Clinton campaign aides try to ‘protect the queen’ at ex-lawyer’s trial: legal expert
May 22, 2022
"Bombshell testimony that Hillary Clinton personally authorized giving a reporter since-debunked data about Donald Trump and Russia was part of a chess-like maneuver to “protect the queen,” a former US Justice Department official told The Post.
Jim Trusty said former Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook’s revelation Friday, which he quickly tried to walk back, actually meshed with other testimony in which Mook and former campaign general counsel Marc Elias both said they were unaware campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann planned to also provide the information to the FBI.
Both men said they would have objected to the move if they’d known.
“The strategy here is Protect the Queen!” Trusty said in an email."
“The Knights (lawyers for the campaign, the campaign manager) have drawn the line – admitting what they have to admit.”
Meanwhile, Mook and Elias also suggested that Clinton “was shocked, shocked by Sussmann going to the FBI,” said Trusty, now a Washington, DC, lawyer and Fox News contributor.
“Legal representation simply does not work that way. You don’t ‘free-lance’ a visit to the FBI while billing your client for the time,” he said.
“The defense is basically trying to provide a fig leaf to any partisan jurors who want to acquit.”
Former FBI agent Thomas J. Baker also told The Post, “Whether Sussmann is found guilty or innocent or otherwise, [special counsel John] Durham has already laid out, in my opinion, what these people were up to and what was going on.
“It paints a picture of Sussmann colluding with other people to drag the FBI into an investigation and besmirch a presidential candidate,” he said.
Sussmann is on trial in DC on a single count of lying to the government when he met with then-FBI general counsel James Baker on Sept. 19, 2016, and handed over material that purportedly showed a cyber backchannel between a Trump Organization server and Russia’s Alfa Bank.
He’s accused of falsely denying that he was acting on behalf of a client, with Durham alleging that Sussmann was actually working for both the Clinton campaign and Rodney Joffe, a tech executive who told him about the data.
Thomas Baker suggested that the case against Sussmann would be stronger if not for changes instituted by former FBI Director Robert Mueller following the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
“Moving away from being a law enforcement agency to an intelligence agency changed the culture,” he said.
“Part of it is they got rid of agent-executives and replaced them with so-called professionals, like James Baker.”
Thomas Baker said that if James Baker had been an FBI agent, he would have immediately summoned another agent to participate in the meeting with Sussmann and prepare an official report known as a “302.”
Former FBI general counsel James A. Baker, who received Alfa-Bank information from Michael Sussmann departs United States District Court.Former FBI general counsel James A. Baker, who received Alfa-Bank information from Michael Sussmann departs United States District Court.Ron Sachs – CNP
Instead, James Baker didn’t take any notes and left what Sussmann said open to question, he said.
Sauce/moar: https://nypost.com/2022/05/22/clinton-campaign-aides-try-to-protect-the-queen-at-sussmann-trial/