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“and” / “or” : How Judge Cooper Rewrote the Michael Sussmann Indictment

Thanks to those who’ve donated to help defray the costs of trial transcripts. Your generosity has funded the expected costs. If you appreciate the kind of coverage no one else is offering, we’re still happy to accept donations for this coverage — which reflects the culmination of eight months work. 

I’ve been tracking a dispute about the jury instructions in the Michael Sussmann trial, but only got time to check the outcome last night. At issue was whether some of the extraneous language from the indictment would be included in the description of the charge.

Here’s the language the grand jury approved in the indictment.

O]n or about September 19, 2016, the defendant stated to the General Counsel of the FBI that he was not acting on behalf of any client in conveying particular allegations concerning a Presidential candidate, when in truth, and in fact, and as the defendant knew well, he was acting on behalf of specific clients, namely, Tech Executive-1 and the Clinton Campaign. [my emphasis]

Sussmann had wanted the instructions to include that language claiming Sussmann was lying to hide two clients.

Mr. Sussmann proposes modifying the last sentence as follows, as indicated by underlining: Specifically, the Indictment alleges that, on or about September 19, 2016, Mr. Sussmann, did willfully and knowingly make a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement or representation in a matter before the FBI, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2), namely, that Mr. Sussmann stated to the General Counsel of the FBI that he was not acting on behalf of any client in conveying particular allegations concerning Donald Trump, when, in fact, he was acting on behalf of specific clients, namely, Rodney Joffe and the Clinton Campaign.5 The government objects to the defense’s proposed modification since it will lead to confusion regarding charging in the conjunctive but only needing to prove in the disjunctive.

When Judge Cooper instructed the jury, however, he rewrote the indictment approved by the grand jury to reflect that maybe Sussmann was just hiding one client.

Specifically, the Indictment alleges that in a meeting on September 19, 2016, Mr. Sussmann did willfully and knowingly make a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement or representation in a matter before the FBI in violation of 18 USC 1001(a)(2); namely, that Mr. Sussmann stated to the General Counsel of the FBI that he was not acting on behalf of any client in conveying particular allegations concerning Alfa-Bank and Donald Trump, when, in fact, he was acting on behalf of specific clients, namely Rodney Joffe or the Clinton Campaign. [my emphasis]

Now, perhaps there was some discussion I missed finding that the government only had to prove Sussmann was hiding one client — the disjunctive proof business, above. And perhaps it will not matter — I think Sussmann’s team raised plenty of issues with Jim Baker’s credibility such that the jury will find the whole prosecution preposterous, but I also think Durham’s team may have thrown enough cow manure at the jury to stifle rational thought.

But this slight change — unilaterally replacing “and” with “or” — seems to intervene to help Durham recover from one of the most abusive aspects of the prosecution, his failure to take basic investigative steps before charging Sussmann.

As I’ve repeatedly shown, Durham did nothing to test Michael Sussmann’s sworn explanation for his meeting with Jim Baker — that he wanted to give the FBI an opportunity to intervene before a shitshow story happened during election season — before charging. He spent months and months after the indictment scrambling to find the documentation for the efforts the FBI made to kill the NYT story (and ultimately only found part of that documentation), evidence he should have consulted in advance.

Durham also never subpoenaed Jim Baker for related materials before charging this.

Those two facts are how it was possible that Baker only discovered the September 18, 2016 text in which Sussmann explained he was trying to help the FBI on March 4, 2022, almost six months after the indictment (though Andrew DeFilippis misrepresented this at trial).

We also know from Sussmann’s discovery requests that Durham did little to explore Rodney Joffe’s relationship with the FBI before charging. While Durham knew that Joffe had been an informant — and had forced FBI to remove him as such, allegedly as retaliation because Joffe wouldn’t cooperate with Durham’s investigation — it’s not clear whether Durham had found two instances where Joffe had offered up more information about the Alfa Bank allegations to an FBI agent (not his handler) who knew his identity and could easily have shared it with investigators.

In other words, even if you think Sussmann was attempting to hide the Hillary campaign’s role in the underlying allegations (which is different from hiding the campaign’s role in the meeting with the FBI, though Durham’s team surely hopes the jury misses the distinction), the trial actually presented a fair amount of evidence that Sussmann wasn’t hiding Joffe’s role. The FBI knew of Joffe’s role within days of Sussmann’s meeting.

For months, Durham has been spinning a wild conspiracy theory claiming Joffe had direct ties to the Hillary campaign that he simply didn’t have. That is the conspiracy theory he laid out in the indictment. That is the conspiracy theory he should be held to.

But Cooper rewrote that part of the indictment such that Durham is not being held to his own conspiracy theories when it matters.

OTHER SUSSMANN TRIAL COVERAGE

Scene-Setter for the Sussmann Trial, Part One: The Elements of the Offense

Scene-Setter for the Sussmann Trial, Part Two: The Witnesses

The Founding Fantasy of Durham’s Prosecution of Michael Sussmann: Hillary’s Successful October Surprise

With a Much-Anticipated Fusion GPS Witness, Andrew DeFilippis Bangs the Table

John Durham’s Lies with Metadata

emptywheel’s Continuing Obsession with Sticky Notes, Michael Sussmann Trial Edition

Brittain Shaw’s Privileged Attempt to Misrepresent Eric Lichtblau’s Privilege

The Methodology of Andrew DeFilippis’ Elaborate Plot to Break Judge Cooper’s Rules

Jim Baker’s Tweet and the Recidivist Foreign Influence Cheater

That Clinton Tweet Could Lead To a Mistrial (or Reversal on Appeal)

John Durham Is Prosecuting Michael Sussmann for Sharing a Tip on Now-Sanctioned Alfa Bank

Apprehension and Dread with Bates Stamps: The Case of Jim Baker’s Missing Jencks Production

Technical Exhibits, Michael Sussmann Trial

Jim Baker’s “Doctored” Memory Forgot the Meeting He Had Immediately After His Michael Sussmann Meeting

The FBI Believed Michael Sussmann Was Working for the DNC … Until Andrew DeFilippis Coached Them to Believe Otherwise

The Visibility of FBI’s Close Hold: John Durham Will Blame Michael Sussmann that FBI Told Alfa Bank They Were Investigating

The Staples Receipt and FBI’s Description of Michael Sussmann Sharing a Tip from Hillary

 

The Staples Receipt and FBI’s Description of Michael Sussmann Sharing a Tip from Hillary

Thanks to those who’ve donated to help defray the costs of trial transcripts. Your generosity has funded the expected costs. If you appreciate the kind of coverage no one else is offering, we’re still happy to accept donations for this coverage — which reflects the culmination of eight months work. 

Both sides in the Michael Sussmann case will give their closing arguments today. I’ll try to watch the live tweets, but will be driving around Achill Island so likely will have little Internet access.

I have yet to see the jury instructions, which will dictate a few details of the closing arguments. Most important — as I have noted before — is whether Durham will have to prove the actual allegations in his indictment.

Mr. Sussmann proposes modifying the last sentence as follows, as indicated by underlining: Specifically, the Indictment alleges that, on or about September 19, 2016, Mr. Sussmann, did willfully and knowingly make a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement or representation in a matter before the FBI, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2), namely, that Mr. Sussmann stated to the General Counsel of the FBI that he was not acting on behalf of any client in conveying particular allegations concerning Donald Trump, when, in fact, he was acting on behalf of specific clients, namely, Rodney Joffe and the Clinton Campaign.5 The government objects to the defense’s proposed modification since it will lead to confusion regarding charging in the conjunctive but only needing to prove in the disjunctive.

4 Authority: Indictment.

5 Authority: Indictment.

Durham’s single witness is the only one who claims to have remembered this meeting, but he has had about six different memories of the meeting, and Sussmann made a really good case that Baker’s evolving testimony (as well as that of several other witnesses) is an attempt to avoid legal jeopardy himself. Sussmann has shown a receipt that did not bill his $28.00  taxi to Hillary, and I believe he affirmatively took the meeting time off his bill to Hillary before the election (though I need to check the records).

That leaves Durham with a September 13, 2016 $12.99 receipt for two thumb drives and a Google map from his office to Staples to buy it.

BY MR. KEILTY: Q. Ms. Arsenault, what, generally, is this document?

A. This is an expense report we received from Perkins Coie.

Q. And can you walk the jury through the information in this document.

A. Sure. In the top left corner, the report name is “Purchase of flash drives” on September 13, 2016. The expense owner is Michael Sussmann. The submission date is September 22nd in 2016. If you go all the way down to the allocation summary, the allocations charged is 116514.0001, confidential, for $58.56.

Q. Ms. Arsenault, in your review of records, have you seen that number under the allocations charged, the 116514.0001 number before?

A. I have. Q. Is that related to a certain client?

A. Yes.

Q. What client is that?

A. It’s Hillary For America.

MR. KEILTY: Okay. Mr. Algor, can we next look at Government Exhibit 553.19 — I’m sorry, can you leave it there. (Pause) Can you go down to the next document in 380.

(Pause) Okay. And could you go down to the next document, please, in the same exhibit. Could you blow this up, please.

Q. Ms. Arsenault, what is this particular document?

A. This is the receipt for the expenses reflected in the previous two pages of the expense report.

Q. And was this receipt contained in the records the government obtained from Perkins Coie?

A. It was.

MR. KEILTY: And if you go about halfway down the document, Mr. — sorry, the receipt. Could you blow up the section where it says “PNY 2 Pack,” Mr. Algor. Thank you.

Q. Ms. Arsenault, I think you might have said this, but where is this receipt from? A. Staples.

Q. And what does the blown-out part say?

A. “PNY 2 pack 16GB,” as in gigabyte. And then there’s a UPC code. And the cost was $12.99.

MR. KEILTY: Okay. And moving out of that, can you just blow up the address of the Staples.

Q. Okay. And what’s the address?

A. 1250 H Street N.W., Suite 100, Washington, D.C., 20005.

MR. KEILTY: Okay. And can we please pull up Government Exhibit 553.19 in evidence.

Q. Ms. Arsenault, what are we looking at in Government Exhibit 553.19?

A. This is a disbursement report from the billing records from Perkins Coie.

Q. Okay. And can you walk the jury through this — the blown-out part of this report.

A. The client assigned for this disbursement is Hillary For America. The matter is General Political Advice under 116514.0001. And the description is “Sussmann, Michael A. – M. Sussmann, purchase of new, single use flash drives for secure sharing of files, 9/13/2016.”

Q. Okay. And finally, Ms. Arsenault, I’m going to show you what’s been marked for identification as Government Exhibit 63, which will show up on your screen. Ms. Arsenault, what is Government’s Exhibit 63?

A. It’s a Google map displaying the directions between the office for Perkins Coie to the address listed on the Staples receipt.

Q. And did you create Government Exhibit 63?

A. I did.

Q. And how did you create Government Exhibit 63?

A. I went on Google and I typed in both addresses, and I printed the result.

MR. KEILTY: Your Honor, the government would move Exhibit 63 into evidence.

MR. BOSWORTH: No objection.

THE COURT: So moved.

MR. KEILTY: Mr. Algor, can you blow that up.

Q. Okay. And, Ms. Arsenault, on this map Perkins Coie is listed, is that correct, with the red dot?

A. Yes.

Q. And then there’s a series of blue dots, which apparently lead to a blue bubble; is that correct?

A. Yes.

Q. And what is that blue bubble? What address is that?

A. The blue bubble represents the address listed on the Staples receipt, which is 1250 H Street N.W., Washington, D.C., 20005. [my emphasis]

I expect Durham introduced the map to show that Sussmann went to buy these thumb drives immediately after some phone call or meeting.

As described, there are so many ways to explain these thumb drives. Remember: Sussmann admits he shared the story with the press and wanted it to come out. What he denies is that his intent in going to the FBI was in getting them to investigate to serve the story.

Durham will also claim, probably falsely, that Fusion or Sussmann had to have told Mark Hosenball about the investigation; I know of no evidence that’s the case, Durham’s repeated efforts to misrepresent the timeline on Fusion emails suggests he doesn’t have that evidence, and plenty of reason to believe there are other ways he could have learned about this.

Perhaps Durham has more somewhere.

But, particularly depending on the outcome of that jury instruction, even that receipt may not be enough. That’s because Sussmann has presented this piece of proof about how the FBI understood his tip.

One of the first people to respond to this tip (this text is likely in UTC, not ET, so this is likely at 4:31 on September 19, four hours after the meeting) understood it to be:

  • A tip about a Trump company, not Trump himself
  • From the DNC and Clinton
  • Bringing information a private cyber group had identified

That is, whatever Sussmann said in the meeting with Jim Baker, the best representation of what the FBI understood showed him identifying both his possible clients. And identifying a tip not about Trump himself, but his corporate person and a Russian bank that the FBI understood to have ties to Russian intelligence.

It’s hard to claim this alleged lie was material if the FBI responded to it as if he had fully disclosed both Hillary and private researchers like Rodney Joffe’s role in it.

Update: Corrected two errors (the UTC conversation and a spelling error). To make up for not covering the trial live, here’s my excuse

Update: Here’s Sussmann’s Rule 29 motion for a judgment of acquittal. This is a routine motion defendants always file. Because of the political nature of the case, Judge Cooper would never grant it. And there’s nothing terribly exciting in it.

