted was based on the FBI top brass being so corruptly biased that they would take evidence that they knew was false, and use it to try to destroy an elected, and ultimately sitting, President. He had to prove that they had not based their decision to investigate, etc, Trump based on his (Sussman’s) lies, but their own (corrupt) volition. And succeeded.
Remember, this democratical jury cesspool is precisely the venue the democratical sexual groomers of young school children want to drag concerned parents into for daring to oppose the sexualization of their children.
You people were happy with Rittenhouse jury nullification. Fair weather sovereign citizens.
“This makes it sound like the argument was everyone at the FBI knew Sussman worked for the DNC and Hillary so therefore no one could have been misled. What worries me, is that this not only sounds plausible to me, but probable. Everyone in DC who gets to a certain level must know who the players are, and which team they play for. When the FBI got the dossier they probably knew it was generated by the DNC and Hillary and they still used it as a basis to spy on Trump. I'm assuming because most established people in DC were very worried about a Trump presidency. It is like an ecosystem adapting to protect itself, sounds kind of swampy to me.”
That’s why Kash Patel believed that losing the case against Sussman was actually winning, because the boy way for Sussman to be acquitted was to show that his lies were not material, and to do that, his attorneys had to show that the FBI was so venally corrupt that his lies didn’t matter. They knew that he was lying, and for their own highly illegitimate reasons (I.e. trying to destroy Trump’s Presidency), chose to accept this statements as true anyway.
Think about it for a minute. FBI employees are now on record, in sworn testimony, that the top employees in the agency attempted to destroy Trump’s Presidency, despite the entire Constitutional justification for their agency, and their employment, was through him as the Constitutionally authorized head of the Executive Branch. At a minimum, they owed a legal and moral duty of loyalty to him. They not only violated that duty - they shredded it. They put their personal, political, and bureaucratic interests above that of the country they ostensibly served, and permanently destroyed the reputation of their agency for any sort of honesty or integrity.
"I won’t say the verdict doesn’t matter. Of course it matters. It would have proven that a DC jury can convict one of their own. It would have resulted in accountability for lying to the FBI. Not the gravest of crimes, but it is still a crime." -Technofog
https://technofog.substack.com/p/michael-sussmann-has-been-acquitted?s=r
I was a little surprised at the verdict since it was clearly shown that he lied, but then I read that the burden of proof was that his lie was material to the FBI investigation. In that case this is not a reflection of Sussman, but rather of the FBI. Think about it. The position of the jury is that the FBI would have run an investigation the same whether the information was a political hit or a real concern. Those cheering it as a proof against the conspiracy are wrong. Sussman's innocent verdict is a greater proof that the FBI was willingly participating in the unwarranted persecution of a Presidential candidate and then the President. The best thing for the FBI was to say it got duped, not that it went ahead with full knowledge that it was a hit job. Of course, it's not much of a win to admit they couldn't figure out they were being duped. Lose-lose, I suppose.
if Knowing corruption reigns why does anyone expect that the "Prosecutors" did not pull their punches in the presentation of evidence?
are not partisans [commenters here] are convinced easier than an impartial/neutral jury? [accepting that they are getting these facts for the first time]
Sussman skates. Rule of Law hardest hit…
is it INSURRECTION to disdain this verdict?
This is not a feel-good moment.
Did Wray sack the bad actors at FBI HQ when he came in? Well, maybe, but he has been kicking stuff under the rug ever since.
That jamoke who altered the Carter Page inquiry? Wrist slap. Michael Flynn? They dropped a safe on him. Paul Manafort? They dropped a safe on him. Donald Trump? They dropped a safe on him.
We all know jury nullification when we see it. It was a major tool in the Democrats' bag when they ran the states in the Old South.
Nothing really bad is ever going to happen to a Demmie in DC.
Alienation creeps slowly into your heart.
Can of Cheese for Hunter tells it all. It's hard to get a jury to convict a family member.
Even more impetus to ridding the country of these seditious assholes. They fall far short of what makes an American.
