The Sussmann Trial Never Should Have Happened

Justice delayed is justice denied

Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer who represented the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign in 2016, outside of federal court in Washington following his acquittal on May 31, 2022. Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo

Commentary

Many people following the Durham investigation and the Sussmann trial closely wondered whether justice would finally prevail this time. Although it should have resulted in a slam-dunk conviction, alas, that was not the outcome because the trial was rigged:

• The trial was held in Washington, which is filled with Democrats (95 percent of District residents voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016).
• The jury pool was tainted. It included three Clinton donors, a juror whose kid associated with Michael Sussmann’s kid, a juror whose husband worked for Clinton’s 2008 campaign, and a juror who donated to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). It seems fair (not!).
• The judge may have been compromised. Christopher Cooper was appointed by former President Barack Obama after serving on Obama’s transition team. He worked at the same law firm as Obama’s “wingman” at the Department of Justice (Eric Holder). Merrick Garland (thank God we dodged a bullet that he wasn’t appointed to the Supreme Court!) presided over the judge’s wedding. One of his wife’s clients (she is, of course, a lawyer) is Lisa Page. Yes, that Lisa Page, whose texts revealed her visceral hatred for—and scheming to “get”—Donald Trump.

If this trial wasn’t rigged, then there is no such thing as a rigged trial! Many commentators agreed, including Fox News’ Jesse Watters in this short YouTube video.

Be that as it may, Special Prosecutor John Durham’s team nevertheless provided very useful information about the Alfa Bank and Trump-Russia hoaxes that have been heretofore squelched and obfuscated by the Democrat-media complex. Some of it has even been seeping out into the legacy media. But, by and large, they are doing their best to continue their efforts to provide shade to Hillary Clinton and the rest of the perpetrators.

At least these revelations are now in the record through sworn testimony. There is even speculation that the disclosures may be the foundation of a sweeping conspiracy indictment in the future. No one should fully expect that to happen. Still, Durham’s team revealed facts that many independent journalists and commentators have suspected for years, but about which Democrat rank-and-file voters and other ne'er-do-wells are either ignorant or have denied since early 2017. Here are a few of the “newly known facts”:

• Durham’s team proved that Sussmann was guilty of making false statements to FBI General Counsel James Baker on Sept. 19, 2016.
• The big bombshell: Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, testified that she authorized passing the false Alfa Bank information to the FBI and media. Clinton texted out the Alfa Bank hoax knowing full well it was false.
• Mook himself may have committed perjury because he denied it under oath, knowing in 2016 that the Clinton campaign’s legal team at Perkins Coie had retained Fusion GPS under contract. Unfortunately, for Mook, Durham has invoices from Perkins billed to Clinton campaign headquarters showing line items for Fusion GPS. Oops!
• Then there is Jake Sullivan (serving at the time on the Clinton campaign), who was also aware of the Alfa Bank hoax and propagated the lies to the media. Sullivan, who happens to be President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, should be forced to resign in shame immediately.
• The 7th Floor of the FBI’s headquarters (FBI leadership, including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Thomas Baker, Peter Strzok, and the rest) squelched the source of the Alfa Bank allegations in order to get the FBI’s Chicago field office to conduct a forensic analysis. This was done AFTER the FBI field office in New York had declared that the information was bogus. The political goal was to keep the hoax going at a critical juncture in order to justify the appointment of Robert Mueller’s special counsel team of Democrat lawyers to investigate Trump (and politically hamstring his presidency). Durham’s team brought Comey’s name (and other top FBI officials) into the public record in the context of the Alfa Bank hoax.

With the revelation that Clinton authorized the dissemination of the false Alfa Bank information, a logical question needs to be asked: what is the likelihood that she also personally authorized spreading the fake Russia dossier to deflect from her email server troubles? Probably 100 percent. Durham’s team will perhaps pull that fact into sworn testimony in a future trial.

Trial attorneys from the office of special counsel John Durham, including Deborah Brittain Shaw, arrive at federal court in Washington on May 18, 2022. Teng Chen for The Epoch Times

And therein lies the real tale that needs to be revisited to understand why the string of hoaxes ginned up by the Clinton campaign should have never happened in the first place.