OTHER SUSSMANN TRIAL COVERAGE

Scene-Setter for the Sussmann Trial, Part One: The Elements of the Offense

Scene-Setter for the Sussmann Trial, Part Two: The Witnesses

The Founding Fantasy of Durham’s Prosecution of Michael Sussmann: Hillary’s Successful October Surprise

With a Much-Anticipated Fusion GPS Witness, Andrew DeFilippis Bangs the Table

John Durham’s Lies with Metadata

emptywheel’s Continuing Obsession with Sticky Notes, Michael Sussmann Trial Edition

Brittain Shaw’s Privileged Attempt to Misrepresent Eric Lichtblau’s Privilege

The Methodology of Andrew DeFilippis’ Elaborate Plot to Break Judge Cooper’s Rules

Jim Baker’s Tweet and the Recidivist Foreign Influence Cheater

That Clinton Tweet Could Lead To a Mistrial (or Reversal on Appeal)

John Durham Is Prosecuting Michael Sussmann for Sharing a Tip on Now-Sanctioned Alfa Bank

Apprehension and Dread with Bates Stamps: The Case of Jim Baker’s Missing Jencks Production

Technical Exhibits, Michael Sussmann Trial

Jim Baker’s “Doctored” Memory Forgot the Meeting He Had Immediately After His Michael Sussmann Meeting

The FBI Believed Michael Sussmann Was Working for the DNC … Until Andrew DeFilippis Coached Them to Believe Otherwise

The Visibility of FBI’s Close Hold: John Durham Will Blame Michael Sussmann that FBI Told Alfa Bank They Were Investigating

The Visibility of FBI’s Close Hold: John Durham Will Blame Michael Sussmann that FBI Told Alfa Bank They Were Investigating

Thanks to those who’ve donated to help defray the costs of trial transcripts. Your generosity has funded the expected costs of transcripts. But if you appreciate the kind of coverage no one else is offering, we’re still happy to accept donations. This coverage reflects the culmination of eight months work. 

According to an exchange at the end of they day yesterday, John Durham’s team plans to introduce “a hundred” exhibits through their paralegal acting as a summary witness today.

My understanding is that the defense objects to the PowerPoint presentation style of the process. But, again, we think it just streamlines it in terms of — the alternative is to have to put literally a hundred exhibits in through Ms. Arsenault one at a time.

Given the exhibits from Monday, I assume Durham will throw a bunch of Fusion documents at the jury in an attempt to insinuate, once again, that Michael Sussmann shared with the press that the FBI was investigating the Alfa Bank anomaly.

The coming onslaught of Fusion documents

I say that because Mark Hosenball wrote the FBI for comment at 1:33PM on October 5, 2016, attaching the Mediafire package, asking for comment and noting that, “it has been suggested to me that this information and scenario is under careful investigation by the FBI.”

Hosenball’s email to the FBI puts it right at the beginning (in red, below) of the known universe of Fusion emails we’ve seen from that day, the timestamps of which Durham has repeatedly tried to obscure. (Maybe while paralegal Kori Arsenault is on the stand, Sussmann’s team can ask her why Durham’s exhibits misleadingly don’t correct for UTC.)

That said, there’s still a Hosenball email unaccounted for in which he shared one of the publicly available links to Tea Leaves packaged data. It’s quite possible that email precedes Seago’s question to Fritsch, which is currently the earliest email in the list, asking whether one of the i2p sites hosting the data was safe. See this post for background.

5:23PM (likely 1:23?): Seago to Fritsch, Is this safe?

1:31PM: [not included] Fritsch to Hosenball email with Alfa Group overview

1:32PM: Fritsch sends Isikoff the September 1, 2016 Alfa Group overview (full report included in unsealed exhibit)

1:33PM: Hosenball to FBI, “careful investigation by the FBI”

1:33PM [not included] Fritsch to Hosenball, “that memo is OTR — tho all open source”

1:35/1:36PM: Hosenball replies, “yep got it, but is that from you all or from the outside computer experts?”

1:37PM: Fritsch responds,

the DNS stuff? not us at all

outside computer experts

we did put up an alfa memo unrelated to all this

1:38PM: [not included] Hosenball to Fritsch:

is the alfa attachment you just sent me experts or yours ? also is there additional data posted by the experts ? all I have found is the summary I sent you and a chart… [my emphasis]

1:41PM: [not included] Fritsch to Hosenball:

alfa was something we did unrelated to this. i sent you what we have BUT it gives you a tutanota address to leave questions.  1. Leave questions at: [email protected]

1:41PM: [not included] Hosenball to Fritsch:

yes I have emailed tuta and they have responded but haven’t sent me any new links yet. but I am pressing. but have you downloaded more data from them ?

1:43PM: [not included] Fritsch to Hosenball, “no”

1:44PM: Fritsch to Lichtblau:

fyi found this published on web … and downloaded it. super interesting in context of our discussions

[mediafire link] [my emphasis]

2:23PM: [not included] Lichtblau to Fritsch, “thanks. where did this come from?”

2:27PM: [not included] Hosenball to Fritsch:

tuta sent me this guidance

[snip]

Since I am technically hopeless I have asked our techie person to try to get into this. But here is the raw info in case you get there first. Chrs mh

2:32PM: Fritsch to Lichtblau:

no idea. our tech maven says it was first posted via reddit. i see it has a tutanota contact — so someone anonymous and encrypted. so it’s either someone real who has real info or one of donald’s 400 pounders. the de vos stuff looks rank to me … weird

6:33PM (likely 2:33PM): Fwd Alfa Fritsch to Seago

6:57PM (like 2:57PM): Re alfa Seago to Fritsch

7:02PM (likely 3:02): Re alfa Seago to Fritsch

3:27PM: [not included] Fritsch to Hosenball cc Simpson: “All same stuff”

3:58PM: [not included] Hosenball to Fritsch, asking, “so the trumpies just sent me the explanation below; how do I get behind it?”

4:28PM: [not included] Fritsch to Hosenball, “not easily, alas”

4:32PM: Fritsch to Hosenball, cc Simpson:

Though first step is to send that explanation to the source who posted this stuff. I understand the trump explanations can be refuted.

So I assume that Durham will argue that Fusion must have passed on the information that the FBI was investigating — and they may have! (though none of the currently public emails reflect that — and suggest that was all part of Michael Sussmann’s devious plan on September 19.

When, under threat of prosecution, an attempt to prevent politicization turns into an attempt to hide political bias

That’s where things will get interesting. One key dispute in this case is why one keeps secrets. Durham wants to argue that keeping secrets can only serve a political purpose.

Sussmann will argue that keeping secrets facilitates national security interests.

Sussmann will show that everyone at the FBI recognized the value, to the FBI, of stalling a newspaper article about a potentially important threat so the FBI could covertly investigate it. All the more so during election season when — investigation after investigation into the Russian investigation has shown — the FBI was, if anything, being too careful in an attempt to avoid impacting Trump’s political fortunes, even while Jim Comey was tanking Hillary’s campaign. According to Sussmann’s own sworn testimony — testimony that Durham didn’t bother testing before charging Sussmann — allowing the FBI the opportunity to do that was the reason Sussmann shared the Alfa Bank anomaly with the FBI. Durham wants to imprison Sussmann for giving the FBI that heads up, arguing that because he hid his purported clients, it led the FBI to open a Full Investigation more quickly than they otherwise would have (even though, as Sussmann’s team has demonstrated, the FBI did nothing that would have required a Full Investigation in the short period during which they investigated).

A key part of that story Durham wants to tell — needs to tell, given all the evidence that the FBI perceived this to be a DNC-related tip — is that some of his key villains were attempting to hide the perceived political nature of the tip, rather than ensuring the integrity of the investigation itself (or possibly, but I’m still working on this, protecting the identity of a CHS).

Central to that narrative is the changing testimony of FBI Agent Ryan Gaynor — his stated reasons for refusing to let the case agents in Chicago interview either Sussmann or Georgia Tech professor David Dagon. In an interview on October 30, 2020 (a week after Durham had been granted Special Counsel status), Gaynor explained that he had intervened to make sure agents couldn’t conduct interviews that would have led to a more robust investigation to ensure the integrity of the investigation.

Q. Okay. So you remember telling the government that you believed that the agents in Chicago would have been biased by Mr. Sussmann’s perception of the issue — the source’s perception of the issue if they had interviewed him before they got all of the data and analyzed it?

A. Yes.

Q. Okay. And that’s because, at the time, you believed the DNC was the source of the information itself. Right?

A. That’s because, at the time, I believed that he was a DNC attorney associated with the Democratic party and it would be potentially highly-biasing information.

Q. And you told the government, if you had provided the identity of the DNC as the source of the information, they would have known there was possible political motivation. rignt?

A. I recall that exact statement.

Shortly after he gave this testimony, prosecutors took a break, and told his lawyer they were moving towards treating Gaynor as a subject of, rather than just a witness in, the investigation.

Q. Okay. Well, at or around the time you were talking about passing along the source’s name or not, you took a break in the meeting. Do you remember taking breaks during the meeting?

A. I do.

Q. And do you remember when you broke at that point that the government told your attorney that your own status in the investigation had changed. Do you remember hearing that?

A. So I didn’t hear that, but when my attorney came back in, he advised me that my status was in jeopardy.

After that, Gaynor went back, looked at two sets of scribbled notes (Gaynor, because he remains at FBI, was able to review his notes, unlike a number of other Durham witnesses), and decided that now that he thought about it, Jonathan Moffa had actually instructed him to keep a close hold on Sussmann’s identity. It wasn’t his decision anymore, it was Moffa’s, and the dastardly Peter Strzok was in on it. Once Gaynor testified that way, he became a — to Andew DeFilippis, anyway — credible witness again.

Q. Okay. And when you told the government there was a close hold, were you told that your status changed back to being a witness?

A. At the conclusion of the interview, once I had gone over all of the material that I brought and walked through what I had reconstructed and what I could recollect after doing so, I was informed that my status had changed, yes.

Q. Changed back to being a witness?

A. To a witness, yes.

Q. So you go into meeting one being told you are a witness, telling them you decided not to share the agents’ names among other things. Then you are told you are a subject facing criminal charges, potentially. You come back. You tell them about a close hold, and you go back to being a witness; is that right?

Politico may have been the only outlet that described this fairly shocking testimony.

These conflicting claims about the purported reasons to keep Sussmann’s identity (as opposed to the investigation itself) a secret are important background to that Hosenball email on October 5, which I suspect Durham will use to claim that the Democrats were leaking about the investigation.

Starting almost immediately after getting the investigation, Chicago case agents started asking to interview the source, variously defined to be either Sussmann or the person who wrote the white paper. Gaynor kept pushing the agents to go review the logs again — though the file memorializing the contents of what it describes as a single thumb drive (Sussmann shared two) was not written up until October 4. But then, by October 5 (the same day that Hosenball asked the FBI for comment, albeit this report comes in four hours later), FBI had learned from one of their confidential human sources that David Dagon had a role in the white paper and he — and the FBI’s own source! — would be going public pushing the credibility of the allegations.

In that email, newbie agent Allison Sands explained that they were going to contact Dagon.

So, among other things, on the same day Hosenball writes in reflecting an awareness that there was an ongoing investigation, the FBI hears from a CHS who says he or she has already been talking with David Dagon and was going public backing the claims (though this source was speaking to the WaPo, not Reuters).

Note that, as of that date, the FBI still hadn’t received logs from Listrak.

By the time Allison Sands wrote that email, it appears from Lync messages that like others probably haven’t been noticed to reflect UTC time zone, had already contacted Rodney Joffe’s handler to contact Dagon.

Fun with missing Bates stamps

Side note. There are actually two versions of the notes that purportedly caused Gaynor to change his mind about there being a close hold and on what source that close hold was on. There’s Defense Exhibit 524, which has a slew of Bates stamps, and 7 redactions.

And then there’s a page from Government Exhibit 279, which appears between a page with Bates stamp SC-6454 and one with Bates stamp SC-6456, which has no Bates stamp at all (and lacks the protective order stamp that appears on the other pages of the exhibit).

That version of the exhibit has just four redactions, one of which is smaller. The unredacted bits on the exhibit reveal discussions of the informant and recognition that the statements of the informant “likely triggered” the press attention.

Incidentally, Durham’s team took an entire day to upload this set of exhibits. I’m wondering if the exhibit that was viewed by Gaynor and entered into evidence actually looked like this one does.

Calling the agent of a foreign agent to ask for comment

There’s one other thing going on. On the stand, Gaynor spent a great deal of time explaining about how important it was to hide an investigation — particularly from anyone who might have a partisan interest — during an election.

Except for all the talk of a close hold, the FBI wasn’t holding this very close. They were stomping around to a bunch of sources asking for data logs, even before they had checked what was on (one of) the thumb drives that Sussmann had dropped off. They fairly demonstrably were stomping around before they understood what they should be looking for.

They also were calling Mandiant, which was working for Alfa Bank, which by October 19 when they were formally interviewed discovered Alfa Bank had no logs, but which knew of the investigation by October 5.

Q. Uh-huh. You testified about the reasons why you’d want to keep it covert, you wouldn’t want to do anything that could affect the election so close to the election. Right?

A. Yes.

Q. The FBI, as part of the Alfa-Bank investigation, talked to a number of different individuals outside of the FBI to acquire information, to get you information so that you could investigate the allegations. Right?

A. Yes.

Q. Okay. You spoke to people at Central Dynamics?

A. Yes, and I believe the investigative team documented in the email that I saw that they had done it in a manner to attempt to avoid it outing the allegation.

[snip]

A. I’m sorry?

Q. And how is that that they could conduct an interview with a third party in a way that the third party wouldn’t tell other people about it?

A. They described it in a manner that they had obfuscated what their direct interest was.

Q. So from the Central Dynamics’ perspective, they didn’t know what you were looking at?

A. That is what I had in the email chain, yes. n

Q. But you testified that the FBI interviewed Mandiant as part of the investigation. Correct?

A. Yes. My understanding there is that was a private liaison relationship that occurred.

Q. Mandiant — just to be clear — Alfa-Bank itself hired Mandiant to analyze whether there was a secret communications channel. Correct?