John Durham in his three-year-long probe has not uncovered explosive evidence of wrongdoing by the FBI. Instead, in this case, the FBI was cast as a victim.
I had predicted here that there was no conspiracy and that Sussmann would be acquitted. So I am better at this than all the far-right bloggers out who had Hillary hung out to dry in a trial where she was not charged. Now I will go 2 for 2 by predicting Durham will also fail to convict Russian Igor Danchenko as well.
Defense attorney Sean Berkowitz hit the nail smack on the head:
We have always known that Michael Sussmann is innocent and we are grateful that the members of the jury have now come to the same conclusion.
But Michael Sussmann should never have been charged in the first place. This is a case of extraordinary prosecutorial overreach. And we believe that today’s verdict sends an unmistakable message to anyone who cares to listen: politics is no substitute for evidence, and politics has no place in our system of justice.
Lying to the FBI has usually garnished a conviction, in most of the president's men type trials.
Off the top of my head, Scooter Libby, VP Dan Quale aide.
This time it was a democrat. Nothing to see here.
I thought right from the beginning that Durham's charge was pretty weak sauce given what we really know happened. One good thing came out of it: we nowhave sworn testimony that Hillary okayed and helped spread the "Russian Collusion" hoax. It is also very clear now how the collusion story was manufactured by the Dems.
It is a shame that none of the perpetrators will suffer the fate that they deserve but that's politics.
Serious Question?
Why should i pay taxes? Or support the Government, in Any Way?
I mean.. Besides because they'd throw ME in jail.
But Other Than, my fear of the Government coming down on me... WHY?
There is clear video evidence that Rittenhouse was being chased and threatened with violence. He shot back in self-defense. Something leftists hate.
Not hard, Howard.
Bonus - the skin head Rittenhosue shot to death was a convicted child rapist. boo hoo.
but you leftists stick to your false narratives like loyal glue.
Blogger gadfly said...
politics is no substitute for evidence, and politics has no place in our system of justice.
So what happened when the FBI accepted a dossier from the lawyer of someone running for President and used it for justification to spy on that someone's political opponent?
"Lying to the FBI has usually garnished a conviction"
"Garnished"? Lmao are you trying to avoid "garnered" with this malapropism?
Thought experiment: Can you imagine some crazy kid shooting President Obama and some Secret Service agents and then being acquitted on insanity grounds.....Maybe Nancy Pelosi can get a change of venue for her husband's DUI charges. Perhaps by executive order President Biden can mandate that all federal officials and their relatives be tried only before DC juries. Only in this way can justice be said to be done in America.
Sour grapes from the Althouse cracker crowd.
Durham-what a waste of our tax dollar.
Howard at 4:24 PM
You people were happy with Rittenhouse jury nullification.
It's safe to say that not one person here considered that acquittal to be a "jury nullification".
D talking point: Sussman's acquittal proves that Trump was working for Putin.
Tens of millions will believe it.
Sussman's mother wouldn't have been dismissed from that jury pool for cause.
Howard: "You people were happy with Rittenhouse jury nullification."
LOL
We had the video dummy. There was no nullification. But you knew that before you wrote that.
I can only assume you are angry the producers of Top Gun-Maverick poked your Beijing pals in the eye by refusing to remove the Taiwanese and Japanese flags from view in the flick and so you are just lashing in your typical way.
Althouse crowd admitting that the only way the idiot Durham could have gotten a conviction would have been with a jury packed with full time Fox consuming rednecks.
With the joke out of the way- these charges were probably inappropriate given that James Baker and the other FBI agents surely knew Sussman was lying. I strongly suspect they not only knew Sussman was lying, but that Sussman was required by them to lie so that they could run with his proffered "evidence". In other words, Durham's witnesses lied on the stand, too. It is all a big charade- Sussman pretends to not be working for Clinton, Baker etal. pretend to believe Sussman, and Durham pretends to believe Baker etal.
