One Part of Michael Sussmann's Motion to Dismiss Will Have You Laughing out Loud
If you’ve been following the John Durham investigation the last several weeks, there’s been more than a fair bit of news. On Saturday, Durham dropped a filing directly implicating Hillary Clinton in a scheme to monitor Donald Trump’s DNS traffic in an attempt to tie him to Russia. In the aftermath of that, Michael Sussmann, a Clinton lawyer who is already under indictment for lying to the FBI, filed a motion to dismiss the prosecution against him.
Sussmann’s argument for dismissal essentially boils down to the idea that his lying about who he was working for when he brought the debunked Alfa Bank story to the FBI ended up being immaterial to any investigation launched. As I explained in my write-up on it, that’s a highly questionable contention riddled with issues.
Yet, I missed one part of the filing that will have you laughing out loud. In trying to make the case to dismiss the charge against him, Sussmann’s lawyers actually cited Peter Strzok and the Lawfare Blog.
Those that followed the saga between the FBI and Donald Trump will know exactly why this is so funny. Strzok is a disgraced former FBI agent who was once the lead investigator for Robert Mueller’s witch hunt. He was forced to step down from that role after text messages between him and his mistress (then FBI lawyer Lisa Page) were revealed showing him denigrating Trump and talking about taking down the former president. Eventually, Strzok was fired for cause for his corruption and misdeeds.
To now see him cited as an authoritative voice in this filing, as if he’s not incredibly biased against the Durham probe, which exists to look into one of the investigations Strzok helped spearhead, is hilarious. To then have it be an article Strzok wrote for the Lawfare Blog, an outlet that spent years spreading disinformation about Trump and Russia (including the infamous Steele Dossier) makes it all the worse.
But even moving past the absurdity of the sourcing here, the claim supposedly bolstered by citing Strzok is also ludicrous. It’s essentially saying that even if Sussmann lied to the FBI, he shouldn’t be prosecuted because it might discourage other sources from bringing the bureau information in the future.
In other words, let’s have two systems of justice where former government apparatchiks like Sussmann can break the law without punishment — you know, just in case. That’s the same type of nonsense we heard during the Carter Page FISA scandal, in which some argued that punishing the wrongdoers would harm future investigations, with the thought being that FBI agents should be given leeway, up to and including lying to a FISA court to target an American citizen.
If the judge assigned to this case were to dismiss the charges against Sussmann on such grounds, it would be yet another gutshot to the credibility of the various government institutions in play here, including the judiciary itself. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, but if it does, I’m not sure how trust could ever be regained.
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