A. Yes.

Q. So Alfa-Bank paid Mandiant to look into whether there was a secret communications channel. Right?

A. Yes.

Q. And Alfa-Bank obviously had a relationship with Mandiant that was put at issue by hiring Mandiant. Right?

A. Yes.

Q. Okay. So the FBI went to Alfa-Bank’s paid consultant and asked them for their view on the allegation. Correct?

A. I believe the FBI had a prior relationship with one of the employees, and they utilized that in the field. Plus, I don’t think the Bureau would violate policy on a sensitive investigative matter when the Chief Division Counsel of the office is involved. So I would assume that they did that in a manner that they did not feel would be alerting or go to the media.

Q. Mr. Gaynor, the FBI in this investigation went to Alfa-Bank’s paid consultant and asked them for their views of the allegations. correct?

A. Yes.

Q. And Alfa-Bank’s paid consultant could have told Alfa-Bank. Correct?

A. Yes.

Q. And could have told the press for all you know. Correct?

A. Yes. And I don’t know how Chicago mitigated that.

Q. And is it your testimony that going to Alfa-Bank, the Russian bank that is the focus of this investigation, and asking their paid consultant for their views on the matter wasn’t going to overt?

A. Again, I don’t know how Chicago mitigated that issue.

[snip]

Q. Did you ever have a conversation with anybody at headquarters about whether to provide the names of the source to the Chicago agents?

A. Yes. There was a conversation about the close hold, as I mentioned, although it wasn’t correctly, I guess, documented between Pete Strzok, myself and Mr. Moffa at some point during that time period.

[snip]

Q. And the reason that you say no one talked to him is because, as of that point, October 6th, you had already concluded that there was nothing to these allegations. Right?

A. As of October 5th, evening of October 5th, we had come to a pretty solid conclusion that these allegations did not have merit and there wasn’t a national security threat.

Q. Are you aware that the agents first interviewed Alfa-Bank’s paid consultant, Mandiant, merely two weeks later on October 19th?

A. So I’m aware that we had information from Mandiant as of October 5th that they had looked at this allegation and found that it didn’t have merit. And then I’m also aware that there was an interview that was conducted later, October 19th or so, when I was made aware of it, yes.

A text between Allison Sands and Scott Hellman reflects the FBI had contact with Alfa Bank by October 4.

It appears that contact occurred in London — a place where Mark Hosenball has strong source ties since the time in 1976 when he got expelled for reporting on Northern Ireland.

In other words, Gaynor’s currently operative stance is that case agents couldn’t contact David Dagon — much less Rodney Joffe, who had business ties with the FBI — to find out what was going on, because that would present a conflict.

But it was okay for the FBI to contact the agent of the subject of the investigation overtly.

Agent Gaynor belatedly rediscovers the Mediafire package

Incidentally, when that original request for comment from Hosenball came in, it got transferred to people in the cyber division, then shared with the investigative team. In response, the senior-most person on that team sent it to Peter Strzok. Strzok forwarded it, at 3:02 on October 5, to Ryan Gaynor.

On October 13, just over a week after he had originally received it, Gaynor sent the Mediafire package to the case team, noting that the observations in it reflected actions taken in response to their investigation, but asking for their technical opinion.

He included Moffa and Joe Pientka on that email.

But not Strzok, who knew he had received it 8 days earlier.

OTHER SUSSMANN TRIAL COVERAGE

Scene-Setter for the Sussmann Trial, Part One: The Elements of the Offense

Scene-Setter for the Sussmann Trial, Part Two: The Witnesses

The Founding Fantasy of Durham’s Prosecution of Michael Sussmann: Hillary’s Successful October Surprise

With a Much-Anticipated Fusion GPS Witness, Andrew DeFilippis Bangs the Table

John Durham’s Lies with Metadata

emptywheel’s Continuing Obsession with Sticky Notes, Michael Sussmann Trial Edition

Brittain Shaw’s Privileged Attempt to Misrepresent Eric Lichtblau’s Privilege

The Methodology of Andrew DeFilippis’ Elaborate Plot to Break Judge Cooper’s Rules

Jim Baker’s Tweet and the Recidivist Foreign Influence Cheater

That Clinton Tweet Could Lead To a Mistrial (or Reversal on Appeal)

John Durham Is Prosecuting Michael Sussmann for Sharing a Tip on Now-Sanctioned Alfa Bank

Apprehension and Dread with Bates Stamps: The Case of Jim Baker’s Missing Jencks Production

Technical Exhibits, Michael Sussmann Trial

Jim Baker’s “Doctored” Memory Forgot the Meeting He Had Immediately After His Michael Sussmann Meeting

The FBI Believed Michael Sussmann Was Working for the DNC … Until Andrew DeFilippis Coached Them to Believe Otherwise

The FBI Believed Michael Sussmann Was Working for the DNC … Until Andrew DeFilippis Coached Them to Believe Otherwise

Thanks to those who’ve donated to help defray the costs of trial transcripts. Your generosity has funded the expected costs of transcripts. But if you appreciate the kind of coverage no one else is offering, we’re still happy to accept donations. This coverage reflects the culmination of eight months work. 

There’s accumulating evidence that at least some people — including some key decision-makers — believed the FBI believed that the Alfa Bank tip came from the DNC — and that Andrew DeFilippis has engaged in a lot of coaching to try to make that evidence go away.

The first time FBI Agent Ryan Gaynor testified to John Durham about the investigation into the Alfa Bank anomaly in October 2020, he told prosecutors that the DNC was the source of the allegation.

Q. Okay. So in your first meeting with the government, you — this is October of 2020, correct?

A. Yes.

Q. You told them multiple times that you believed that the Democratic National Committee was the source of the allegations of connections between Alfa-Bank and Russia, correct?

A. Correct, which was wrong.

Q. Okay. But you said that you thought the Democratic party itself was who provided the information, correct?

A. I did say that in the meeting.

That’s even what he has written down in a briefing document he kept in Fall 2016.

At the end of that October 2020 interview, prosecutors threatened Gaynor with prosecution.

His more recent testimony, starting for the first time on May 13, was that Sussmann was representing himself. The reason he now remembers that to be true goes to the heart of Durham’s materiality: it would have mattered if Sussmann was representing the DNC, so he must have been representing himself.

Q. Okay. I want to ask you, first, about testimony that you gave today where you said that when Mr. Moffa told you that Mr. Sussmann was a DNC attorney, you said, “I understood that to mean that he had been affiliated with the Democratic party but that he had come representing himself on the Alfa-Bank allegations.” Do you remember giving that testimony?

A. That was my take-away.

Q. And you gave that testimony that I just read?

A. Yes; that he was a DNC attorney, but that my take-away from that discussion was that he wasn’t there representing the DNC.

Q. When you were asked, “When Mr. Moffa said Mr. Sussmann was an attorney for the DNC, what impression did you come away with?” what did you understand that to mean? And your answer was: “I understood that to mean that he had been affiliated with the Democratic party, but that he had come representing himself,” right?

A. So he’s affiliated with the Democratic party because he was a DNC attorney.

Q. And your impression was he had come representing himself?

A. My take-away from that meeting, what I recall, is that I did not believe that he was there representing the DNC specifically because, had he been, that would have been information that would have impacted it.

This is a tautology: If Sussmann had been representing the DNC it would have mattered so it must be the case that Gaynor believed he was not representing the DNC. It also happens to be the central argument of DeFilippis’ materiality claim.

Meanwhile, Scott Hellman — Durham’s star cyber witness — received a text from his boss, Nate Batty (with whom he compared notes before his first interview with Durham), referring to the white paper as a “DNC report” on September 21, 2016, two days after Jim Baker received the materials.

Michael Sussmann lawyer Sean Berkowitz asked Hellman about that the other day. At first, Hellman expressed surprise about that text.

Q. All right. And then, with respect to Stranahan, he asks you and Nate to write a report about the — write a summary of the DNC report. Correct? That’s what it says?

A. That’s what it says in this chat, yes.

Q. And did you understand, sir, that the information had come from a DNC, meaning Democratic National Committee, source?

A. I did not understand that, no.

Q. Did you know what Nate Batty knew about it?

A. I don’t think he knew anything about it.

Q. Did you call up Tim and say, what a second. This is a DNC report? That’s political motivation.

A. No.

Q. Didn’t do anything or it didn’t occur to you?

A. The first time I saw this was two years ago when I was being interviewed by Mr. DeFilippis, and I don’t recall ever seeing it. I never had any recollection of this information coming from the DNC. I don’t remember DNC being a part of anything that we read or discussed.

Q. Okay. When you say, the first time you saw it was two years ago when you met with Mr. DeFilippis, that’s not accurate. Right? You saw it on September 21st, 2016. Correct?

A. It’s in there. I don’t have any memory of seeing it.

Later in Berkowitz’ cross-examination he returned to the text. He asked how it could be that a white paper from a DNC lawyer could be referred to as a DNC report.

Q. And although you were surprised to see it today, it appears that at least somebody, such as Mr. Batty was aware and you were aware that somebody was calling this white paper a DNC report. Correct?

A. I was not aware that anybody was calling it a DNC report, and I don’t believe Mr. Batty knew that either.

Q. But you saw the link message. Right?

A. I did see the link message, yes.

Berkowitz asked Hellman how it could be that he would see a reference to a DNC report and not take from that it was a DNC report. Hellman describes “the only explanation that … was discussed” — which is that it was a typo.

Q. What’s your explanation for it?

A. I have no recollection of seeing that link message. And there is — have absolutely no belief that either me or Agent Batty knew where that data was coming from, let alone that it was coming from DNC. The only explanation that popped or was discussed was that it could have been a typo and somebody was trying to refer to DNS instead of DNC.

Q. So you think it was a typo?

A. I don’t know.

Q. When you said the only one suggesting it — isn’t it true that it was Mr. DeFilippis that suggested to you that it might have been a typo recently?

A. That’s correct.

Q. Okay. You didn’t think that at the time. Right?

A. I did not. I had never seen it or had any memory of seeing it ever before it was put in front of me.

With some prodding, Hellman admitted that when he referred to “discussing explanations,” he meant doing so with Andrew DeFilippis. This exchange was, quite literally, Berkowitz eliciting Hellman to provide an answer that DeFilippis thought up — one necessary to sustain DeFilippis’ narrative — without, at first, admitting it was DeFilippis’ opinion of what the truth must be.

So after DeFilippis threatened Gaynor with prosecution, he came to remember something other than what the note, tying the white paper to DNC lawyer Michael Sussmann, that he used to “refresh his memory” said.

And when faced with the possibility, two years or maybe six after the fact, that Scott Hellman’s epically shitty analysis of the white paper could have been influenced by being told that it was a DNC white paper, Hellman offered up the explanation that DeFilippis offered him.

At least twice, then, under coaching from Durham’s lead prosecutor, key witnesses have come to believe something other than what the documentary evidence suggests.

The fact that DeFilippis has twice coached witnesses to deny any understanding at FBI that this was a DNC tip — whether it was a DNC tip or not — is really telling. That’s because DeFilippis has to try to pitch a nearly unsustainable position: how his single witness to Sussmann’s alleged crime, Jim Baker, can in 2016 have told Bill Priestap the following:

Q. I think you testified yesterday that by this time you were at least generally aware that Mr. Sussmann represented the DNC in connection with hacks; is that right?

A. That’s correct.

Q. And what, if anything, did you say to Mr. Priestap about that?

A. I think I told him like, okay, this is who Michael is. He’s represented the Democratic party in the Russian hack that we were also investigating and/or the Hillary Clinton Campaign. So just, again, to orient Bill to who Michael was. I mean, that’s a serious credential in terms of being a cyber security expert. And then to explain: But in this case he said he’s not appearing on behalf of them. In this case he’s coming in as a good citizen.

And then, in 2018, have told Jim Jordan the following:

Q. Mr. Jordan then says: “And he was representing a client when he brought this information to you or just out of the goodness of his heart? Someone gave it to him and he brought it to you?”

A. In that first interaction, I don’t remember him specifically saying that he was acting on behalf of a particular client.

Q. Did you know at the time that he was representing the DNC in the Clinton campaign?

A. I can’t remember. I had learned that at some point. I don’t, as I said — as I think I n said last time, I don’t specifically remember when I learned that — excuse me — so I don’t know that I had that in my head when he showed up in my office. I just can’t remember.

Q. Did you learn that shortly thereafter if you didn’t know it at the time?

And then testify last week this way.

Q. Okay. Number two, did you know on the September 19th, 2016 meeting that Mr. Sussmann had been representing Hillary For America’s campaign and the DNC in connection with the hack investigation. Did you know that on September 19th when he met with you?

A. Sitting here today, I think the answer is, yes, I did know that by that point in time.

Q. I’ve written down, “yes, DNC and HFA and hack”. I want to be really clear. You’re not saying that he said that in the meeting. correct?

A. Correct.

Q. And you’re not saying he said he was there on behalf of them? You’re just saying that in your mind you knew that he had been acting as a lawyer for those two entities in connection with the hack. Correct?

It’s not just a question of whether Baker will be a credible witness, though his wildly changing claims about the DNC are among the reasons why his testimony is not credible.

It’s also that Durham wants to point to Sussmann’s failure, a year earlier in a Congressional hearing, to offer up his ties with the Democrats as proof he was lying. But Durham is treating Baker’s failure to do so in the same situation as an innocent mistake. For his single witness to be credible, DeFilippis has to find a way to excuse Baker’s failure to offer that up in a far more direct question while pointing to Sussmann’s failure to offer it up as proof of guilt.

He has to do so to defend his prosecutorial decisions, too. Given how much stake DeFilippis has placed on Baker sharing with Priestap that he knew Sussmann represented the Democrats, it makes it far less credible that Baker didn’t knowingly lie to Jordan. Especially given the way Baker responded to a Berkowitz question, suggesting that perhaps he hadn’t been truthful with Jordan, but instead was “careful.”

