Special Counsel John Durham has announced that he wants to use Hillary’s tweet accusing Donald Trump of secret communications with the Russian-controlled Alpha bank. Michael Sussmann’s lawyers are fighting the request. The only objection the defense really has is that it is hearsay. But, Durham argues that he is not presenting the tweet as truth and in fact, prosecutors believe it is false. He wants to use the tweet to debunk Sussmann’s claims of lawyer/client privilege.
Since Hillary made the accusation public, it cannot be considered privileged.
Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank. pic.twitter.com/8f8n9xMzUU
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 1, 2016
The defamatory tweet is still on Twitter.
Sussmann’s trial is set to start on May 16th and has major consequences if he is found guilty because his law license will be suspended if not revoked. He told James Baker, who at that time was the top lawyer for the FBI. Sussmann lied to Baker and claimed he was not representing any client, even though he billed Hillary for it. Sussmann also lied to the CIA who concluded the evidence he presented was not technologically possible and was in fact “user created.”
The Washington Examiner reported:
The Democratic cybersecurity lawyer charged with concealing his work for the Clinton campaign from the FBI doesn’t want special counsel John Durham to be able to use Hillary Clinton’s tweet touting the Trump-Russia collusion claims he was pushing as evidence at trial.
Michael Sussmann was indicted in September for allegedly concealing his clients — Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and “Tech Executive-1,” known to be former Neustar executive Rodney Joffe — from FBI general counsel James Baker in September 2016 when he pushed since-debunked claims of a secret backchannel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa-Bank. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty.
Durham told the federal court last week he wanted an October 2016 tweet from the Clinton campaign promoting the Alfa-Bank claims to be admitted as evidence at the May trial.
The special counsel argued the tweet is not inadmissible hearsay “because it is not being offered for its truth” — emphasizing that the prosecutors actually believe its claims were false. Durham said he instead wanted to present the tweet to “show the existence of the defendant’s attorney-client relationship with the Clinton Campaign, which is directly relevant to the false statement charge.”
