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Subject: Re: Trump just dropped major news about Durham Sun May 08, 2022 11:49 am
I wanna hear the juicy details
Temple Regular Member
Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29
Subject: Re: Trump just dropped major news about Durham Sun May 08, 2022 4:57 pm
5-9-2022
Durham probe suffers set-back as judge limits evidence prosecutors can offer in trial.
A federal judge has turned down a request from Special Counsel John Durham for a ruling that a lawyer facing trial on a false statement charge was part of a wide-ranging “joint venture” involving Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, Democratic operatives, private investigation firm Fusion GPS and various technology researchers.
The decision issued Saturday afternoon by U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper limits evidence and testimony prosecutors can offer against attorney Michael Sussmann at a jury trial set to get underway later this month.
Durham has charged Sussmann — whose firm at the time, Perkins Coie, represented the Clinton camp and Democratic National Committee — with lying to the FBI in September 2016, when he approached the bureau’s top lawyer James Baker with what he described as evidence of links between Trump Tower and Alfa Bank.
Prosecutors say Sussmann presented his tip to Baker as simply a good-faith attempt to protect national security, when he was actually acting on behalf of the campaign and tech researchers he represented. Cooper said that permitting prosecutors to lay out evidence of such a broad, political conspiracy would amount to a “time-consuming and largely unnecessary mini-trial,” ____considering Durham has not charged Sussmann with conspiracy but only with a “narrow” false statement to the FBI.___
Prosecutors often argue that statements that would otherwise be impermissible hearsay under federal trial rules should be admitted because they were uttered by members of a conspiracy and show those individuals working together. ____However, the rules also allow admission of such statements when the alleged joint venture wasn’t necessarily illegal.
In Sussmann’s case, prosecutors asked Cooper to rule in advance of trial that Sussmann was “acting in concert toward a common goal” with the pro-Clinton operatives, researchers and others. Such a ruling would have given the government attorneys more latitude to introduce emails against Sussmann, but _____the judge said the scope and membership of the alleged anti-Trump venture was too uncertain to make such a finding.___
“The Court will exercise its discretion not to engage in the kind of extensive evidentiary analysis that would be required to find that such a joint venture existed, and who may have joined it,” wrote Cooper.
“While the Special Counsel has proffered some evidence of a collective effort to disseminate the purported link between Trump and Alfa Bank to the press and others, the contours of this venture and its participants are not entirely obvious.”
Attempting to link Sussmann to such a conspiracy — particularly when he isn’t charged with it — would “essentially amount to a second trial on a non-crime,” he said.
In Cooper’s 24-page ruling, he also says he will permit prosecutors to question witnesses about the scope of an effort by technology researchers to study links in so-called Domain Network Service or DNS data between Trump Tower and the Russian bank. However_____ the judge said he will not permit Durham’s team to introduce evidence that a technology executive, Rodney Joffe, allegedly had doubts about the accuracy of some of the data.
In addition, Cooper said he is unlikely to permit evidence that Joffe “accessed some of the data in breach of certain cybersecurity-related contracts he or his companies had with the U.S. government.”
“Evidence of improper data collection by Mr. Joffe or others done without Mr. Sussmann’s knowledge is, at best, only marginally probative of his supposed motive to lie to the FBI,” Cooper wrote.
_______ “Moreover, whether Mr. Joffe, who is not on trial, violated the terms of any of his contracts with the government—let alone committed a crime—is the type of collateral issue that risks confusing the jury and distracting from the pertinent issues in the case.”__
It’s unclear whether Joffe himself will testify. Sussmann had urged Cooper to force prosecutors to grant Joffe immunity, claiming that Durham had dangled the threat of prosecuting Joffe in order to pressure him the plead the Fifth rather than testify for Sussmann. Cooper declined to do so, saying he wouldn’t take such an extraordinary step, but he noted that the limits he has placed on the government’s lines of questioning about Joffe’s work might ease his concerns about self-incrimination.
Cooper spent part of his ruling explaining why he wouldn’t permit the government to introduce highly technical data about the data gathered by Joffe and his researchers, ______unless Durham provides more evidence Sussmann was aware of the technicalities and any obvious flaws in it when he presented it to the FBI.
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The Wise And Powerful Admin
Posts : 111040 Join date : 2014-07-29 Age : 101 Location : A Mile High
Subject: Re: Trump just dropped major news about Durham Wed May 18, 2022 9:13 pm
Posts : 111040 Join date : 2014-07-29 Age : 101 Location : A Mile High
Subject: Re: Trump just dropped major news about Durham Sat May 21, 2022 9:13 pm
Public Demands Clinton Be Held Accountable After Courtroom Revelation That She Personally Greenlit the Trump-Russia Hoax By Elizabeth Stauffer May 21, 2022 at 8:18am
It’s not a great time to be Robby Mook.
The 2016 Clinton campaign manager’s pivotal testimony in the trial of former Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann on Friday definitively tied Hillary Clinton to the Trump-Russia collusion hoax for the first time.
Mook admitted that Clinton gave the go-ahead to alert the media to the spurious claim that then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had covert ties to a Russian bank.