Q. And when you gave voluntary information to Congress, you understood that you were under oath?

A. I don’t think I was under oath, but I understood that it’s a crime to make false statements to Congress.

Q. So you tried to be as careful as you could. Correct?

A. I tried to be as careful as I could in that environment, yes, sir.

Q. You tried to be as truthful as you could?

A. (No response)

Q. Tried to be as truthful as you could?

A. Yes, sir.

Sussmann’s team is going to argue that there are a long list of people against whom there is far better evidence for false statements or perjury charges than him, with the single difference being that the other people were willing to tell the storytale DeFilippis is using prosecutorial resources to tell. And the first person on that list — it makes me sick to my stomach to say — is Jim Baker.

Finally, it’s a matter of materiality. DeFilippis has to find a way for it to be the case that his single witness knew when he met with Sussmann that Sussmann was a DNC lawyer (because Bill Priestap’s notes reflect that), but didn’t view that to be material to everything that happened next.

And the only way to sustain that rickety narrative is to ensure that no one else — not even the people using documentary proof reflecting a belief that this was a DNC report to refresh faded memories — understood that the white paper came from the DNC.

Thus far, Sussmann’s cross-examination has elicited evidence that at least three witnesses changed their testimony after interviews with DeFilippis, adopting a “memory” that conflicts with the documentary record with regards to whether the FBI believed the white paper to be associated with the DNC.

OTHER SUSSMANN TRIAL COVERAGE

Scene-Setter for the Sussmann Trial, Part One: The Elements of the Offense

Scene-Setter for the Sussmann Trial, Part Two: The Witnesses

The Founding Fantasy of Durham’s Prosecution of Michael Sussmann: Hillary’s Successful October Surprise

With a Much-Anticipated Fusion GPS Witness, Andrew DeFilippis Bangs the Table

John Durham’s Lies with Metadata

emptywheel’s Continuing Obsession with Sticky Notes, Michael Sussmann Trial Edition

Brittain Shaw’s Privileged Attempt to Misrepresent Eric Lichtblau’s Privilege

The Methodology of Andrew DeFilippis’ Elaborate Plot to Break Judge Cooper’s Rules

Jim Baker’s Tweet and the Recidivist Foreign Influence Cheater

That Clinton Tweet Could Lead To a Mistrial (or Reversal on Appeal)

John Durham Is Prosecuting Michael Sussmann for Sharing a Tip on Now-Sanctioned Alfa Bank

Apprehension and Dread with Bates Stamps: The Case of Jim Baker’s Missing Jencks Production

Technical Exhibits, Michael Sussmann Trial

Jim Baker’s “Doctored” Memory Forgot the Meeting He Had Immediately After His Michael Sussmann Meeting

Jim Baker’s “Doctored” Memory Forgot the Meeting He Had Immediately After His Michael Sussmann Meeting

Thanks to those who’ve donated to help defray the costs of trial transcripts. Your generosity has funded the expected costs of transcripts. But if you appreciate the kind of coverage no one else is offering, we’re still happy to accept donations. This coverage reflects the culmination of eight months work. 

One of key piece of evidence to John Durham’s prosecution against Michael Sussmann are the notes that Bill Priestap took reflecting Baker saying that Sussmann, “said not doing this for any client.”

On the stand, Priestap remembered nothing about this meeting.

Baker, though, claims he remembers a bunch of things.

In response to Sean Berkowitz’s attempt to pin down his testimony the other day, Baker said that his meeting with Sussmann was thirty minutes long. That’s not actually a direct memory, it seems. It is one reconstructed, Baker says, from calendars and the chain of custody document.

Q. How long was the meeting?

A. Which meeting?

Q. September 19th, 2016

A. About 30 minutes.

Q. How sure are you of that?

A. I’m going from the calendar entries and the entries on that chain of custody document.

Q. Okay. Not from your memory? You’re looking at documents?

A. I remember it was a short meeting. I would view a 30-minute meeting as a short meeting.

The chain of custody document shows that Baker took possession of the thumb drives at 2:30PM on September 19, 2016.

There are problems with relying on the chain of custody document to reconstruct your memory though, because it was, itself, reconstructed after the fact, the next day. One FBI agent discussing this process even joked that this amounted to “doctoring” the chain of custody — and with it, six years later, doctoring Baker’s current memory.

Baker professes to be slightly more certain about his meeting with Priestap, at which he relayed what had happened in the meeting with Sussmann. Baker “immediately or very close afterwards” called Priestap and told him what happened in the meeting.

Q. Okay. Now, taking us back to our time period, 15 we’ve left you getting the information from Mr. Sussmann on the 19th, and you immediately or very close afterwards called Mr. Priestap?

A. Yes, sir.

And the meeting was ten or fifteen minutes long.

Q. How long was the conversation with Mr. Priestap?

A. I don’t think it was a very long conversation. Ten minutes, maybe, fifteen minutes, something like that.

That’s a problem for Durham’s narrative. That’s because according to Baker’s own calendar, he had a meeting immediately after the one with Sussmann. The meeting with Sussmann ended at 2:30, his calendar showed, which is what the “doctored” chain of custody document says. Immediately after that he had a meeting with someone named Rich.

In fact, per his calendar, Baker was busy straight through until 4PM (though it’s unclear from Baker’s calendar precisely when the meeting with Rich happened). And the first Deputies Committee meeting after his meeting with Sussmann — which is the best explanation for Trisha Anderson’s notes — happened the next day, on September 20.

I haven’t yet seen how Sussmann’s lawyers got this into evidence yesterday (I’m still working through the morning transcript). But it’s possible that Baker never refreshed his memory with this calendar.

That’s because this calendar was extracted from Baker’s Samsung phone by DOJ Inspector General’s Office back in 2018. This is the phone that Durham had been told about in real time in 2018 (when Durham was investigating Baker for something else), but nevertheless didn’t think to look for the phone before charging Sussmann, and so only found it four months after the indictment.

When confessing all this confusion to Judge Cooper (as I explained in this post), Durham explained he hadn’t taken the basic investigative step of reviewing the contents of Baker’s phone before charging Sussmann because his memory didn’t go back four whole years — or even two, which is when Durham started interviewing Baker in this investigation.

Paragraph 10(a)(ii) states: “[I]n early January 2022, the Special Counsel’s Office learned for the first time that the OIG currently possesses two FBI cellphones of the former FBI General Counsel to whom the defendant made his alleged false statement, along with forensic reports analyzing those cellphones.” Id. The Government wishes to provide some additional context for this statement.

After reviewing the Special Counsel’s Office’s public filing, the DOJ Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) brought to our attention based on a review of its own records that, approximately four years ago, on February 9, 2018, in connection with another criminal investigation being led by then-Acting U.S. Attorney Durham, an OIG Special Agent who was providing some support to that investigation informed an Assistant United Attorney working with Mr. Durham that the OIG had requested custody of a number of FBI cellphones. OIG records reflect that among the phones requested was one of the two aforementioned cellphones of the thenFBI General Counsel. OIG records further reflect that on February 12, 2018, the OIG Special Agent had a conference call with members of the investigative team, including Mr. Durham, during which the cellphones likely were discussed. OIG records also reflect that the OIG subsequently obtained the then-FBI General Counsel’s cellphone on or about February 15, 2018. Special Counsel Durham has no current recollection of that conference call, nor does Special Counsel Durham currently recall knowing about the OIG’s possession of the former FBI General Counsel’s cellphones before January 2022. [my emphasis]

Durham forgot that he knew about the phone.

And because he forgot that he knew about the phone until it was too late, it’s not actually clear whether Baker’s reconstructed memory has faced the fact that he could not have had a 30 minute meeting with Sussman followed by a 10 minute call with Priestap and still made his 2:30PM meeting with Rich.

And given that both Baker and Priestap have testified, it’s probably too late to doctor a new memory to explain this all.

OTHER SUSSMANN TRIAL COVERAGE

Scene-Setter for the Sussmann Trial, Part One: The Elements of the Offense

Scene-Setter for the Sussmann Trial, Part Two: The Witnesses

The Founding Fantasy of Durham’s Prosecution of Michael Sussmann: Hillary’s Successful October Surprise

With a Much-Anticipated Fusion GPS Witness, Andrew DeFilippis Bangs the Table

John Durham’s Lies with Metadata

emptywheel’s Continuing Obsession with Sticky Notes, Michael Sussmann Trial Edition

Brittain Shaw’s Privileged Attempt to Misrepresent Eric Lichtblau’s Privilege

The Methodology of Andrew DeFilippis’ Elaborate Plot to Break Judge Cooper’s Rules

Jim Baker’s Tweet and the Recidivist Foreign Influence Cheater

That Clinton Tweet Could Lead To a Mistrial (or Reversal on Appeal)

John Durham Is Prosecuting Michael Sussmann for Sharing a Tip on Now-Sanctioned Alfa Bank

Apprehension and Dread with Bates Stamps: The Case of Jim Baker’s Missing Jencks Production

Technical Exhibits, Michael Sussmann Trial

Technical Exhibits, Michael Sussmann Trial

Thanks to those who’ve donated to help defray the costs of trial transcripts. Your generosity has funded the expected costs of transcripts. But if you appreciate the kind of coverage no one else is offering, we’re still happy to accept donations. This coverage reflects the culmination of eight months work. 

Most of my coverage during the Michael Sussmann trial will be trial related, describing what witnesses and exhibits say about the case.

But there are good reasons to question the conduct of the investigation — and that’s a topic a lot of people have independent interest in. So I wanted to start a running post on technical issues.

If there’s a link that doesn’t work, it probably means I’ve forgot to set permissions to public (some of this needs redaction before posting). Leave a comment or tweet me at @emptywheel.

FBI investigation

160921 Allison Sands’ Lync Notes (thru 161012)

160922: Scott Hellman/Nate Batty assessment

160923: Electronic Communication opening investigation

160923: EC plus all three shared documents

160926: Curtis Heide Lyncs

160926: Heide to Hellman, Hope our assessment is good

160926: Ryan Gaynor notes (includes details on election protection efforts)

161004: Kyle Steere document contents thumb drives

161005: Investigative update from Allison Sands

Includes:

  • FBI conclusion on changing DNS records
  • FBI’s response to David Dagon’s defense
  • Logs from Cendyn, with Listrak still to come
  • Barracuda reference
  • Discussion of Tor node

161007: Sands Draft FD-1023 CHS Report

170118: Sands Closing Memo

170327: 302 interview Alfa Bank

Materials shared with FBI

White paper

DNS logs

62 pages of DNS logs

Trump Who Is

9 IP Addresses

15 Trump mail domains

160919 Expert White Paper

Joffe data requests (postdates original data in white paper)

160820: Antonokakis to DeJong requesting data (including dcleaks)

List of IP addresses

Alfa Bank script

160915: DeJong shares results with Joffe

170718: DeJong to Joffe: I have four jobs that look for Trump

Posts related to technical issues

The Methodology of Andrew DeFilippis’ Elaborate Plot to Break Judge Cooper’s Rules

Apprehension and Dread with Bates Stamps: The Case of Jim Baker’s Missing Jencks Production

Thanks to those who’ve donated to help defray the costs of trial transcripts. Your generosity has funded the expected costs of transcripts. But if you appreciate the kind of coverage no one else is offering, we’re still happy to accept donations. This coverage reflects the culmination of eight months work. 

I’ve done a couple of posts showing how much fun one can have with Bates stamps — the serial numbers stamped onto every page of discovery that tells you a little bit about how any document was treated. In this post, for example, I showed that when John Durham accidentally-on-purpose released an exhibit with a bunch of Fusion GPS documents, he wasn’t doing so primarily to get them admitted at trial, because he had no intention of using most of them at trial. In this post, I showed that Durham hadn’t looked at key investigative documents that Michael Horowitz had relied upon in the Inspector General investigation into Crossfire Hurricane before Durham claimed he knew better than Horowitz about the predication of the Russian investigation. As of now, by the way, Horowitz is on the schedule to be a witness for Michael Sussmann. Ostensibly he’ll just talk about how valuable an anonymous tip that Sussmann once shared on behalf of Rodney Joffe proved to be, but who knows whether he’ll get a question about comments Durham has made about knowing better than Horowitz about things he hadn’t done the work to understand?

This post about Bates stamps won’t be so fun. It fills me with dread.

In this post and these two threads (Thursday nightFriday morning), I tried to summarize the Greek tragedy of Sussmann lawyer Sean Berkowitz’ cross-examination of Jim Baker. The short version of it is that these two men, men who used to be friends, are stuck in some nightmare Hunger Games created by a right wing mob led by Donald Trump. After years of being dragged through the mud because they dared to try to protect the United States from Russia in 2016, the survival of each depends on taking out the other. Jim Baker only avoids prosecution if he adheres obediently to John Durham’s internally contradictory script. Sussmann only gets his life back if he takes Baker out. While just Sussmann’s lawyer, Sean Berkowitz, and Jim Baker appear on this stage, it’s quite clear that Durham and DeFilippis set it.

Berkowitz started by quoting Baker’s explanation, from his earlier testimony, for why he had never searched his own files for texts with Sussmann.

Q. It’s your investigation, you said. I’m just here to answer the questions. Right? It’s Mr. DeFilippis’ investigation. You’re just here to answer the questions. Is what you said?

The context of that statement, from Andrew DeFilippis’ direct questioning of Baker, is crucial to understanding what follows.

The comment was Baker’s explanation to Durham’s lead prosecutor for why he only found a September 18, 2016 text from Michael Sussmann in March of 2022, almost six months after an entire indictment had been built around what Sussmann had said, instead, on September 19. As teed up by DeFilippis, Baker went looking for and found that text because Durham was just trying to comply with Jencks obligations, the requirement that prosecutors provide the prior statements of government witnesses in their possession to defendants.

