Former U.S. Attorney John Durham, center, outside federal court in New Haven, Conn., after the sentencing of former Gov. John Rowland.
Bob MacDonnell | Tribune News Service | Getty Images
A lawyer who allegedly advised the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign was indicted Thursday on a charge of lying to the FBI.
Federal prosecutors say the lawyer, Perkins Coie law firm partner Michael Sussmann, lied when he offered a tip that same year about the possible secret electronic channel between former President Donald Trump’s company and a Russian bank.
The charge against Sussmann was filed as part of special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of a prior probe by the FBI and former special counsel Robert Mueller into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. Then-Attorney General William Barr put Durham in charge of the investigation in early 2019 after Trump had railed about the Russia inquiry for several years.
Sussmann, a 57-year-old former federal prosecutor, has reportedly denied working for the Clinton campaign. He is accused in the indictment of lying to the FBI’s general counsel during a September 2016 meeting by falsely stating he was not representing any legal client as he relayed the information about a possible electronic link between the Trump Organization and the Alfa Bank.
“In fact, Sussmann assembled and conveyed the allegations to the FBI on behalf of at least two clients, including a U.S. technology executive and the Clinton Presidential Campaign,” Durham’s office said in a statement announcing the indictment by a Washington, D.C., federal court grand jury.
The indictment says that beginning in July 2016, Sussmann worked with the tech executive, other cyber researchers, and an American investigative firm to assemble data and documents that Sussman later gave the FBI and media.
“The technology executive, for his part, exploited his access to non-public data at multiple internet companies and enlisted the assistance of researchers at a U.S.-based university who were receiving and analyzing internet data in connection with a pending federal government cybersecurity research contract designed to identify the perpetrators of malicious cyber-attacks and protect U.S. national security,” Durham’s office said.
The indictment charges that those researchers mined that data “to establish ‘an inference’ and ‘narrative’ that would tie then-presidential candidate Donald Trump to Russia, and which the executive believed would please certain ‘VIPs,'” Durham’s office said.
Sussmann, his law firm, and the technology executive also allegedly coordinated with members of Clinton’s campaign in those efforts, according to the indictment.
Durham’s office noted in its statement that after getting Sussmann’s tip, “The FBI ultimately determined that there was insufficient evidence to support the allegations of a secret communications channel between the Trump Organization and the Russia-based bank.”
Sussmann, a former federal prosecutor, is due to appear in court as soon as Friday. His profile page on the Perkins Coie website delivered a “page not found” message to viewers on Thursday.
A spokesman for the firm did not immediately return a request for comment.
