Developments At The Sussmann Trial, Wednesday

Last night in a comment I drew attention to the view of Jonathan Turley, law prof and defense lawyer, regarding Durham’s case so far. I did so because some law pundits on Twitter have been loudly criticizing the performance of Durham’s team. I don’t have the background to judge, so I quoted Turley as counterpoint to the criticism:

The greatest challenge for Durham is the jury composition, not the evidentiary record in the case.

That’s not a blanket endorsement of Durham’s handling of the case at trial, but it does seem to be an argument that the case as presented should be sufficient to convince an impartial jury. That, as Turley says, could be the problem. Turley has been very critical of the judge’s handling of jury selection.

In possible support of what I present as Turley’s assessment is the late news today that Sussmann’s teams are exploring the idea of putting Sussmann on the stand, thus opening him to cross examination. That suggests that they’re not entirely satisfied with the way things have gone so far—and may risk opening Sussmann up to Durham’s questioning. At this point nothing is decided.

BTW, Turley has a brief article today pointing out what we discussed a bit yesterday. The testimony that the FBI’s “7th floor, including the Director” were “fired up” at the bare hint that Sussmann had provided the FBI with a narrative—nothing proven, just allegations—that could be used against Trump is strongly suggestive of bias that exceeded the bounds of professional integrity:

Jonathan Turley @JonathanTurley

The alleged response from Comey and FBI leadership seemed to confirm the view of campaign associates that they only needed a “useful narrative” to achieve their purposes. It only took an unsupported, implausible theory to get Comey and his aides “fired up.”

jonathanturley.orgFBI Agent: Comey and Other Leadership Were “Fired Up” to Pursue the False Alfa Bank ClaimsThe Sussmann trial yesterday had another surprising disclosure when an agent revealed that FBI leadership, including then-Director James Comey, was “fired up” about the alleged secret c…

Paul Sperry points to another development that could prove important, depending on where Durham is going with his investigation and prosecution. Perjury isn’t necessarily easy to prove, but Robbie Mook may have placed himself in a bit of a difficult position:

DEVELOPING: Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook denied under oath knowing in 2016 that campaign lawyer Perkins Coie had retained FusionGPS, but prosecutor Durham has invoices from Perkins to Clinton campaign HQ in Brooklyn that show line items for "FusionGPS".

Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias testified that Mook was his billing contact at campaign HQ and they discussed "expenses" for "consultants" and "sub-consultants," which would include FusionGPS, the oppo research firm Mook now swears he knew nothing about,

Clinton campaign manager Mook's testimony denying knowing in 2016 that the campaign had hired FusionGPS to dig up Trump dirt (or knowing about Fusion at all) also strains credulity because Clinton campaign chairman Podesta was aware of Fusion and knew Fusion CEO Glenn Simpson.

Is this one more indication, among several already, that Durham’s handling of the Sussmann case looks to the future? We’ll see.