New Durham Filings: Clinton Attorney Sussmann Also Lied to CIA

Michael Sussmann, the former campaign lawyer for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential run who has been accused of lying to the FBI, also made false statements to agents with the CIA during a meeting after former President Donald Trump's inauguration, new filings from Special Counsel John Durham's team claim.

A CIA official's memo introduced by Durham's team said that on Feb. 9, 2017, Sussmann, spelled Sussman throughout,  met with CIA officers and provided thumb drives and documents that he said had information concerning Trump and links to activities with Russia, reports Fox News.

The document says Sussmann told the officers "he was not representing a particular client" but was providing information from unnamed "contacts" who he believed were acting in "good faith" and loyalty to the United States government. 

That contradicts what a former CIA employee said Sussmann told him: that he "represents a client who does not want to be known," according to notes of the meeting taken by the former employee.

Sussmann also had testified to the House Intelligence Committee that he received the information "from a client of mine."

The memo also indicated that another potentially false statement occurred concerning what Sussmann told the CIA in February about what he'd said to the FBI.

At that time, Sussmann told FBI general counsel James Baker that he had "time-sensitive" information, according to a text message that was recently disclosed. He also said in the text that he was coming to the FBI meeting "on my own" and "not on behalf of a client or company."

However, prosecutors said Sussmann had been directed by technology executive Rodney Joffe to deliver the message, and that Sussmann had billed the Clinton campaign for his work. 

That all leads to another potentially false statement made by Sussmann to the CIA officers about the meeting he'd had with the FBI. 

Sussmann told the CIA officers that he had been in contact with Baker on a "similar, though unrelated, matter."

Sussmann, meanwhile, testified during the congressional hearing that he had given his information to the FBI before he met with the CIA. 

This means, Durham's team said in its findings, that "in context, the defendant’s statement that he had provided the FBI with 'similar, though unrelated' allegations is false, or at best, misleading."

The CIA memo did say that Sussmann mentioned his law firm was involved with Democrat races including the Clinton race, but that the work was not related to the reasons he contacted the CIA. 

Sussmann's federal trial is scheduled to start on May 16 in Washington, D.C. 

In a separate filing, his attorneys argued that his statement to the CIA could not be included as part of the offense concerning the FBI, as it "was not made contemporaneously with the charged crime."

"In fact, it was made five months later, in different circumstances, to a different agency, in a way that conflicts with the Special Counsel’s theory that Mr. Sussmann lied to Mr. Baker to help Hillary Clinton win the election — because the election was long since over," Sussmann's team said. 

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