Q. Are you familiar with the concept of Jencks materials or 3500 materials?

A. Yes.

[snip]

A. Correct. Yes. It’s an act of Congress that requires that — the reference to 3500 is a section in the U.S. Code.

Q. So did there come a time when you were asked by the Government to give any statements you might have on the subject of your testimony today?

A. Yes.

Q. And just tell us how that happened and then what you did in response.

A. There was a phone call with the Government. I think it was in March of this year. And it was to discuss discovery-related matters in part in the conversation. And I think it was Mr. Durham who asked me, you know: You need — we have an obligation to hand over discovery to the defense in this case. And can you go look for emails and other communications that you might have had with Mr. Sussmann?

And so in response to that, I — after we got off the phone, I immediately went to my phone and started looking through emails and then I looked for texts. And I did a search for texts with Michael’s last name; and texts came up, and I scrolled through them. They took a while to down — it was clear to me at least that they were downloading from the cloud.

And as I scrolled through and got to the beginning of my set of communications with Michael, this is the first one that I had.

Q. Now, had you — have you spoken to and met with the Government in connection with this case previously?

A. Yes.

Q. And had you previously located this text message here?

A. Not to the best of my recollection. No.

Q. What, if anything, was the reason for that?

A. It’s — I was not — I mean, the way I thought about it was that frankly, like, I am not out to get Michael. And this is not my investigation; this is your investigation. And so if you ask me a question, I answer it. If you ask me to look for something, I go look for it. But to the best of my recollection, nobody had asked me to go look for this material before that. [my emphasis]

Nobody had ever asked him to go look for evidence in his own possession related to the defendant against whom he was the key witness before, Baker testified. There’s a lot that’s unsaid — and batshit crazy — about this. One is that Durham only asked for communications directly with Sussmann, at least as Baker described events that happened just a few months ago.

Anyway, that was Durham’s explanation for how this text got shared with the government in March, six months after Durham had charged Sussmann for lying to hide what Durham imagines were Sussmann’s self-interests in a meeting with Baker on September 19, 2016. And by Baker’s telling, this belated request wasn’t just an example of DeFilippis trying to cover up his past incompetence (again). Durham was personally involved in this.

The only Bates stamp on this exhibit looks like this:

As you can see from Sussmann’s challenges to Durham’s exhibits submitted earlier this month, SCO-###### is one of two standard Bates stamps that Durham uses, the other being SC-########. Note both have a dash.

I knew as soon as I read the transcript that DeFilippis’ suggestion that this was about Jencks was intentionally misleading. Almost certainly, Durham found this text because they were still trying to comply with Sussmann’s demands, first made immediately after the indictment and then over and over after that, that prosecutors find  the communications about Sussmann’s role in killing a NYT story that he knew must exist. Besides, Jencks is an obligation to turn over statements about an investigation in the government’s possession. These texts weren’t, until Durham asked for them, in the government’s possession.

I mean, I guess if they were, and Durham had been sitting on them for six months, then Durham has even bigger problems, which I don’t rule out.

That’s the background to the way Sussmann’s lawyer began his cross-examination. After reminding Baker of this statement, Berkowitz then laid out that, while Baker had met over ten times with Durham’s team, he had declined to meet with Sussmann’s team. Berkowitz introduced a letter he had sent Baker’s lawyer on April 20, asking to meet.

That letter had no Bates stamp. Just the Exhibit number submitting it into evidence.

That suggests Durham’s team hadn’t seen this letter yet — though I’m sure nothing about the letter was a surprise to them. Baker has met with Durham’s team at least twice since Berkowitz sent this letter. Berkowitz asked if Baker knew about the letter but Baker dodged, saying only that he had delegated the decision about meeting with Sussmann’s team to his lawyer, Dan Levin.

Then Berkowitz asked whether Baker knew what it was like to be under criminal investigation.

A. Yes.

Q. That’s Mr. Durham?

A. Yes.

They talked for a while about an earlier Durham investigation, one that lasted from 2017 until 2019 (Berkowitz made Baker repeat the dates), into whether information about surveillance that Baker had shared with a journalist had, or had not, been an authorized disclosure. Berkowitz talked about what might have happened had Baker been charged.

Loss of his legal career.

Being prosecuted.

Berkowitz talked about how that investigation basically boiled down to several conflicting versions of a phone call that other witnesses had given Durham. Their word against Baker’s.

Q. So at least one of their recollections was inconsistent with yours. Right?

A. Yes. Yes.

Q. Memories are a difficult thing, aren’t they, sir?

A. That’s a difficult question to answer. That depends.

That’s how Berkowitz prefaced the first of a long list of things Baker had said in Michael Sussmann’s trial that conflicted with things he had said in the past, a list that carried into a second day (actually Baker’s third day on the stand). At this point, Berkowitz mentioned just one of them — Baker’s inconsistent testimony to the Inspector General in July 2019 — then interrupted.

He put up a text to Ben Wittes that Baker sent the day after Durham was appointed in this matter (so weeks before that particular interview with the IG). Wittes and Baker were talking about TV appearances, but Baker seemed preoccupied by the Durham appointment.

MR. BERKOWITZ: The date, Mr. Cleaves.

THE WITNESS: There we go. Okay. Sorry. May 14th, 2019. Thank you.

BY MR. BERKOWITZ:

Q. And you write: “It went well. It was about the Love piece which was good. CNN Tonight was okay but didn’t cover that at all. And now I get to be investigated for another year or two by John Durham. Lovely.” Correct?

A. Right.

Q. So you expected to be investigated further by Mr. Durham. Correct?

A. Yes, I did.

I’ll come back to the metadata on the text in just a bit.

The text makes it clear how, after being investigated by John Durham from 2017 to 2019, upon learning that Durham had just been appointed to investigate other matters implicating Baker, FBI’s former General Counsel immediately realized the investigation would continue for another two years.

Baker was wrong about the timing. Durham’s investigation just celebrated its third birthday.

This text frames all of Baker’s subsequent cooperation in that light — in Baker’s immediate recognition that the hell he had been going through for the previous two years would continue another two. Or three. Or longer.

This is brilliant lawyering on Berkowitz’s part. But remember as you read along that this is really a Hunger Games conflict staged by Trump and Bill Barr to exploit the US Justice system to create a never-ending supply of revenge theater that will incite the base and lead the press to do shitty reporting for easy clicks. This is an act of revenge targeting anyone who has ever dared to question Trump’s corruption. Or even, question the dangers of Russian interference in American democracy.

Back to Berkowitz. After showing Baker the text reflecting his immediate dread about being investigated by Durham for two more years, Berkowitz described how, the day after Durham’s appointment (actually it was about three days after, and so two days after this text), Baker had his lawyer reach out to Durham and offer to cooperate.

The letter is actually kind of funny. It shows Levin emailing and saying, “Jim asked me to reach out and let you know that he is available if you wish to interview him (he just spoke to the IG today).” Durham seems to have forwarded that email from one of his DOJ emails to another. I sort of wonder if there was a BCC, because Durham was in really close contact with Bill Barr’s office in these weeks. Durham then attempted to write back to Levin but at least as it appears (because he forwarded the email to himself rather than simply replying with a CC to his second DOJ account), Durham simply wrote to himself, responding into a void about meeting with “tour client” soon.

The Bates stamp for this exhibit looks like this:

DX-811 is the exhibit number for this trial (DX shows that it is one of Sussmann’s exhibits, as opposed to one of the government’s).

LW-06_0001 may reflect Sussmann’s Latham & Watkins’ lawyers sharing their proposed exhibits with Durham and Judge Cooper before the trial.

SCO-012114 is the regular Bates stamp associated with Durham’s production to Sussmann. It’s part of the same series (though much earlier in) the Bates stamp of the text that Baker turned over to Durham on March 4. SCO dash ######.

And SCO-3500U-4007 seems to be a Bates stamp specifically tied to Jencks discovery, which as noted above is called Rule 3500. That’s a really handy Bates stamp because it may indicate what Durham is treating as Jencks discovery. It appears in other direct statements made by Durham’s witnesses about this investigation. The calendar entry for the September 19, 2016 meeting between Baker and Sussmann, for example, has one of those 3500 stamps.

The text that, DeFilippis suggested, Durham had only asked for out of a diligent desire to comply with Jencks obligations doesn’t have one of these 3500 Bates stamps. Here it is again, SCO dash ######.

Having shown those three documents — Berkowitz’s request for a meeting with Baker, Baker’s text to Wittes dreading two more years of investigation by Durham, and Levin’s letter to Durham immediately after his appointment offering to come in for an interview — Berkowitz then resumed talking about inconsistencies in Baker’s testimony. He alluded, briefly, to a sworn statement Baker made to the grand jury under questioning from DeFilippis about the role that the General Counsel would have in FBI investigations. Then, after going through what Baker’s current testimony is, Berkowitz asked,

Q. The fact that Mr. Sussmann stated specifically in his message that he was acting on his own and not for a client did not factor heavily into your decision to meet with him. Correct?

This statement is inconsistent with the testimony Baker gave on the stand. Baker disavowed it.

A. I disagree with that.

So Berkowitz did what’s known as “refreshing” a witness’ memory, first by reading him what the 302 memorializing an FBI interview said.

Q. All right. Do you remember speaking with these folks in March of this year — by these folks to be, correct for the record, the prosecution team, Mr. DeFilippis?

A. In March of this year, I spoke to them, yes.

Q. Okay. And in March of this year, is it not true that you told them you do not believe that the fact that Sussmann stated specifically in his texts that he was acting on his own and not for a client factored heavily into your decision to meet with Michael Sussmann the very next day. You told them that?

A. Can you repeat the first part of that again? Sorry.

Q. “Baker does not believe that the fact that Sussmann stated specifically in his text message that he was acting on his own and not for a client factored heavily into his decision to meet with Sussmann the very next day”?

Baker, perhaps realizing that this interview from a few months ago conflicts with the testimony he has just given, had forgotten the question.

A. So, I’m sorry. What’s your question?

Q. You told them that on March 4th of 2022.

Baker didn’t recall giving that conflicting testimony.

A. Sitting here today, I don’t recall telling them that.

Berkowitz offered to show him the proof: a 302 interview report that, unlike the meeting between Baker and Sussmann on September 19, 2016, actually documents what was said.

Q. Refresh your recollection to see the 302 of your meeting, sir?

A. Sure. I haven’t seen that 302 before.

This is an opportunity for Berkowitz to explain, as he did when he used one to refresh Scott Hellman’s memory earlier in the week, what a 302 is and how FBI always creates 302s for fact witnesses.

Q. All right. And to orient the jury is when an agent is present and take notes. Correct?

A. It’s a report of an interview.

Q. And when a witness is interviewed by the FBI, an agent is there to take notes, if it’s a fact witness, and put it into a report. Correct?

A. Correct.

Q. You didn’t do that with Mr. Sussmann. Right?

A. Correct.

Berkowitz asked Baker if he remembered making the statement on March 4. DeFilippis’ single witness to Sussmann’s alleged crime professed, for the second time in short order, not to remember something that happened just a few months ago.

Q. Does it refresh your recollection that, on March 4th of 2022, you told the FBI and Mr. DeFilippis that you didn’t believe the fact that Mr. Sussmann stated specifically in his text he was acting on his own and not for a client factored heavily into your decision to meet with Mr. Sussmann the next day?

A. I don’t recall making that statement sitting here today.

Q. And it’s your testimony

MR. BERKOWITZ: You can take that down.

BY MR. BERKOWITZ: Q. It’s your testimony that that’s not accurate. Correct?

A. It’s my testimony today that, as I think about it today, that that’s not accurate.

More than just forgetting what he said a few months ago, Baker is showing the jury how, if his current belief conflicts with a past one shared under threat of false statements charges, he’ll simply say his past truth is not the truth. Not accurate.

Then Baker thinks of something: the significance of the date.

A. Can I ask you a question? When was that 302? What was the date? What meeting or what interview was that pertaining to?

Q. There’s a lot of different meetings and interviews here. This one was a couple of months ago on March 4th of 2022 —

A. Okay.

Q. — in connection with your trial preparation for today.

A. That was the date that I found the text, yes.

Q. Okay. Did that change your recollections at all or —

Baker explains that discovering a text in which Sussmann had stated that he wasn’t asking for the September 19, 2016 meeting “on behalf of any client,” but wanted to help the FBI had upset him, suggesting that might explain why he gave testimony a few months ago that substantially differs from the testimony he gave on the stand.

A. Well it’s just it was a very — it was a very difficult day for me and it was a bit upsetting.

As a reminder, this day was not just a stressful one for Baker. While I can’t think of an evidentiary basis by which Sussmann could share this with the jury, after Baker found a text that greatly complicated Durham’s prosecution, Durham accused Sussmann of hiding evidence, a stance he was forced to drop after Sussmann obtained a subpoena on his own to disprove that accusation.

Anyway, after noting that Baker met with Durham in spite of the stress of having found the text, Berkowitz asked Baker, for the first time in this Hunger Games conflict, whether he was aware that it was a crime to lie to the FBI.

A. I know very well it’s a crime to make a false statement to the FBI if that’s what you are getting at. Whether they say it or not, I know it.

At that point, Berkowitz pulled out a white board and starting writing down the things that Baker was committing to believing were the truth. He started with “the elephant in the room,” the memory that, if the jury finds it shaky, will sink this entire prosecution.

Q. Let’s start with the elephant in the room. Sitting here today, what is your testimony about what Mr. Sussmann told you relative to clients?

A. At the meeting in person on the 19th of September?

Q. Yes.

A. Okay. My testimony is that he said that he was not there on behalf of any particular client or words to that effect.

Q. Oh, now it’s “words to that effect.” Okay.

DeFilippis objected.

