>A federal judge has rejected a motion by attorney Michael Sussmann to strike certain information from Special Counsel John Durham's February court filing.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/judge-denies-clinton-campaign-lawyers-bid-to-strike-durham-snooping-revelations
Judge denies Clinton campaign lawyer's bid to strike Durham snooping revelations
A federal judge presiding over the case against Democratic cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann denied the defendant’s efforts to strike information revealed last month by special counsel John Durham regarding a debunked narrative of a secret link between former President Donald Trump and Russia.
Still, Christopher Cooper, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who heard arguments in the high-profile case Thursday, also criticized the prosecutor running the politically charged inquiry into the origins and conduct of the Russia investigation for his team's filing that led to a new round of spying accusations by Trump and his allies.
Sussmann was indicted last year on charges of allegedly concealing his clients, including Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, from the FBI when he pushed since-debunked claims of a secret backchannel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank. He has pleaded not guilty.
In February, Durham said he had evidence showing that Sussmann’s other client, known to be former Neustar executive Rodney Joffe, “exploited” domain name system internet traffic at Trump Tower, Trump’s Central Park West apartment building, and the Executive Office of the President of the United States. That information came in an explosive motion related to potential conflicts of interest within the Sussmann defense team. In response, Sussmann's team filed a motion to strike those allegations from the federal court record, saying Durham’s filing was overbroad and irrelevant.
The prosecution and defense argued their positions on this matter Thursday before the judge.
“I extend the presumption of good faith to all counsel, especially government counsel," Cooper said, adding, “For that and other reasons, I’m not going to strike from the record. First, I’m not in a position to assign ill motives. Second, much if not all of the challenged material will likely be coming out anyway. And finally, whatever effect the filing has had has passed, and striking it will not un-ring the bell and probably will make the bell ring even louder.”
But Cooper added, “I agree with the defense that it was not necessary for me, let alone Mr. Sussmann, to understand the potential conflicts. … I didn’t need any of that ancillary information to do that. … So I don’t understand why the information was included.”
Durham had said in October that Joffe “exploited his own company’s access to the sensitive internet data of a high-ranking executive branch office of the U.S. government, both before and after the Presidential election." Based on the February filing, that office appears to be the aforesaid EOP, suggesting the snooping on Trump continued through at least the presidential transition period.
Cooper, appointed to the federal bench by former President Barack Obama, says he and Sussmann were “professional acquaintances” in the 1990s when they both worked at the Justice Department. In another twist, the judge’s wife represents former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, though Durham’s team never raised the subject to push for a recusal.
Andrew DeFilippis, a prosecutor on Durham's special counsel team, pushed back against the defense’s efforts Thursday, saying, “We believe that the relief being sought here, which would be to strike facts from the public record that sit at the core of the government’s case, would be unprecedented. It’s not supported by the law cited in the defendant’s brief.”
The judge asked why the motion was even necessary.
“The reason we put it in the motion that we did was simply because we just wanted to be extra careful to create a factual record basis for the conflicts,” DeFilippis said, adding, “So we just thought it was important for the record and for Your Honor, frankly, to understand the facts that underlie these potential conflicts.”
Sussmann's defense lawyer Sean Berkowitz retorted, “We wish the special counsel had sent us a draft of the motion — we could’ve vetted this and discussed it and at least done something that wouldn’t have resulted in what were inflammatory press results and things of that nature.” He called these “ancillary issues,” which the defense did not want vetted in a “public setting.”
“This particular dustup strikes me as a sideshow, in a sense. … I understand the need for a factual record … But the factual record could’ve been a consent motion agreed to by both sides, and we could’ve done it in 20 minutes in a status conference,” Cooper ultimately said Thursday. “As to the relevance of the contested material in the factual record, the circumstances surrounding how Mr. Sussmann acquired the information that he conveyed to Mr. Baker … or why Tech Executive-1 had access to the underlying data in the first place, that may well go to the question of who Mr. Sussmann was representing at that meeting.”
Sussmann’s lawyers argued last month that Durham’s filing included false and irrelevant allegations "plainly intended to politicize this case, inflame media coverage, and taint the jury pool.” The lawyers accused Durham of "provocatively and misleadingly" describing the internet traffic potentially associated with Trump and insisted that Sussmann only provided the agency believed to be the CIA with data from before Trump took office.
Lawyers for David Dagon, a Georgia Tech data scientist who allegedly worked with Joffe, said "the cybersecurity researchers were investigating malware in the White House, not spying on the Trump campaign, and to our knowledge, all of the data they used was nonprivate DNS data from before Trump took office.”
A spokesperson for Joffe said the technology executive "legally provided access to DNS data obtained from a private client that separately was providing DNS services to the Executive Office of the President."
Durham stood by his filing shortly thereafter, arguing his reasons for including the information were “valid” and that any media misinterpretations do not “undermine” the facts.
