Clinton lawyer acquitted of lying to FBI

A federal jury in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday unanimously found Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, not guilty of lying to federal agents when he pushed rumors about connections between then-candidate Donald Trump and a Moscow bank. The trial, involving two weeks of arguments and nearly two days of jury deliberation, was the first brought by special counsel John Durham as a result of his investigation of an FBI probe into claims of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. That FBI probe ultimately found no collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia.

What was the Sussmann case about? The trial centered on a private meeting between Sussmann and former FBI general counsel James Baker. Texts show Sussmann asked to meet with Baker to leak data about secret communications between Russia-based Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization. Baker testified that Sussmann said he was speaking independently, not representing a client, even though he was engaged in extensive opposition research for the Clinton campaign at the time. Defense attorneys argued nobody could prove that Sussmann hid his connections, and they said the leak did not significantly affect the FBI’s investigation anyway. The FBI pursued Sussmann’s claim and found no links between Alfa Bank and Trump.

Dig deeper: From the WORLD archives, read Harvest Prude’s report on declassified FBI documents about the Russia probe.