He didn’t want Berkowitz to write this down, I’m sure, because any juror taking notes is going to write down exactly what Berkowitz writes down, thereby solidifying the points in their memory. That’s how my memory works anyway: If I write it down, I’m far more likely to remember it. People think I have a really good memory, but in actuality, I just write a lot more than most people.

DiFilippis probably also didn’t want Berkowitz to write this down because it’ll isolate the key claims that Baker has made, thereby making it easier for jurors to compare his currently operative statements with what he had said in the past. DeFilippis wanted just the court reporter to write this down, in a transcript that won’t ever be shared with the jury.

MR. DeFILIPPIS: Objection, Your Honor, we do have a court reporter.

THE COURT: Overruled.

Berkowitz walked Baker through his currently operative story for the following:

  • What Sussmann said on September 19 about having a client
  • Whether Baker knew Sussmann worked for Hillary that day
  • How long the meeting was
  • What Sussmann said about a news organization ready to publish a story
  • Whether he identified any particular cyber experts
  • Whether those experts — Steve Bellovin, Matt Blaze, and Susan Landau — had vouched for the data
  • Whether Baker or Sussmann had taken notes
  • Whether he had refused to share Sussmann’s name when Scott Hellman and an FBI administrative person  named Jordan Kelly had come to obtain the materials, as Scott Hellman testified earlier in the week

That’s when they break for lunch. After lunch they go over Baker’s meeting with Bill Prietsap, his calls to get Eric Lichtblau’s name later in the week, and his foggy memory about the details from the the March 6, 2017 when the Alfa Bank allegation comes back up. I’m not sure whether this got written onto a white board or not (it sounds like Berkowitz had filled the white board before lunch).

Berkowitz then returned to the many times Baker had given conflicting testimony under oath, starting with his testimony before Congress.

Q. And when you gave voluntary information to Congress, you understood that you were under oath?

A. I don’t think I was under oath, but I understood that it’s a crime to make false statements to Congress.

Q. So you tried to be as careful as you could. Correct?

A. I tried to be as careful as I could in that environment, yes, sir.

Q. You tried to be as truthful as you could?

A. (No response)

Q. Tried to be as truthful as you could?

A. Yes, sir.

Berkowitz then went through and laid out how his prior testimony conflicts with what he’s just laid out on the whiteboard and after lunch.

Again, great lawyering, but the reason this is so dreadful is because this is precisely the kind of Hunger Games conflict that Reality TV show star Donald Trump uses to accrue power.

Berkowitz reminded Baker that his two appearances before Congress in October 2018 could be subject to false statement prosecution, his 2019 interview with the Inspector General (which Baker calls “the I.G. thing”), the two meetings with Durham at which Sussmann was raised in June 2020 (at such time as Trump and Barr were pressuring Durham for pre-election results). All potentially subject to prosecution as false statements or perjury.

Berkowitz ended the day by asking about threats, returning again to the possibility that any single one of these inconsistent statements — the most recent of which discussed thus far was on March 4, 2022, the statute of limitation for which would not expire until 2027 — could be charged as a false statement.

Q. Did they threaten you, sir, with anything — based on the fact that you had previously told folks under oath or subject to perjury — that you had said inconsistent things?

A. Mr. Durham and his team have never threatened me in any way.

Q. But you understood, sir, did you not, as a lawyer, that if you had said something that someone determined was false, under oath, or subject to perjury, you could be prosecuted. Correct?

I suspect that, by the end of the week, Berkowitz will argue that several of Durham’s witnesses have made more easily provable false statements — and more material — to the Special Counsel and others than Sussmann, but Durham is not choosing to prosecute the ones who tell the story he wants told, the story he chooses to refresh. Remember, there are at least three documents already introduced that Durham chose not to use to refresh Baker’s memory to something different than he delivered on the stand last week.

Which brings me back to DeFilippis’ excuse for finding a text that Sussmann was asking for but which Durham had never bothered to look for, and the inconsistent statement — that Sussmann’s notice that he was not there on behalf of any client had a big role in him taking the meeting — and Baker’s attribution of his now-inconsistent answer to stress.

Durham discovered on March 4 that Baker had relevant texts he never bothered to ask for in 16 months of investigation before he charged Sussmann. DeFilippis introduced that text by claiming prosecutors had discovered it by asking — John Durham asked himself, according to Baker — for Jencks material.

That text has no Bates stamp reflecting that it is Jencks material.

There’s something else about that text. It looks nothing like the text that Berkowitz entered describing Baker’s dread as he realized Durham was going to be investigating for two more years. Here’s the text Baker turned over in March, in response to Durham’s request for any communications involving Sussmann, but only communications involving Sussmann.

Here’s the text to Wittes expressing certainty that Durham would investigate him for two more years.

These are both iMessage texts! They look entirely different, though, because one is a screen cap turned over by Baker, and the other was obtained via legal process served on Apple (which is where all the extra metadata comes from).

More interesting still, however, is the Bates stamp on the set of texts involving Wittes. The Bates stamp on that text looks like this:

There’s the red stamp that, I’m guessing, is the stamp associated with a pre-trial proposed exhibit.

There’s the trial exhibit stamp, DX-810.

And then there’s a Bates stamp that does not match any Durham Bates stamp I’ve seen. SCO_######. Underscore, not dash.

Although this is a statement by a witness — the key witness!! — about this very investigation, there’s no Jencks stamp.

Mind you, the government only has to turn over statements about an investigation under Jencks if it is in their possession. So maybe this was never in their possession? If it was, it’d be a Jencks violation and Sussmann could ask to have the entirety of Baker’s testimony thrown out. All of it.

I have no idea where this text string comes from. Perhaps it came from an FBI Inspection Division investigation of all these same people; such material was among the stuff that Durham was permitted to turn over late. Perhaps, as Latham & Watkins did when Durham accused Sussmann of hiding this text, they got a subpoena and obtained it themselves. But it appears, at least, that it didn’t come from Durham.

If that’s right — if, even after discovering that Baker had texts that were absolutely critical to this investigation that he had never turned over, Durham didn’t choose to obtain these texts directly from Apple themselves, or at the very least ask Baker to turn over all texts pertinent to his investigation — there are several implications. First, it’s proof that Durham never ever subjected Baker, the guy who offered to cooperate on day three, to investigative scrutiny for his role in the events from September 19, 2016 that Durham has chosen to criminalize. Nor has Durham tested what might be behind any of Baker’s subsequent inconsistent statements. And when Durham discovered that Baker had had texts that were critical to his investigation almost three years into the investigation, his first response was to attempt to blame Sussmann. When that didn’t work, it appears, Durham didn’t put his prosecution at risk to see what other texts, texts that might be critical to Durham’s investigation but which didn’t involve communications between him and Sussmann, might be in Baker’s iCloud account.

This is brilliant lawyering. But it’s all just a part of Donald Trump’s Hunger Games, revenge theater targeting the people who questioned his complicit ties with Russia. And the wrong people are going to get hurt.

Other Sussmann trial coverage

Scene-Setter for the Sussmann Trial, Part One: The Elements of the Offense

Scene-Setter for the Sussmann Trial, Part Two: The Witnesses

The Founding Fantasy of Durham’s Prosecution of Michael Sussmann: Hillary’s Successful October Surprise

With a Much-Anticipated Fusion GPS Witness, Andrew DeFilippis Bangs the Table

John Durham’s Lies with Metadata

emptywheel’s Continuing Obsession with Sticky Notes, Michael Sussmann Trial Edition

Brittain Shaw’s Privileged Attempt to Misrepresent Eric Lichtblau’s Privilege

The Methodology of Andrew DeFilippis’ Elaborate Plot to Break Judge Cooper’s Rules

Jim Baker’s Tweet and the Recidivist Foreign Influence Cheater

That Clinton Tweet Could Lead To a Mistrial (or Reversal on Appeal)

John Durham Is Prosecuting Michael Sussmann for Sharing a Tip on Now-Sanctioned Alfa Bank

John Durham Is Prosecuting Michael Sussmann for Sharing a Tip on Now-Sanctioned Alfa Bank

Thanks to those who’ve donated to help defray the costs of trial transcripts. Your generosity has funded the expected costs. If you appreciate the kind of coverage no one else is offering, we’re still happy to accept donations for this coverage — which reflects the culmination of eight months work. 

During his cross-examination of Jim Baker, Michael Sussmann’s lawyer Sean Berkowitz introduced the Electronic Communication that opened the investigation pertaining to the Alfa Bank anomaly. He did so, ostensibly, to show that when DeFilippis elicited Jim Baker to explain the predication of investigations, Baker claimed not to remember that an investigation into the Alfa Bank anomaly had been opened, and claimed not to remember that the EC erroneously said the investigation was a referral from DOJ.

Q. And you were aware, though, because the government showed you a document, that a particular file number here was opened up, correct?

A. I don’t — did I see that? I don’t remember seeing that yesterday.

Q. Let’s show — I don’t think they showed it to you yesterday. They showed it to you in one of your preparation exhibits.

A. Okay. Okay.

Baker should have known it because he was shown the Electronic Communication during an interview with Durham, but he had forgotten it on the stand. So this appeared to be yet another attempt to show Baker’s hot-and-cold running memory.

When Berkowitz moved to enter it into evidence, DeFilippis noted it was a government exhibit, suggesting they weren’t hiding it (even though they hadn’t shown it to Baker on the stand). Probably they would have introduced it when Alfa Bank case agent Allison Sands testifies, probably Monday.

But introducing it with Baker gave Sussmann an opportunity to lay out several huge problems with Durham’s case against him and ensure that DeFilippis has to deal with this EC with Sands.

First, there’s this: When the FBI opened an investigation into this anomaly, they considered it an investigation into Alfa Bank.

This was an investigation into Alfa Bank. Not an investigation into Donald Trump.

In the part of the EC that explains why they opened it, they repeat, again, that it’s an investigation into Alfa Bank. But they also opened it because the FBI was still trying to figure out what Trump associate got an advance heads up that the Russians were going to intervene to hurt Hillary. But even in the context of the fact that one of the agents investigating Crossfire Hurricane had been pulled back to Chicago to work on this investigation, the investigation was not into biological human Donald Trump, it was into corporate human Trump Organization.

Based on the information above, FBI Chicago has predicated a Full Counterintelligence investigation into the activities of ALFA BANK, in order to conduct further investigation regarding the extent and nature of the network communications between ALFA BANK and the TRUMP ORGANIZATION. This investigation will attempt to determine the validity of the information that was provided by the third-party entity, and to assess whether or not pose a threat to either the TRUMP ORGANIZATION, or United States national security.

In addition, FBI investigation [redacted] [CROSSFIRE HURRICANE] was predicated based on an allegation that a member of the TRUMP campaign had received a suggestion from the Russian Government, indicating that the Russian government could assist the TRUMP campaign with an anonymous release of information during the campaign, which would be a detriment to the HILLARY CLINTON campaign. Investigation in [redacted] has surfaced additional ties between the TRUMP campaign team and the Russian government.

Investigation of the communications between the Russian ALFA BANK and the TRUMP ORGANIZATION could provide additional insight about the connections between the TRUMP ORGANIZATION and Russia, and help to determine whether those ties pose a threat to United States national security.

This matter is being treated as a Sensitive Investigative Matter based on the fact that the TRUMP ORGANIZATION is affiliated with a current U.S. Presidential candidate. As such, FBI Chicago requests that FBIHQ/NSLB coordinate with the US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE to provide all appropriate notifications required by the DIOG.

So it was sensitive because it related to Trump Organization, and only through that corporate human, to the biological human who was a presidential candidate. Even there, the EC at least envisioned, appropriately, that Trump might be a victim of this, as he would be if someone were trying to infiltrate the campaign or his company.

And in fact, Durham’s own evidence supports the predication against Alfa. The script that Durham falsely suggested (he will be disproven on this point later) were the basis for the research in the technical white paper was focused on Alfa Bank.

There is another that includes the anomalous mail server in question, right next to dcleaks — a query that may well have returned data on Roger Stone’s pre-public searches on the domain, and in any case, since this was entered as a government exhibit, should have obliged Durham to turn over details of these Stone searches.

It’s only a request from July 2017 — probably in conjunction with Dan Jones’ attempt to chase down this anomaly — that the searches were called “Trump query jobs,” and even there, one was focused on Alfa Bank.

The FBI viewed this as an investigation into Alfa Bank, and Joffe’s data requests actually reinforce that.

That creates three problems for Durham.

First, on redirect, DeFilippis got his star cyber agent Scott Hellman, to offer up this explanation for why he found the white paper crap when the counterintelligence people saw something more. It’s about the data, his star witness said.

Q. Now the counterintelligence division, when they look at information like this, are they looking at it with an eye towards the same issues or different issues from the cyber division?

A. Um, I think they’d probably be looking at it from the same vantage point, but if you’re not — you don’t have experience looking at technical logs, you may not have the capability of doing a review of those logs. You might rely on somebody else to do it. And perhaps counterintelligence agents are going to be thinking about other investigative questions. So I guess it would probably be a combination of both.

Never mind that the evidence shows that Hellman didn’t look closely at the data, which caused him to make a false claim in his own assessment of it. He should know that this tied in with the investigation into whom, in Trump’s camp, got advance notice that Russia was going to attack Hillary, because he was on an email that his boss, Nate Batty, sent laying out how the guy investigating George Papadopoulos had been called back to Chicago to also look at this.

Curtis has been working (TDY) the election issues and has been called back by CD to work matters related to this white paper. CG had a copy of the white paper I forwarded to you from CD channels, and was inquiring as to whether ECOU 1 had any logs or other data from the referenced server.