"I was a little surprised at the verdict since it was clearly shown that he lied, but then I read that the burden of proof was that his lie was material to the FBI investigation. In that case this is not a reflection of Sussman, but rather of the FBI. Think about it. The position of the jury is that the FBI would have run an investigation the same whether the information was a political hit or a real concern.
It is worse than this- Baker etal. lied on the stand when they claimed to have believed Sussman's lies. Everyone of these jokers knew exactly what Sussman was doing.
In a real sense the jury was right to acquit- the lies were immaterial. As I implied above, I think Sussman was told he had put it on the record that he was acting on his own in order that Baker and others could "investigate" this made up computer data.
Vault Dweller wrote:
"When the FBI got the dossier they probably knew it was generated by the DNC and Hillary and they still used it as a basis to spy on Trump."
There is no probably about it- the FBI knew before they applied for the first FISA warrant in October 2016 that the dossier had been bought and paid for by the Clinton Campaign. They even disclosed that on the warrant application itself. There is some evidence that the first application was denied explicitly because the evidence was proffered by the Clinton Campaign, and the FBI "fixed" that problem by citing "independent" corroborating evidence from a particular media story from September of 2016 by Michael Isikoff. Of course, Isikoff got the details for his story from Christopher Steele, too, and the FBI knew that as well, though they have never admitted.
But Michael Sussmann should never have been charged in the first place. This is a case of extraordinary prosecutorial overreach.
Certainly not in front of a DC jury. Only Republicans are convicted by DC juries.
Mike Sylwester wrote:
"In defense of DOJ/FBI, I will say that it tried to keep its investigations secret from the public."
I am sure Reid saw the wink, wink when told how this investigation was top secret by James Comey and not to be shared publically.
Blogger Mutaman said...
Althouse crowd admitting that the only way the idiot Durham could have gotten a conviction would have been with a jury packed with full time Fox consuming rednecks.
Are you up for jury duty, lefty ?
Blogger Mutaman said...
Sour grapes from the Althouse cracker crowd.
Durham-what a waste of our tax dollar.
I kind of agree. Nobody can make the Democrats pay for their crimes these days.
Juror speaks to some media after Sussmann verdict
“I don’t think it should have been prosecuted,” she said of the case. “There are bigger things that affect the nation than a possible lie to the FBI.”
Like those deplorables electing Trump.
The Obama judge did his part denying challenges to biased jurors by the prosecution.
What needs to happen is for the federal judicial circuit of D.C to be dissolved and its responsibilities be absorbed into the 4th district that includes Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina. You can't have a federal government where one political party can break the law in the capital with impunity because 95%+ of the jury pool not only support that party, but many actively work for it on some level, or are connected by family relations to big players from that party. There is no way 3 Clinton donors should have been seated on that jury- it was clear cause for dismissal from the pool. The judge himself is the husband of the lawyer for Lisa Page who probably is still under some legal threat from the Durham investigation- the judge should have recused himself immediately, or been removed by the head judge of the D.C. Circuit.
@Gadfly - exactly 180° wrong. There was never an issue whether or not Sussmann lied to the FBI, etc. He did. His billing records prove it. His defense was that his lying was not “material” - because the FBI knew that he was lying to them about representing Crooked Hillary, but didn’t care. They wanted dirt on Trump, and got it. Never mind that they knew from Day 1 that it had come from the Clinton campaign. They used it anyway - knowing it’s provenance and that it was most likely contrived and constructed by Trump’s political enemies. This testimony has now been given, in open court, under oath.
Sussmann got off by proving that the FBI was even more corrupt and dishonest than he was.
Howard said...
You people were happy with Rittenhouse jury nullification. Fair weather sovereign citizens.
5/31/22, 4:24 PM
Rittenhouse didn't lie to the FBI.
But at the basis their calculations was the near certainty that the cost would be minimal. If no one pays, why not commit outrages against the public?
Lerner at the IRS showed the way.
In cases like this, the prosecutor not only has to prove to the jury that the accused committed the crime, but also that what he did was really a crime that anybody cares about. We have created way too many BS crimes.