Clinton’s Email Server Felonies

The contrast between the FBI’s attempts to investigate Trump’s Alfa Bank connection and the “investigation” of Hillary Clinton’s email server in 2015–2016 could not be more illustrative of the complete politicization of the FBI and the DOJ (which continues to the present day).

Clinton was caught red-handed illegally accessing 22 top secret/sensitive compartmented information (TS/SCI) emails from her unclassified email server and dozens of other emails at lower levels of classification.

There are strict rules for handling classified information, particularly copying and transferring files. Two people must be involved in copying/transferring TS/SCI and/or special access program (SAP) information. Everyone accessing these highly classified files must receive training and sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) signifying acknowledgment of the personal requirement to protect the information and the penalties for not doing so. This would include Clinton and her immediate staff, who accessed TS/SCI and/or SAP information while she was Obama’s secretary of state. The rules and penalties are clear to all who sign such NDAs.

Hillary Clinton speaks during the New York State Democratic Convention in New York on Feb. 17, 2022. Seth Wenig/AP Photo

In passing classified information through her unclassified email server, she clearly violated Title 18 USC-Espionage, the penalty for which includes a $10,000 fine for each offense and up to life imprisonment without parole. She and her staffers involved with that email server also violated Sections 793, 794, 790, and 952 of Title 18 USC, Section 783(b) of Title 60 USC, and EO 12356.

Many thousands of people have held SCI clearances—some for decades!—and signed the same annual security certification and NDA to access the classified material. This includes military personnel, Department of Defense and other federal civil servants, U.S. lawmakers and their staff.

Clinton knew the consequences, which the signed form elucidates, yet she clearly violated her sworn oath to protect the information. And she is still criminally liable for her actions. This is because the TS/SCI NDAs carry a lifetime obligation to protect the information.

That Clinton and her inner staff, while she was secretary of state, remain free and have not been indicted yet is a travesty of justice. Those who helped let her and them off the hook are guilty of misprision and obstruction of justice. That means Comey, in particular, who “exonerated” Clinton in July 2016, which was just as the Trump-Russia collusion hoax was being hatched and propagated by Fusion GPS and her campaign staff. And that was the hoax’s real purpose: to distract from Clinton’s email server felonies.

It wasn’t a question of trying to find out whether the allegations of Clinton’s misconduct were true. She was guilty as sin, as Comey himself elucidated during his tortuous public statement while sweeping it all under the rug.

Here is one excerpt from Comey’s execrable statement in July 2016: “[W]e did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer who represented the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign in 2016, in Washington on May 16, 2022. Evan Vucci/AP Photo

“Careless” is no excuse under the law, nor is it called out as acceptable in the training and NDA she signed. No excuse whatsoever precludes punishment for compromising SCI information. Clinton should have been tried, convicted, and sentenced to maximum penalties under the law. No defense of her conduct could possibly have been mounted. Yet the highly politicized FBI and DOJ bent over backward to let her off the hook.

The country would subsequently be forced to endure Clinton’s vindictive wrath for having been scorned by the electorate during the 2016 election: the Trump-Russia hoax, a long and drawn-out sham of a special counsel investigation, a poisoning of the political climate in the United States, and the near-destruction of a U.S. president—all of which should have been avoided if Clinton had been held accountable for her multiple email server felonies in the first place.

Conclusion

The Durham investigation and the Sussmann trial have proven that the Alfa Bank and Trump-Russia collusion allegations were complete hoaxes hatched, funded, and propagated by the Hillary Clinton campaign, with Clinton involved in the decision to release the false information to the FBI and her stenographers in the media.

Trump was almost impeached on completely false charges associated with the Russia hoax that was facilitated by Clinton for America, federal employees in the DOJ and the FBI, and enablers in the media, while Clinton’s proven and indisputable criminal conduct associated with her unclassified email server was magically flushed down the DOJ/FBI memory hole.

And, here we are, forced to endure a special counsel investigation and the Sussmann trial, neither of which would have happened in the first place had Clinton been held accountable for her earlier felonies.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.