Sure, maybe his comment about “other investigative questions” covers Hellman here. But the reason CD looked at this differently is because they were hunting for the Trump associate who got advance notice of the hack-and-leak. Hellman knows that.

Another problem this creates for Durham is that — as laid out here — he accused Michael Sussmann of lying about sharing allegations about “a Presidential candidate.”

As Sussmann noted in a recent filing summarizing conflicting views on jury instructions, Durham’s indictment describes Sussmann’s alleged lie this way:

[O]n or about September 19, 2016, the defendant stated to the General Counsel of the FBI that he was not acting on behalf of any client in conveying particular allegations concerning a Presidential candidate, when in truth, and in fact, and as the defendant knew well, he was acting on behalf of specific clients, namely, Tech Executive-1 and the Clinton Campaign.

Never mind that Durham characterized the allegations as pertaining to “a Presidential candidate,” which presents other problems for Durham, he has also accused Sussmann of lying about having two clients.

Mr. Sussmann proposes modifying the last sentence as follows, as indicated by underlining: Specifically, the Indictment alleges that, on or about September 19, 2016, Mr. Sussmann, did willfully and knowingly make a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement or representation in a matter before the FBI, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2), namely, that Mr. Sussmann stated to the General Counsel of the FBI that he was not acting on behalf of any client in conveying particular allegations concerning Donald Trump, when, in fact, he was acting on behalf of specific clients, namely, Rodney Joffe and the Clinton Campaign.5 The government objects to the defense’s proposed modification since it will lead to confusion regarding charging in the conjunctive but only needing to prove in the disjunctive.

4 Authority: Indictment.

5 Authority: Indictment.

Durham’s language about “conjunctive” versus “disjunctive” will likely be the matter for heated debate next week. Particularly in the wake of Cooper’s decision that the materials from the researchers won’t come in as evidence, Durham seems to be preparing to prove only that Sussmann lied about representing Hillary, and not about Joffe. Sussmann, meanwhile, seems to believe that Durham will have to prove that his alleged lie was intended to hide both alleged clients.

At least the people who opened this investigation didn’t see these allegations to pertain to Donald Trump, biological human They viewed them, first and foremost, as an allegation about Alfa Bank, and secondarily as an allegation about corporate human, Trump Organization.

This distinction will show up over and over again in the next week.

Finally, this goes to materiality. There was no way FBI was going to take allegations that might explain who got advance notice of the hack-and-leak attack on Hillary and not see if it answered that question. Durham wants to complain that this got opened as a Full Investigation when the allegations weren’t that strong. They weren’t! But the reason why it got opened as a Full Investigation is because Crossfire Hurricane had already been opened as a Full Investigation looking for the unknown subject who had gotten a heads up on Russia’s attack plans,

Sussmann has both Jonathan Moffa (who is included on this opening EC) and Michael Horowitz slotted as witnesses next week. He explicitly said that Moffa will address materiality and, depending on how things go, Horowitz’s determination that CH was properly predicated as a Full Investigation might become an issue as well.

In other words, Durham is going to have to talk about Crossfire Hurricane.

And from there, things could get worse, because we know Durham didn’t provide discovery to allow Sussmann to fully argue these issues.

John Durham is prosecuting Michael Sussmann because he brought allegations to the FBI about a bank that has now been sanctioned as part of an effort to halt Russia’s efforts to dismantle democracies in Ukraine and elsewhere, including the United States. Yet for months, he has claimed that such a tip did grave damage to Donald Trump.

Other Sussmann trial coverage

Scene-Setter for the Sussmann Trial, Part One: The Elements of the Offense

Scene-Setter for the Sussmann Trial, Part Two: The Witnesses

The Founding Fantasy of Durham’s Prosecution of Michael Sussmann: Hillary’s Successful October Surprise

With a Much-Anticipated Fusion GPS Witness, Andrew DeFilippis Bangs the Table

John Durham’s Lies with Metadata

emptywheel’s Continuing Obsession with Sticky Notes, Michael Sussmann Trial Edition

Brittain Shaw’s Privileged Attempt to Misrepresent Eric Lichtblau’s Privilege

The Methodology of Andrew DeFilippis’ Elaborate Plot to Break Judge Cooper’s Rules

Jim Baker’s Tweet and the Recidivist Foreign Influence Cheater

That Clinton Tweet Could Lead To a Mistrial (or Reversal on Appeal)

That Clinton Tweet Could Lead To a Mistrial (or Reversal on Appeal)

Thanks to those who’ve donated to help defray the costs of trial transcripts. Your generosity has funded the expected costs. If you appreciate the kind of coverage no one else is offering, we’re still happy to accept donations for this coverage — which reflects the culmination of eight months work. 

If you follow coverage of the Michael Sussmann trial anywhere but here and Politico, you would believe that the big news from Friday is that former Hillary campaign manager Robby Mook testified that Hillary personally approved of sharing the Alfa Bank story. As part of that coverage, virtually everyone is also covering the tweet admitted where Hillary focused attention on the Franklin Foer story after it came out.

Here’s how CNN covered it.

Slate published a story on October 31, 2016, raising questions about the odd Trump-Alfa cyber links. After that story came out, Clinton tweeted about it, and posted a news release that said, “This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia.”

[snip]

Inside the courtroom, prosecutors showed the jury Clinton’s tweet about the Trump-Alfa article from Slate, and Mook read aloud portions of the campaign’s news release about the story. The release was from Jake Sullivan, who is currently President Joe Biden’s national security adviser.

We can only assume that federal authorities will now explore this direct connection between Trump and Russia as part of their existing probe into Russia’s meddling in our elections,” Sullivan said in the release on October 31, 2016, one week before Election Day.

The special counsel team has previously said that the Clinton campaign’s media blitz around the Slate story “is the very culmination of Mr. Sussmann’s work and strategy,” to allegedly gin up news coverage about the Trump-Alfa allegations and then get the FBI to start an investigation.

During the hearing, Twitter users recirculated Clinton’s old post. It caught the eye of billionaire Elon Musk, who has become increasingly vocal about political matters while he tries to buy Twitter, and recently announced his support for the Republican Party. He called the Trump-Alfa allegation “a Clinton campaign hoax” and claimed that Sussmann “created an elaborate hoax.” [my emphasis]

Obviously, the frothy right has made it the center of a frenzy to investigate Hillary herself. Surely it will also lead to an investigation of Jake Sullivan.

The thing is, legally, the part about investigating wasn’t supposed to come into the trial and will be something that, at the very least, Judge Christopher Cooper issues an instruction to the jury on.

This media frenzy was the predictable result of Andrew DeFilippis breaking Cooper’s rules. Again.

Here’s what the tweet, as sent to the jury will look like.

Here’s what the transcript looks like (though I don’t believe the transcript will be sent back to the jury).

Nevertheless, the jury heard it because — just minutes after being instructed not to include the language about the FBI investigation and not to read from the tweet!! — DeFilippis “accidentally” handed Robby Mook the unredacted copy to read, and coached him to continue to read the stuff that was redacted.

Q. And is there any reason why he would be the one to issue a statement like this?

A. You know, Jake’s a pretty highly regarded national security expert.

Q. Okay.

A. So it makes sense that he’s the voice on this.

Q. Could you just read the content of Mr. Sullivan’s statement.

A. Starting with “This could”?

Q. Yes.

A. “This could be the most direct link yet” —

Q. I’m sorry, start at the top.

A. “In response to a new report from Slate showing that the Trump Organization has a secret server registered to Trump Tower that has been covertly communicating with Russia, Hillary For America Senior Policy Advisor Jake Sullivan released the following statement Monday.” Keep going?

Q. Yes.

A. “This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow. Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank. “This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia. It certainly seems the Trump Organization felt it had something to hide, given that it apparently took steps to conceal the link when it was discovered by journalists. [my emphasis]

Here’s the bench conference that immediately preceded this exchange, in which DeFilippis made one last bid to enter the tweet into evidence. This language was redacted on first release of the transcript, but got unsealed overnight.

MR. DeFILIPPIS: Your Honor, could we have a quick call? (The following is a bench conference held outside the hearing of the jury)

MR. DeFILIPPIS: Your Honor, the government believes we’ve now laid an adequate foundation for probing into admissibility in connection with the Tweet and press statement that we’ve been talking about.

Mr. Mook has testified that the candidate herself approved a decision to send this to the media. The Tweet and press statement themselves refer to the FBI, and the defense admitted a Tweet during their examination of Mr. Baker.

We don’t think it’s, in light of this testimony, in any way prejudicial or cumulative because it addresses both the FBI issue and the issue of the decision to provide it to the media.

So we would ask that we be able to present the Tweet to Mr. Mook.

MR. BOSWORTH: Your Honor, we object. It remains the case that the — you know, Ms. Clinton is not on the witness stand. Jake Sullivan is not on the witness stand.

Jake Sullivan, weeks after Mr. Sussmann went to the FBI, issued a statement about the Slate article that was published that there’s no evidence that Mr. Sussmann had anything to do with. And that press statement goes into an area that goes beyond anything for which they’ve laid a foundation. And it’s highly prejudicial in that that statement doesn’t just say this is a serious story. It calls on the FBI to investigate.

That is incredibly prejudicial because it suggests that Mr. Sussmann was going to the campaign on their behalf, and there was literally zero evidence that the campaign knew Mr. Sussmann was going, including in Mr. Mook’s testimony today.

And second, that’s weeks after Mr. Sussmann went to the FBI. And the statement itself doesn’t say, “We’re so glad the FBI’s already investigating.” They’re steering far clear of any knowledge they could have even conceivably had about the investigation.

So we think Your Honor’s prior ruling stands.

THE COURT: All right. I want to review the statement again for the information that you say is extraneous.

Generally, as I indicated, I think, earlier this week, this does complete the story, and a lot of this is subject to cross. I think it can be explained that — just because it has Ms. Clinton’s name on it and is a statement of the campaign and it completes the narrative that the government has tried to advance, but I am concerned about any other extraneous information of the Tweet that may not be pertinent. So let me take a look at it. Can you complete your cross, or shall we just take a break?

MR. DeFILIPPIS: Maybe take a break, Your Honor. (This is the end of the bench conference)

THE COURT: All right. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to take about a five-minute break, so if you could just — to resolve an evidentiary issue. So if you could just retire to the deliberation room, we’ll call you when we’re ready. (Jury exits courtroom)

[snip]

THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honor.

MR. BOSWORTH: Your Honor, do you want me to pass it up?

THE COURT: Yes, if you can pass it up. We have it back in chambers, but let me…

THE COURTROOM DEPUTY: Everyone can be seated.

THE COURT: Please be seated. And I’ll tell you what, just give me five minutes. (Recess taken)

THE COURT: All right. Mr. DeFilippis, if you can lay a foundation that he had knowledge that a story had come out and that the campaign decided to issue the release in response to the story, I’ll let you admit the Tweet. However, the last paragraph, I agree with the defense, is substantially more prejudicial than it is probative because he has testified that had neither — he nor anyone at the campaign knew that Mr. Sussmann went to the FBI, no one authorized him to go to the FBI, and there’s been no other evidence admitted in the case that would suggest that that took place. And so this last paragraph, I think, would unfairly suggest to the jury, without any evidentiary foundation, that that was the case. All right?

MR. DeFILIPPIS: Your Honor, just two brief questions on that.

THE COURT: Okay.

MR. DeFILIPPIS: Can we — so can we use — depending on what he says about whether he was aware of the Tweet or the public statement, may we use it to refresh him?

THE COURT: Sure. Sure.

MR. DeFILIPPIS: Okay. And then, as to the last paragraph, could it be used for impeachment or refreshing purposes as well in terms of any dealings with the FBI?

THE COURT: You can use anything to refresh.

MR. DeFILIPPIS: Okay.

THE COURT: But we’re not going to publish it to the jury. We’re not going to read from it. And let’s see what he says.

DeFilippis wasn’t even supposed to read it!! But he ignored Cooper’s orders, issued minutes earlier, and predictably set off a firestorm.

After Mook left the stand, Judge Cooper acknowledged that the FBI paragraph shouldn’t have come in. He acknowledged that DeFilippis had used it as hearsay to admit it for the truth. Sussmann’s lawyer Michael Bosworth graciously pretended DeFilippis’ actions were not intentional.

THE COURT: All right. Please be seated. Just for the record, in addition to the 403 grounds for the last paragraph of the press statement, it’s also hearsay from Mr. Sullivan for the truth — or whether it’s being offered for the truth, certainly it’s likely to be received for the truth that the campaign wished the FBI to investigate or had some hand in the FBI investigation. So that section of the Tweet, consistent with the Court’s prior ruling, is inadmissible as hearsay as well.

MR. BERKOWITZ: Thank you, Your Honor. Just briefly?

THE COURT: Yes.

MR. BERKOWITZ: Mr. DeFilippis, I’m sure, didn’t intend it, but he gave him the unredacted Tweet to perhaps refresh his recollection. He read probably two sentences, and we would ask that you strike from the record his reading of that. I know that —

THE COURT: The Court will strike those two sentences, and we’ll specify it for the court reporter. And obviously let’s make sure that the redacted copy is included in the exhibits that go to the jury.

MR. DeFILIPPIS: Yes, we will, Your Honor.

But DeFilippis did more than “accidentally” give Mook the unredacted tweet! He also had him read it, which he had just been told not to do.

Worse still, the record shows that neither Mook nor Hillary would have known about this tweet. It surely had high level press involvement, but this was presented as the words of Hillary when it was explicitly anything but.

And this is precisely what Sussmann’s team warned would happen when, in a pretrial hearing, Cooper floated reversing his past decision to exclude the tweet.

So the more I sort of dug into each side’s sort of theories of relevance over the weekend as we finalized the last motions in limine ruling, which you obviously got, I thought I might revisit one issue. And that is the Clinton campaign press release from October, late October, I guess.