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/05/30/friends-with-benefits-sussmann-trial-is-an-indictment-of-the-fbi-and-the-washington-establishment/
So, Mutaman- he didn’t lie to the FBI?
Not guilty? Nothing to see?
From the news I read about this, it seems that this is a bad decision on the part of the jury, but I don't really know since I wasn't there. I am concerned about the perception of it and that it is just pulling the pendulum further in one direction. Eventually it will have to swing in the opposite direction and I don't think any of us will like it. I am afraid it won't be swinging from injustice to justice, it will just swing to a different type of injustice.
The left and their media lackey's convince their wards that powerful Republicans are Hitler. Would you cheat to take out Hitler? I would. That's where they are now. It's an honor to cheat to take out Hitler #324. There is a reason that most media outlets are biased left wing. It's not politics, it's money. People who vote Democrat are easier to persuade to buy things. If conservative/GOP voters were as gullible as progressive/Democrat voters, the ratio of conservative to progressive media outlets would probably be close to equal. The left wing bias is due to left wing stupidity. They will believe what they are told and that goes political nonsense and for buying products.
Kabuki charades, anyone? This is a travesty of a farce of two mockeries.
I never expected much from Durham, but just getting the scam out in the open has been valuable. All along, it was obvious the Organs and the Ds were hand-up-backside.
A faint echo of the dilemma in 1865 of charging Jeff Davis with treason: no jury of W/white Richmonders would convict, and then where would we be?
The Ds own imperial DC and everyone knows it--it doesn't hurt to demonstrate once in a while, I suppose.
Durham’s job isn’t to nail one lawyer. He sacrificed a pawn to get the Queen’s actions into the official record. But, he better pick better locations for future indictments. He’s welcome go prosecute here in Ohio.
Hi Goose. Haven't seen Top Gun McCain yet. Do they feature another expendable RIO? Smile for the Birdie.
This is like that movie Mississippi Burning, where the bad guys are obviously guilty but they get let off, because *Mississippi*.
That begs the question: Do we have to get Gene Hackman to kidnap Hillary and threaten to cut her balls off to get results here?!
By this time tomorrow the Althouse crowd will have moved from blaming the jury to blaming Durham.
Ann - what is your experienced perspective ?
a) Valid Case but biased jury (and maybe judge) ?
b) Insufficient case since FBI already knew ?
b1) But valid prosecution to get FBI's bias and HRC's involvement on the record ?
b11) Sets stage and evidence for future prosecutions
b12) Will be documented, and referenced as facts, in an eventual report
b2) Failure on the prosecution part
c) Valid Case but failure on the prosecution part
d) Other perspective ?
Soap box, ballot box, jury box, ammo box.
To be clear, I am NOT advocating for the last box on the list. However, the people that are removing the first three from a specific set of the population clearly do not understand that they are hurtling towards the fourth box.
What Pillage Idiot said. Civil war is coming. The left is pushing as hard as they can to get there. The right has been holding back.
Wendtbar.
I truly hope it doesn't come to that, but the pawl just advanced another tooth.
Mutaman predicted, at 1048PM, that by that time today (Wednesday) "the Althouse crowd will have moved from blaming the jury to blaming Durham."
Like you do, for wasting the government's valuable time and money trying to prosecute a member of the nomenklatura?
But the prediction is out there.
Let's watch.
wendybar, I believe you are correct. And when I think of that that is going to mean, I am sickened. It will be a neighbor on neighbor situation. If you're an outlier in your community - a dem in a red county or a rep in a blue one - you had best have a go-bag ready.
Michael K said...
Juror speaks to some media after Sussmann verdict
“I don’t think it should have been prosecuted,” she said of the case. “There are bigger things that affect the nation than a possible lie to the FBI.”
And not a single member of the media thought to ask- "What do you think of General Flynn having been prosecuted for lying to the FBI?" Except the really correct word there is "persecuted".
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