The second day of witness testimony in the trial of Michael Sussmann for lying to the FBI was completed on Wednesday.  For a good recap of the granular aspects Techno Fog has a play-by-play SUMMARY HERE.

For CTH readers I want to focus on a point that is visible in the defense argument and challenging, insofar as it has not yet been revealed, in the prosecution position.   The issue surrounds why Rodney Joffe gave the Alfa-bank fraudulent information to Michael Sussmann instead of just giving it to the FBI himself.  {A Question Margot Cleveland posits here}

In the cross examination of the first set of prosecution witnesses the defense lawyers keep contending that Sussmann did not lie about the fraudulently created origin of the Alfa-Bank material and there was no reason for him not to tell the FBI he was a courier for the Clinton campaign.  The defense is essentially that Sussmann and the FBI knew he was working for the Clinton campaign when he delivered the fraudulent material.  Sussmann wasn’t trying to hide anything, ergo he didn’t lie.

Sussmann’s defensive point is essentially true.  The DOJ, FBI and everyone associated with the information knew they were receiving opposition research from the Clinton campaign.  However, the FBI had to pretend they didn’t know in order to use it to start an investigation.

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New York Times narrative engineer Charlie Savage is tweeting from within a packed media center at the E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse in Washington DC for the government case against Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann. [TWEET THREAD]  The mentions and notations, while skewed toward the self interest of media, give us a good insight into what is taking place in the courtroom.

First things first. All media reporting of this case will be done through the prism of their own cooperation in the perpetration of the fraud.  The MSM knew along with everyone else inside and outside of government, that their efforts to create the Trump-Russia conspiracy and collusion narrative were based on fraudulent pretext manufactured by the Clinton campaign.  They all knew it. They all acted collaboratively and they all engaged purposefully.

As noted by Charlie Savage, prosecutor Deborah Shaw, a member of the Durham team, delivered the opening remarks to frame the government position in the case.

The telling remarks came early: “Shaw addresses “the elephant in the room” – tells jury their feelings about Russia, Trump, Clinton can’t play a role in the case. This is about “our FBI” which should not be used as a tool by anyone, Republicans or Democrats.”  In essence, prosecutor Shaw is telling the jury the FBI were duped into the Trump-Russia conspiracy investigation by outsiders connected to the Clinton campaign.

That’s a critical baseline from the government we must understand and accept.  That baseline now indicates that none of the DOJ and FBI operatives involved in the fraudulent scheme will be held accountable by the Durham team.  “Our FBI should not be used as a tool by anyone,” yet they were, so sayeth the United States Government.

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In the second segment of the interview with Maria Bartiromo, Devin Nunes and Kash Patel discuss the trial of Michael Sussmann which begins tomorrow. {Direct Rumble Link}

Ultimately the issue in the Michael Sussmann trial is quite simple:

Did the DOJ and FBI know the material Michael Sussmann was giving them came from the Hillary Clinton campaign?

We all know the answer to that question, of course they did.  However, there has been –and continues to be– a game of grand pretense from the DOJ/FBI group where they pretend not to have known.

Two groups: the “insider group” (DOJ/FBI) and the “outsider group” (Perkins Coie, Fusion GPS, Clinton campaign, Sussmann, Elias, Mook, etc).

Claiming the DOJ and FBI were duped, is the government firewall that protects the inside group.  However, this claim is now against the interest of Michael Sussmann who has been accused of false representation and lying to the FBI about the provenance of the information he provided.

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Just a brief reminder as you review the decisions in the pre-trial motions for the case against Clinton Lawyer Michael Sussmann.

It is worth remembering that Judge Christopher Cooper is married to Amy Jeffries, Lisa Page’s lawyer.

(Foreground left) Lisa Page, FBI Lawyer, (Foreground right) Amy Jeffries (Judge Cooper’s wife)

Additionally, Judge Cooper and Michael Sussmann both worked in the DOJ together.  When he was selected as judge in the Sussmann trial, Cooper revealed the potential conflict of interest in the event the Durham prosecution wanted him to recuse himself from the case.  Special Prosecutor John Durham did not ask Judge Cooper to recuse himself.

September 2021 – The judge in the case of recently indicted Democratic lawyer Michael Sussmann is married to the lawyer who represented a disgraced former FBI official that worked on the Donald Trump Russia probe that Sussmann played some role in advancing. 

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper of the District of Columbia, who is presiding over the Sussmann case, is married to lawyer Amy Jeffress, who represented FBI lawyer Lisa Page in a civil case. 

Cooper, an Obama-appointee, and Jeffress, a former top aide to Attorney General Eric Holder, are well connected in the Democratic party. Current Attorney General Merrick Garland even presided over their 1999 wedding. (read more)

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With mostly wins and a few losses in the pre-trial evidentiary hearings for Special Counsel John Durham, the case against Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann is scheduled for trial next week.  Now the witness lists are coming forth.

WASHINGTON – […] Robby Mook, who managed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, Clinton campaign attorney Marc Elias and FBI counterintelligence leader Bill Priestap and former top FBI lawyer James Baker are among those called as government witnesses, said prosecutor Andrew DeFilipiis. (link)

Additionally, Laura Seago, a top tech official at research firm Fusion GPS (she has immunity in exchange for testimony); Deborah Fine, a Clinton campaign lawyer; and a CIA official identified as Kevin B are also on the prosecution list.

[…] Defense attorneys unveiled their own high-powered witness list. It includes Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, former acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord and Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau. (read more)

Depending on preset Perkins Coie leverage and risk exposure, other officials from deep inside the DOJ/FBI small group operation may also be forced to stand as defense witnesses by Sussmann’s team.  The lawfare combat teams look interesting. (more…)

Another significant filing by John Durham’s special counsel team to the court was made last night.  {READ HERE} Within the filing the staff accidentally did not seal the attachments which are emails between Fusion GPS and many major media outlets.  Whoops.