I provisionally ruled that that would not be admissible based on the submissions that you all made. And I ruled from the bench without really getting any argument on that issue. And my previous understanding was that it was being offered to show a direct attorney-client relationship between Mr. Sussmann and the campaign as well as potentially the effect on the listener under a hearsay exception.

But I guess my question, as I have thought more about this, given the sort of two competing theories of the case and two narratives laid out in the Court’s ruling on the motion in limine, is whether it is relevant not for the truth, but to show the campaign’s connection to the alleged public relations effort to play stories regarding the Alfa-Bank data with the press and that therefore it of context for the Government’s motive theory, that Mr. Sussmann sought to conceal that effort, as well campaign’s general connection to that effort.

So, Mr. Berkowitz, please address that if want.

MR. BERKOWITZ: Yes, your Honor. Thank you for raising the issue.

THE COURT: Yes. And I will also say that I’ve never introduced a tweet at a trial. And there are certain evidentiary issues with what a tweet is and who it is sent by. I would like to avoid those issues. But there is a separate press release, which I’m not quite sure I appreciated when I ruled from the bench a week and a half ago.

MR. BERKOWITZ: So let me try and address the contextualized issue, your Honor.

With respect to the campaign’s involvement or PR connection to the Alfa-Bank story, we expect there will be testimony or other evidence that ties that together. And I know that in your motion in limine ruling, you assumed without saying we conceded it that we were taking the position that Mr. Sussmann was not acting on behalf of Hillary for America.

We’re not going to be taking the position that he was not counsel for Hillary for America in connection with various efforts and communications; and we will obviously address that at trial. But I don’t know that the connection between the campaign and PR efforts, opposition research to get the story of Alfa-Bank out there is going to be something that’s in dispute.

And I would ask that you, as you think about this issue, which is somewhat inflammatory because it gets the candidate — it’s a month after; it’s a different newspaper issue; and there’s no connection between Mr. Sussmann and that tweet to suggest that he was involved in that or was otherwise doing it.

And so as what else is coming is more prejudicial relates to a number it’s evaluated, I think contextualizing into evidence, I think that that tweet than it would be probative. It also of other issues that you note from an evidentiary standpoint.

So we don’t think that the tweet itself for all the reasons in our motion, but also because it’s not — it would be cumulative, I think, of the other evidence related to whether there was a connection at the time about that. Without getting into too much work product or issues, there were updates to the campaign related to, for example, the possibility of a New York Times story coming out. And I think that that will be what’s relevant as opposed to the larger issue of, you know, whether they continue to try and press that after the meeting.

THE COURT: I appreciate that. But there were a couple double negatives in there.

MR. BERKOWITZ: Please correct me or ask me to refocus it.

THE COURT: Did I understand you to say that the defense will not be contesting that he was representing the campaign in connection with some of the media outreach that was going on?

MR. BERKOWITZ: Correct.

THE COURT: Mr. DeFilippis?

MR. DeFILIPPIS: Yes, your Honor. Let me just briefly say that I think it’s plain from the contents of the tweet and the press statements themselves that the Government is not offering those for their truth. So I think your Honor, it seems, agrees that they’re not hearsay. It’s more of a relevance/probity thing.

And while I don’t have it in front of me, your Honor, when you read the contents both of the press statement and the tweet, the thrust of them is the very culmination of Mr. Sussmann’s work and strategy, which was twofold: First, the strategy, as the Government will argue at trial, was to create news stories about this issue, about the Alfa-Bank issue; and second, it was to get law enforcement to investigate it; and perhaps third, your Honor, to get the press to report on the fact that law enforcement was investigating it.

And we see all three things there reflected in the tweet and in the press statement. It says something to the effect of, Donald Trump has a secret channel with Russia and the FBI should look into this or we trust that the FBI is looking into this.

That is highly probative, your Honor, because it is, as I said, the culmination of everything the Defendant was trying to do as he billed work to the campaign.

And we expect to call at least currently, your Honor, the campaign manager of the Hillary Clinton campaign, who will say this was a conscious decision. After being briefed specifically on Mr. Sussmann’s efforts, the campaign made a conscious decision, authorized at the very highest levels of the campaign, to share the Alfa-Bank allegations with the media.

THE COURT: Well, if that’s going to be the case, and he’s not contesting that he was representing the campaign in connection with that effort, isn’t the tweet cumulative? It’s icing on the cake. Right?

MR. DeFILIPPIS: I don’t think so, your Honor, only because we will not have, your Honor — we will not call reporters to the stand who will in fact confirm that the campaign spoke to the media. We will not — we will have essentially the testimony of a campaign official.
And then the only way to show, your Honor, how the campaign actually capitalized on what it was that Mr. Sussmann did in the media is to — and it’s a very limited — as your Honor knows, it’s not long. It’s not particularly or really at all prejudicial, your Honor, because the contents of it are essentially just the candidate and one of her advisors adopting the allegation that Mr. Sussmann has been working on.

So, your Honor, it’s really just context and the pure result of everything that Mr. Sussmann and the campaign were working on in this regard. And it’s not inflammatory. It simply states the allegation and it states that the campaign hopes the FBI’s looking into it.
We —

THE COURT: I’ll reserve on it. Let’s see how the evidence comes in. And just don’t open on it.

MR. DeFILIPPIS: Okay. Thank you, your Honor.

MR. BERKOWITZ: Your Honor, I was also asking permission to approach, but I guess I don’t need to here.

Mr. DeFilippis in describing the relevance focused on the portion of the tweet that was different than you or I were talking about, that calling on the FBI to investigate. That in and of itself in our — from our perspective suggests that they are offering the tweet for the truth of the matter, that that’s what the campaign desired and wanted and that it was a accumulation of the efforts.

Number one, it’s not the truth; and in fact, it’s the opposite of the truth. We expect there to be testimony from the campaign that, while they were interested in an article on this coming out, going to the FBI is something that was inconsistent with what they would have wanted before there was any press. And in fact, going to the FBI killed the press story, which was inconsistent with what the campaign would have wanted.

And so we think that a tweet in October after there’s an article about it is being offered to prove something inconsistent with what actually happened.

This jury is not sequestered. It would take a great deal of diligence to avoid the shit storm this set off.

There is no way to undo the damage that this will do to the trial. And it happened because DeFilippis ignored not one but two parts of Cooper’s order — first, that the reference to the FBI be redacted, and second, that it not be read.

And it’s clear from the record that this has been the plan all along, just like using a self-described non-expert at DNS to offer an opinion about DNS. The truth is it’s Durham’s team, not Hillary, that had the plan to set off an October Surprise by manipulating the press all along.

Worse still, while there are legal measures to take, even then that would not undo the damage. Anything Cooper does to correct his own poor decision and DeFilippis’ worse flouting of Cooper’s orders would be blamed on him being an Obama appointment, not the law, and only further fuel the firestorm.

Even as the record sits right now, I believe there’s a great deal from which the jury would find reasonable doubt to convict. Given where I think Sussmann’s team is going to go from here, I think chances are good they get an acquittal.

But the Durham team just succeeded in a desperate bid to win this case using hearsay. Because hearsay is all they’ve got.

Jim Baker’s Tweet and the Recidivist Foreign Influence Cheater

Thanks to those who’ve donated to help defray the costs of trial transcripts. Your generosity has funded the expected costs. If you appreciate the kind of coverage no one else is offering, we’re still happy to accept donations for this coverage — which reflects the culmination of eight months work. 

In my post on what prosecutors need to prove to win their case against Michael Sussmann, I noted they had to prove that:

  • Sussmann said the lie that they claim he did: that he affirmatively said he was not sharing the Alfa Bank allegations on behalf of a client
  • He said it on September 19, and not just on September 18
  • It was an intentional lie
  • It was material, meaning the alleged lie mattered to the operation of the FBI

I think the government has, in some ways, done best presenting their materiality arguments (but then, that’s the lowest bar). But even there, exhibits submitted at trial show that at least two of the key decision-makers on investigative issues had received a text referencing that this was a DNC report; Andrew DeFilippis speculated with one of the witnesses who received the text that it was a typo for DNS. And it appears, in multiple situations, people just assumed that Sussmann was at the FBI on behalf of the Hillary campaign, and took it into account. That said, Berkowitz got Baker — who was a key player in the Stellar Wind story that Eric Lichtblau held through an election in 2004 — to explain how important, from a national security perspective, it can be to hold certain stories.

And as I’ll show, Sussmann’s team may have something very special in store to make their materiality argument.

Regarding whether his statement that he was not there “on behalf of any client,” I think Sussmann has made a very good case that he meant his comment to Jim Baker on September 18 that he wanted to help the FBI. Both Marc Elias and Robbie Mook testified that sharing advance warning of a story they wanted to come out was the last they would have wanted or approved, because Jim Comey had done so much to damage the campaign. Particularly if Eric Lichtblau testifies, Sussmann will have a powerful story about all the damage that going to the FBI did to the campaign.

As to the other questions, they all go to Baker’s credibility on the stand.

I can’t say how the jury reacted, but I think prosecutors really didn’t do what they needed to do to prove that Sussmann repeated his comment about not meeting with Baker on behalf of any client and, then, hiding it when he helped the FBI kill the story later in the week. And Berkowitz did even more to show the changing nature of Baker’s statements about the meeting over time.

I did two long twitter threads on Sean Berkowitz’ cross-examination of Baker (Thursday night, Friday morning). I think Berkowitz achieved the following:

  • Used Baker to define “lie” as having an intention to deceive.
  • Made it clear that Baker reconstructed his understanding of his face-to-face meeting with Sussmann with the help of a chain of custody log that an FBI agent referring to the process called “doctored.” That’s going to provide Sussmann’s team a great metaphor to explain what Baker’s memory consists of.
  • Got Baker to suggest his memory of what happened on September 19 amounted to “words to that effect” of what has been charged.
  • Got Baker to agree that there’s at least a 25% chance Sussmann told him he had a client on September 21, which would be proof he wasn’t hiding a client.
  • Foregrounded the possibility that Baker could be prosecuted for his many inconsistent statements, including some that were made in 2018 and some that were made months ago. The statute of limitations on Baker’s inconsistent statements won’t expire until 2027.
  • Showed that Baker’s testimony on the stand was inconsistent with things he told Durham even in recent months; and Baker continues to not remember key details both of what happened on September 19 but also much more recently.
  • Showed that Baker’s reconstructed memory shifts at times from “that matter” (collecting the data) to the meeting itself; this is a reconstructed memory that can only come from prosecutors.
  • Demonstrated that Durham withheld at least three documents that could have “refreshed” Baker’s memory to believing Sussmann had told him he had a client.
  • Placed Durham in the room for some of the key sessions — including in Summer 2020, when Barr and Trump were pressuring Durham to show some results in time for the election — when Baker’s memory was “refreshed.”

Those threads were hard to write and I’m sure even more painful for people who are friends of one or both men to read. The story Berkowitz told was how, through the relentless grind of Republican blowhards and the Trump DOJ’s politicized investigations, Baker came to “remember” testimony that could put his friend, Sussmann, someone who had tried to get him a job when he was at a really bad point in his life, in prison.

There was no way out for Sussmann except to destroy his friend. And Berkowitz at least made it seem that Baker had believed there was no way out for him except to “refresh” his memory to match what Durham wanted.

I suspect it likely that Sussmann’s team will point out that Durham is choosing to prosecute just the people whose story doesn’t match the one that Durham wants to tell. It’s not just Baker whose testimony to Durham is inconsistent with provable facts, but Durham is not prosecuting any of the witnesses who are saying what he wants them to.

With all that as background I want to point to something subtle that I suspect will become part of that theme. Ostensibly to address materiality — Baker’s belief, one he shared with Congress in 2018 but contradicted under coaching by Durham on the stand — that if you have a national security tip you need to feel free to come to the FBI. Baker tweeted it out on June 13, 2019.

This would have been posted weeks after Durham was appointed, which — Baker testified — led Baker to expect he’d be under criminal investigation again.

Q. And you, sir, were aware that Mr. Baker was — I mean, Mr. Durham was reappointed as special counsel, correct, in or around 2019?

A. For this matter?

Q. yes.

A. yes.

Q. And when that happened, you were concerned, were you not?

A. Concerned about what?

Q. That Mr. Durham might come and investigate you more?

A. I wasn’t concerned about it. I expected it.

Q. All right. You expected to be investigated further by Mr. Durham. Correct?

A. Correct.

After having laid out how Baker had been investigated by Durham as part of a leak investigation for years, Berkowitz even introduced a text that Baker sent Ben Wittes the day after Durham was appointed saying, “now I get to be investigated for another year or two by John Durham. Lovely.”

But the tweet about going to the FBI wasn’t about Durham and it wasn’t random.

Rather, it was a response to something Trump said in an interview with George Stephanopoulos, between the time Mueller wrapped up his investigation, in part, of Trump’s request, “Russia, are you listening,” in 2016 and the time Trump asked Volodymyr Zelensky, “but first, I would like you to do us a favor.” On the same day Baker encouraged people to go to the FBI if they had evidence, ABC posted an interview in which Trump said,

“It’s not an interference, they have information — I think I’d take it,” Trump said. “If I thought there was something wrong, I’d go maybe to the FBI — if I thought there was something wrong. But when somebody comes up with oppo research, right, they come up with oppo research, ‘oh let’s call the FBI.’ The FBI doesn’t have enough agents to take care of it. When you go and talk, honestly, to congressman, they all do it, they always have, and that’s the way it is. It’s called oppo research.”

I’m not precisely sure how Sussmann’s team is going to use this tweet, beyond the materiality question, materiality about precisely this situation, whether someone should share information with the FBI after their opponent solicited help from a hostile foreign government.

But it sure seems to be evidence of more than just materiality.