Subject: Re: Trump just dropped major news about Durham Sat May 21, 2022 10:43 pm
Hillary ain't broke no laws--
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The Wise And Powerful Admin
Posts : 111040 Join date : 2014-07-29 Age : 101 Location : A Mile High
Subject: Re: Trump just dropped major news about Durham Sun May 22, 2022 5:28 am
Temple wrote:
Hillary ain't broke no laws--
Sussmann Defense Takes Another Hit With Testimony of CIA Employees By Nick Arama | May 21, 2022 3:45 PM ET
AP Photo/Richard Drew, File
Michael Sussmann’s defense took another hit with the testimony of two former CIA employees on Friday.
Sussmann has been charged with lying to the FBI about not representing a client when he funneled the Alfa Bank smear against Donald Trump to the FBI–while actually representing the Clinton campaign and tech executive, Rodney Joffe.
Durham has shown that Sussmann billed the Clinton campaign for the meeting that he had with James Baker at the FBI. Marc Elias, Sussmann’s partner at the time, also testified that they were representing the Clinton team and had hired the Fusion GPS to help dig up dirt on the Trump team. Durham also got in other records during Elias’ testimony showing that they were meeting on the Alfa Bank, and Elias said that he considered his work with Sussmann and Joffe to be part of his Clinton campaign work.
Then James Baker testified that when Sussmann came to him with the information, he said that he wasn’t representing a client. Durham produced a text from Sussmann telling Baker that he wasn’t representing a client. Then Baker testified that he likely wouldn’t have taken a meeting with Sussmann on the allegations, if Sussman had admitted he was representing the Clinton campaign. That helps to show the “materiality” of the lie, which is another element of the charge that the prosecution has to prove. Had he not lied, it likely would not have gone further. But instead, it was referred out to be investigated and the FBI debunked it as nonsense.
But Durham had even more support to suggest a pattern.
Sussmann also went to the CIA with the information in February 2017, according to the two CIA employees — Kevin P. and Steve M who testified on Friday in the trial. Sussmann passed them two thumb drives, just as he had to Jim Baker with the Alfa Bank allegations. Once again, he said that he was “not representing any client,” witness Kevin P. testified. Sussmann also told them he had given “similar” information to the FBI.
Sussmann previously reached out to CIA official Mark Chadason, who is now retired and who also testified. Sussmann told Chadason he had information about a national security issue. According to Chadason, Sussmann told him he did have a client but that it was a Republican.
All this tends to show that going to the FBI wasn’t just a random act but a continuing effort to get the information spread, and that Sussmann wasn’t being straight about the Clinton or Joffe connections in the process. It wasn’t just a one-off or him acting randomly. The defense seems to be trying to claim that he wasn’t doing that as part of his representation, but that’s a pretty thin reed on which to stand, given the facts, and this just kicks the legs out under that effort.
Subject: NOT GUILTY- Clinton Lawyer- Michael Sussmann Not Guilty of Lying To The FBI - Tue May 31, 2022 5:58 pm
5-31-2022
Trump roasted by legal experts after hand-picked Russiagate prosecutor John Durham suffers- 'big fat loss'
Former President Donald Trump's special counsel John Durham has spent three years trying to sink members of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign for supposedly trying to frame Trump over his connections to Russia.
On Tuesday, after under seven hours of deliberation, the jury concluded that the Clinton campaign lawyer, Michael Sussmann was not guilty of lying to the FBI when he turned over information that they discovered.
The verdict drew commentary from legal analysts who mocked Republicans who swore that Durham would reestablish Trump's credibility when it came to any accusation involving Russia. That effort, however, failed.
Meanwhile, Durham spent $2.36 million in tax-payer dollars over the course of three years, doing nothing other than making wild accusations in court filing documents, according to Sussmann's lawyer.
In a Feb. 2022 rebuttal filing, Sussmann's lawyers attacked Durham's court claims, saying that he was wrong about critical facts.
According to their information, Durham's claim that Trump's White House was being spied on in the Oval Office was a lie. Evidence showed that all of the data was legally and properly obtained prior to Trump taking office.
The claim also went on to say that Durham was making wild accusations in his court documents to give fodder to right-wing media.
As former federal prosecutor Elie Honig explained, he predicted this case wouldn't go the way Trump hoped.
"That sound you heard — that muffled thud, off in the distance of southern New England — that was the sound of the much-ballyhooed John Durham investigation as it reached its pathetic anticlimax. That was the sound of a dud," wrote Honig in a Sept. 2021 editorial. He concluded that the comments hold true eight months later.
"So the crux of the indictment is that Sussman didn’t disclose to the FBI that he represented Clinton — but the FBI knew he represented Clinton anyway. That, folks, is what we prosecutors call a problem," he said last year.
"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," said a statement from lawyer statement from Sean Berkowitz.
"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 i n our system of justice."
directorate Regular Member
Posts : 5789 Join date : 2017-05-22
Subject: Re: Trump just dropped major news about Durham Tue May 31, 2022 8:04 pm
Liberal jury, in Cintons' pocket.
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Subject: Re: Trump just dropped major news about Durham
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