♦ First, the background.  In a previous liable lawsuit by Alfa Bank against Fusion GPS, the Russian bank was able to get the internal emails between Fusion GPS and major media outlets as part of the lawsuit discovery phase.  Despite the lawsuit failing to advance, those prior emails now become evidence for John Durham to use in the case against Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann.

Michael Sussmann, a Perkins Coie lawyer, is accused of lying to the FBI about who he was working for when Sussmann was trying to push the Trump-Russia collusion story to trigger an investigation.  Former FBI legal counsel James Baker has said Sussmann told the FBI he was operating independently as a concerned citizen.  However, Sussmann is defending himself by saying: (a) he never said he was not working for Clinton at the time he brought the FBI the material, a demonstrable falsehood; and (b) he was motivated by altruism, unrelated to efforts to help Clinton, another demonstrable falsehood.

As the case has proceeded all of the parties are now claiming legal and work product ‘privileges’ to stop Durham from using their communication and networked conspiracy against Michael Sussmann, and by extension them, in court.  Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie, Marc Elias, Michael Sussmann, Hillary for America (Clinton campaign), Robby Mook (Campaign Manager), along with Tech-Executive-1 Rodney Joffe, are all claiming some form of privilege.

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In the discussions surrounding John Durham’s investigation, eventually conversations end up sounding like Charlie Brown’s teacher.  Blah, blah, blah, – blah, bla, blah blah. This interview is a case study. However, in the interest of fairness for those retaining hope that John Durham is going to deliver accountability, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe whips up a batch of hopium.

Video prompted to 09:40 where the subject of the latest court filings by John Durham surfaces.  Ratcliffe is optimistic that John Durham intends to charge more characters from the Clinton group with a “conspiracy to commit fraud” against the government.  WATCH

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In a very late-night filing by Special Counsel John Durham {pdf HERE}, in the case against former Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann, the special counsel gives the most detailed construct of the “joint venture” between the Clinton team and allies to fabricate a Russian Collusion Conspiracy Theory against Donald Trump in 2016.

As we have noted, Durham is focused on the people outside government who fabricated information and triggered years of false accusations against Donald Trump, which ultimately included the creation of a special counsel, Robert Mueller.

John Durham has not touched any of the players inside government within any of his filings, with the exception of former FBI legal counsel James “Jim” Baker, who is a witness and gave testimony for three days to a grand jury. Durham will not touch anyone inside government [fn¹].

Durham is focused on who, how and why they originated the Trump-Russia lies, and whether any laws were broken as they pushed those lies into government institutions which created four years of crisis for the government and former President Trump.  Within this filing, Durham focuses on the “joint venture”, or what can be described as a conspiracy to manufacture and/or defraud the government.

I have tried to put clarity on the filing by outlining who/what the terms are. DETAILS:

As you can see, the filing speaks for itself in outlining the origination of the conspiracy. Durham continues….

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The metaphorical Jack had a great idea, open a coffee shop where the beverages were free and use internal advertising as the income subsidy to operate the business.  Crowds came for the free coffee, comfy couches, fellowship, conversation and enjoyment.

It didn’t matter where Jack got the coffee, how he paid for it, or didn’t, or what product advertising the customers would be exposed to while there.  Few people thought about such things.  Curiously, it didn’t matter what size the crowd was; in the backroom of Jack’s Coffee Shop they were able to generate massive amounts of never-ending free coffee at extreme scales.

Over time, using the justification of parking lot capacity and township regulations, not everyone would be able to park and enter.  Guards were placed at the entrance to pre-screen customers. A debate began.

Alternative coffee shops opened around town.  It was entirely possible to duplicate Jacks Coffee Shop, yet no one could duplicate the business model for the free coffee.  Indeed, there was something very unique about Jack’s Coffee Shop.  Thus, some underlying suspicions were raised:

The only way Twitter, with 217 million users, could exist as a viable platform is if they had access to tech systems of incredible scale and performance, and those systems were essentially free or very cheap.  The only entity that could possibly provide that level of capacity and scale is the United States Government – combined with a bottomless bank account.  A public-private partnership.

If my hunch is correct, Elon Musk is poised to expose the well-kept secret that most social media platforms are operating on U.S. government tech infrastructure and indirect subsidy.  Let that sink in.

The U.S. technology system, the assembled massive system of connected databases and server networks, is the operating infrastructure that offsets the cost of Twitter to run their own servers and database.  The backbone of Twitter is the United States government.

FREE COFFEE:

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CTH begins every outline of the ongoing Durham investigation with the following disclaimer:  How is John Durham going to reveal everything that is possible about the deep state Trump targeting operation, and simultaneously handle the involvement of Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann and the Special Counsel team who were specifically appointed to cover it up?

Thanks to a more detailed filing by John Durham last night {pdf here, h/t Techno}, we can now see the guardrails, rules and general direction the prosecution is taking.

In essence, the underlying Trump-Russia conspiracy theory material from the Clinton campaign, via Rodney Joffe to Michael Sussmann, was fabricated – likely for a dual purpose:

(A) to coverup and make excuses for the stunningly embarrassing, potentially unlawful and politically terrible April 2016 DNC email leaks, which showed the DNC Club internally working to secure the nomination for Hillary Clinton, while trying to destroy her primary opponent, Bernie Sanders.

and

(B) to create the political Russia narrative against Trump, to be deployed later in the general election.

Within the general direction Durham is following, the FBI was duped by a purposeful and manipulative intent from the Clinton campaign.  Meanwhile, the CIA [Agency-2] did not buy into the technological evidence saying it was not “technically plausible” and was “user created and not machine/tool generated.”   (more…)