“This court should deny the defendant’s motion,” Durham wrote in a filing last month, adding, “If third parties or members of the media have overstated, understated, or otherwise misinterpreted facts contained in the government’s motion, that does not in any way undermine the valid reasons for the government’s inclusion of this information.”
Cooper said Thursday that much of the “challenged material” would have come out in other motions or during the trial, so he didn’t see a good reason for Durham to have done it at the time that he did.
The judge said, “Until we swear a jury in this case, you folks have an audience of one — and it’s me,” telling DeFilippis that “your pleadings in this case are under a microscope.”
The prosecutor said he “fully understood.”
“Given how much publicity the filings generated … is there anything that you would like to say to clarify the record or correct the record?” Cooper asked Durham’s team Thursday.
“Your Honor, at this stage, I would say no,” DeFilippis replied. “The reason for that being if we worried on all sides about how the press or members of the press would interpret or misinterpret what we said, we don’t want to enter that game of correcting interpretations that are out there. We are being very careful to be accurate with the court. … We think everything we put in the motion was accurate.”
The filing by Durham's team last month that generated a great deal of media attention pointed to the 2021 indictment of Sussmann, alleging that Joffe “exploited his access to non-public and/or proprietary Internet data" and tasked researchers to mine internet data to establish “an inference” and “narrative” tying then-candidate Trump to Russia. Durham said Joffe indicated he was doing this to please certain “VIPs” at Perkins Coie and on the Clinton campaign.
The special counsel said Sussmann claimed in 2017, to the federal agency identified as the CIA, that data he had access to “demonstrated that Trump and/or his associates were using supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the vicinity of the White House and other locations.” Durham emphasized that he found "no support for these allegations.”
The Alfa Bank allegations began to emerge publicly in the closing weeks of the 2016 election, with Clinton and Jake Sullivan, then a Clinton campaign adviser and now President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, pushing Russia collusion claims on Halloween in the days before the contest.
Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department's inspector general, said in December 2019 that the FBI "concluded by early February 2017 that there were no such links” between Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization.
>Sussmann was indicted last year on charges of allegedly concealing his clients, including Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, from the FBI when he pushed since-debunked claims of a secret backchannel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank.
>The Alfa Bank allegations began to emerge publicly in the closing weeks of the 2016 election, with Clinton and Jake Sullivan, then a Clinton campaign adviser and now President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, pushing Russia collusion claims on Halloween in the days before the contest.
>Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department's inspector general, said in December 2019 that the FBI "concluded by early February 2017 that there were no such links” between Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization.
In 1968, Herman Kahn would be asked by a reporter what they do at the Hudson Institute. He would say, “We take God’s view. The President’s view. Big. Aerial. Global. Galactic. Ethereal. Spatial. Overall. Megalomania is the standard occupational hazard.” This was reportedly followed by Herman Kahn rising out of his chair, pointing his finger towards the sky and suddenly shouting out: ‘Megalomania, zoom!'”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Global_Leaders#Members_and_alumni
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-durham-filing-illegal-spying-allegation-misses-the-mark-2022-2
What you need to know about the John Durham filing that Trumpworld is fuming over
"The Special Counsel is well aware that the data provided to (the CIA) pertained only to the period of time before Mr. Trump took office, when Barack Obama was President," they wrote in their court filing, accusing Durham of intentionally crafting a misleading narrative.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-09/sanctioned-russian-billionaires-resign-from-alfa-bank-owner
Sanctioned Russian Billionaires Resign From Alfa-Bank Owner
>Sanctioned Russian Billionaires Resign From Alfa-Bank Owner
Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, two of the billionaires behind investment firm LetterOne, have resigned from the owner of one of Russia’s biggest banks in the fallout from the war in Ukraine.
Fridman, 57, and Aven, 66, stepped down as directors of Alfa-Bank parent ABH Holdings, according to a March 3 registry filing, days after the European Union imposed sanctions on the pair.
LetterOne Chairman Mervyn Davies, 69, and UniCredit SpA executive Andrea Maffezzoni, 49, resigned the following day from Luxembourg-based ABH, which is partly owned by the Italian bank and counts Fridman as its largest shareholder with a 33% stake. LetterOne shareholder Andrei Kosogov, 60, also resigned as an ABH director in a filing Monday.
A representative for Milan-based UniCredit declined to comment, while a spokesperson for ABH didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Aven, who owns 12.4% of ABH, and Ukraine-born Fridman have resigned from the board of Luxembourg-based LetterOne following the EU sanctions. The pair have called the measures “malicious” and said they plan to fight them. Fridman and Aven are worth $9.9 billion and $5.5 billion, respectively, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The EU and countries including the U.S. have also imposed sanctions on Alfa-Bank, one of Fridman’s and Aven’s largest assets. They share control of the lender with fellow Russian billionaires Kosogov, Alexei Kuzmichev and German Khan, who announced their resignations from LetterOne Monday in a statement. None of the three has been sanctioned by any nation or organization.
