Sussmann was charged last September for supposedly hiding his clients — Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and “Tech Executive-1,” known to be former Neustar executive Rodney Joffe — from FBI general counsel James Baker when he pushed since-debunked claims of a secret backchannel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank.
The September 2021 charge claimed Sussmann lied when he said he was not providing the allegations to the FBI on behalf of any client when he was doing so on behalf of Joffe and the Clinton campaign. Last year, Sussmann’s lawyers attempted to reason there was no evidence that Sussmann lied to Baker.
On Monday evening, though, Durham said Sussmann conveyed that lie in a text message to Baker on September 18, 2016 — the night before their meeting at the bureau.
“Jim – it’s Michael Sussmann. I have something time-sensitive (and sensitive) I need to discuss,” Sussmann wrote to the FBI’s top lawyer. “Do you have availability [sic] 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.”
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“The Special Counsel has brought a false statement charge on the basis of a purported oral statement made over five years ago for which there is only a single witness, Mr. Baker; for which there is no recording; and for which there are no contemporaneous notes by anyone who was actually in the meeting,” Sussmann’s lawyers claimed last year.
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Durham revealed in October that Baker, who served as general counsel at the bureau from 2014 to 2018, will take the stand in the forthcoming atrial. Sussmann denied wrongdoing, pleaded not guilty, and called upon a federal judge to dismiss the case against him, even relying in part on legal analysis by fired FBI agent Peter Strzok.
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Lawyers for Sussmann asked a federal court to dismiss the false statements charge against their client in March, arguing Sussmann did not lie to the FBI when passing along Trump-Russia collusion claims and, even if he did, the lie was “immaterial.” Durham disagreed.
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“The defendant’s false statement to the FBI General Counsel was plainly material because it misled the General Counsel about, among other things, the critical fact that the defendant was disseminating highly explosive allegations about a then-Presidential candidate on behalf of two specific clients, one of which was the opposing Presidential campaign,” Durham countered last month. “The defendant’s efforts to mislead the FBI in this manner during the height of a Presidential election season plainly could have influenced the FBI’s decision-making in any number of ways.”
