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Hillary Clinton’s lawyer acquitted of lying to FBI

Hillary Clinton (R) speaks as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump looks on during the town hall debate at Washington University.

Hillary Clinton (R) speaks as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump looks on during the town hall debate at Washington University. Photo: Getty

A lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign has been acquitted of lying to the FBI when he pushed information meant to cast suspicions on Donald Trump and Russia in the run-up to the 2016 election.

The jury in the case of Michael Sussmann deliberated on Friday afternoon and Tuesday morning (US time) before reaching its verdict.

The case was the first courtroom test of special counsel John Durham since his appointment three years ago to search for government misconduct during the investigation into potential ties between Russian officials and Mr Trump’s 2016 campaign.

The verdict represents a setback for Mr Durham’s work, especially since Trump supporters had looked to the probe to expose what they contend was sweeping wrongdoing by the FBI.

The trial focused on whether Mr Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer and former federal prosecutor, concealed from the FBI that he was representing Mrs Clinton’s campaign when he presented computer data that he said showed a possible secret backchannel between Russia-based Alfa Bank and Mr Trump’s business company, the Trump Organisation.

The FBI investigated but quickly determined that there was no suspicious contact.

The bureau’s then-general counsel and the government’s star witness, James Baker, testified that he was “100 per cent confident” that Mr Sussmann had told him that he was not representing any client during the meeting.

Prosecutors say he was actually acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign and another client, and that he hid that information so as to make it seem more credible and to boost the chances of getting the FBI to investigate.

Lawyers for Mr Sussmann deny that he lied, saying that it was impossible to know with certainty what he told Mr Baker since they were the only participants in the meeting and neither of them took notes.

They argued that if Mr Sussmann said he was not acting on the Clinton campaign’s behalf that that was technically accurate since he did not ask the FBI to take any particular action.

And they said that even if he did make a false statement, it was ultimately irrelevant since the FBI was already investigating Russia and the Trump campaign and would have looked into the Alfa Bank data no matter the source.

During the two-week trial, jurors heard from current and former FBI officials who described efforts to assess the data’s legitimacy as well as former Clinton campaign aides.

The original Trump-Russia investigation, overseen for two years by former special counsel Robert Mueller, concluded there were multiple efforts by the Russian government to interfere on the Trump campaign’s behalf but did not establish that the two sides had worked together to sway the election.

After Mueller’s work was done, then-attorney general William Barr named a new Justice Department prosecutor, then-Connecticut US attorney Mr Durham, to examine whether anyone from the FBI or other agencies violated the law as the government opened its investigation into Russian election interference and the Trump campaign.

Mr Durham has remained at work into the administration of US President Joe Biden.

He has brought three cases so far although the one against Mr Sussmann is the only to have reached trial.

A former FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, was given probation after pleading guilty in 2020 to altering an email related to the surveillance of an ex-Trump campaign aide, and a Russian analyst who contributed to a dossier of Democratic-funded research into ties between Russian authorities and Trump awaits trial on charges of lying to the FBI about his sources of information.

-AAP

Topics: Donald Trump
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