UniCredit received a roughly 10% stake in Alfa-Bank’s owner in exchange for ABH taking control in 2016 of the Italian lender’s Ukrainian unit. ABH had $73 billion in total assets and more than 40,000 employees at the end of 2020, filings show.
https://lawgov.org/litigation/skadden-nelson-mullins-drop-alfa-bank-election-interference-suit-amid-pressure-over-russian-clients/
Skadden, Nelson Mullins Drop Alfa Bank Election Interference Suit Amid Pressure Over Russian Clients
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough have dropped a lawsuit on behalf of a Russian bank that sought information about efforts to tie the bank to the Trump Organization ahead of the 2016 election.
The move to drop the suit comes as major law firms face growing pressure to dump clients with ties to the Kremlin amid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and the raft of sanctions Western governments have imposed on Moscow in response.
Skadden and Nelson Mullins represented Alfa Bank, one of the largest financial institutions in Russia, which was at the center of sensational allegations surrounding Russian election interference during the 2016 campaign. The claims have now come under renewed scrutiny by Special Counsel John Durham, who is examining the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation.
Alfa Bank published a one-sentence notice dated March 4, published online Wednesday, voluntarily dropping the lawsuit. Days before on Feb. 18, the bank’s lawyers asked a judge to give them more time to investigate the identity of the defendants, a request the judge granted.
Skadden litigation attorneys Margaret Krawiec and Michael McIntosh backed Alfa Bank in the lawsuit along with Terrance “T.W.” Anderson Jr. and Jonathan Etra at Nelson Mullins. Representatives for both firms did not return requests for comment.
The suit, which was filed in June 2020 in state court in Palm Beach County, Florida, alleged that Alfa Bank was the victim of “deliberate, malicious and damaging cyber activity” before and after the 2016 election to falsely tie the bank to Trump and his campaign. Hackers used spoof emails to create the illusion that Alfa Bank servers were communicating with servers at the Trump organization, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit did not identify the “cyberattackers,” but the bank has issued several rounds of subpoenas since 2020 in an attempt to locate them. The judge gave a 120-day extension to the bank’s lawyers following a Feb. 23 hearing, according to court documents.
The suit alleged that the manipulated data was discovered by cyber-researchers and eventually turned over to the news media and the FBI, which was conducting a highly publicized investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign. The internet data was held up as evidence of communication between the Trump Organization and a bank with purported close ties to the Kremlin.
But the FBI later discounted that evidence and it was not mentioned in Special Counsel Robert Mueller III’s report on Russia’s interference campaign.
The allegations, however, have recently received renewed attention from Durham’s probe, which is scrutinizing the origins of the FBI’s Russia investigation. Durham has charged former Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann for allegedly lying to the FBI when he presented evidence of the Alfa Bank-Trump Organization connection to the bureau in a meeting before the 2016 election.
Sussmann allegedly told the FBI that he was not working on behalf of a client, when he was in fact representing both Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and a technology executive who was paying the team of researchers that uncovered the Alfa Bank data, according to Durham’s indictment.
Sussmann has denied the allegations and a trial is scheduled to begin in May.
In recent months, Alfa Bank’s legal team has aggressively pursued discovery to find the identity of the hackers who allegedly tricked the bank into communicating with the Trump Organization.
But after Russian troops stormed across the Ukrainian border late last month, Big Law has scrambled to sever ties with clients linked to the Russian government and closed their Moscow offices en masse.
The U.S. and Europe have moved to isolate the Russian financial industry since the invasion, including placing new restrictions on Alfa Bank, though the sanctions are not as severe as those imposed on banks owned by the Russian Federation.
>'The Godfather' bridged old and new Hollywood to save American moviegoing
it's beautiful
Arena Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ARNA) rose 1.1% in after-hours trading after a Nasdaq delisting notice indicated the company's last trading day would be Thursday due to the completion of its sale to Pfizer Inc (NYSE:PFE).
The merger is tentatively scheduled to close prior to the market open on Friday, according to the Nasdaq delisting notice. In anticipation of the closing, the stock will be halted following the after-hours session at 8 p.m. on Thursday.
The notice comes after a Dealreporter story on Monday said Arena's planned $100/share sale to Pfizer Inc. (PFE) won't require a longer review from the Federal Trade Commission. The waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) act for the deal is expected to expire on Wednesday without a second request from the FTC. The shares gained 5.4% in trading on Tuesday following the story.
The FTC nod is important as it's the last remaining regulatory approval needed to clear the $6.7B acquisition before it can close.
>Arena Pharmaceuticals
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arena_Pharmaceuticals
https://www.arenapharm.com/