Explosive Breaking news .
Good time to have a trial , in the spring before the midterm election Special Counsel John Durham plans to call former FBI General Counsel James Baker to testify in the case against former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann, who was recently indicted for making false statements to the FBI.During a virtual status hearing Tuesday, government prosecutors on Durham's team signaled their intention to call Baker to testify as part of the Sussmann case. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty to one count of making a false statement to a federal agent.
Durham's indictment alleges that Sussmann told then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016 that he was not doing work "for any client" when he requested and held a meeting in which he presented data and evidence of a purported secret communications channel between then-candidate Donald Trump and Alfa Bank, which has ties to the Kremlin.
The indictment against Sussmann says he lied to Baker when he presented data linking the Trump Organization to a secret server that communicated with Alfa Bank. The indictment indicates Durham may be expanding his investigation to bring separate charges again Sussmann or additional defendants.
Michael Sussmann attends the Washington Post’s sixth annual cybersecurity summit on Oct. 6, 2016.
Michael Sussmann attends the Washington Post’s sixth annual cybersecurity summit on Oct. 6, 2016.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper on Tuesday asked both the government and Sussmann's defense to continue moving forward in their discovery process, which could take months, due to the thousands of pages of classified material involved.
During the hearing, government prosecutors said, at this point, that they had provided Sussmann's attorneys with 6,000 documents – amounting to up to some 80,000 pages.
Cooper said he understood that the process would be cumbersome but urged both the prosecution and the defense to come up with a target date for a trial later this year or early next.
DECLASSIFIED TRUMP-RUSSIA PROBE DOCS TO DATE: WHAT TO KNOW
Both the prosecution and the defense signaled they are aiming for a trial to begin in the spring of 2022.
The next court date in the matter is set for a status hearing on Dec. 8 at 2 p.m.
Baker, who serves as deputy counsel at Twitter, left the FBI in May 2018 after serving as a top lawyer at the FBI. Baker was also a confidante of former FBI Director James Comey.
Baker told House investigators in 2019 that he was personally involved in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant application to surveil then-Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The FISA warrant relied largely on the unverified anti-Trump dossier, compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign through law firm Perkins Coie.
James Baker, who served as FBI general counsel, left the bureau in 2018.
James Baker, who served as FBI general counsel, left the bureau in 2018.
Sussmann's indictment is the second prosecution to come out of the Durham's probe.
In 2020, Durham charged former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith with making a false statement – the first criminal case arising from his probe. Clinesmith was referred for potential prosecution by the Justice Department's inspector general's office, which conducted its own review of the Russia investigation.
Former FBI lawyer avoids jail time after guilty plea in Durham probe Video
Specifically, the inspector general accused Clinesmith, though not by name, of altering an email about Page to say that he was "not a source" for another government agency. Page has said he was a source for the CIA. The DOJ relied on that assertion as it submitted a third and final renewal application in 2017 to eavesdrop on Page under FISA.
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Mueller, 77, was appointed special counsel in May 2017 to oversee an investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In July 2019, Mueller testified on his findings, which determined the Russian government did interfere with the election but that there was no evidence of Russian collusion with then-candidate Trump.
of course the local commy troll knows better .
all the constant lies coming unravelled . All who watched Mueller could see he had lost the plot , still smarter than Biden though
"We heard from people who are very close to Bob Mueller, who found him a different person, a changed person, after two years of this investigation," Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig told CNN in January 2020.
In their book, "A Very Stable Genius," Leonnig and co-author Phil Rucker wrote that officials were concerned about Mueller’s health, and that when former Attorney General William Barr met Mueller before his report was released, Mueller read from his notes, and his "hands shook as he held the paper. His voice was shaky, too," the Washington Examiner
When I first read your headline I thought it was all about Fester headed to the Loo with a newspaper tucked under his arm.