The Special Counsel Proved The FBI Belongs To The Swamp
By: Margot Cleveland
June 01, 2022
7 min read
‘The FBI is our institution that should not be used as a political tool for anyone; not Republicans, not Democrats, not anyone.’
Yesterday, after less than one full day of deliberations, a D.C. jury stacked with pro-Hillary Clinton jurors acquitted former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann, proving the FBI is not “ours” but the swamp’s.
Just more than two weeks ago, prosecutor Brittain Shaw began opening statements in United States v. Sussmann, by stating the obvious: “Some people have very strong feelings about politics and about Russia, and many people have strong feelings about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.”
“But we are not here because these allegations involve either of them,” Shaw continued. “Nor are we here because the defendant’s client was the Clinton campaign.” Rather, “we are here because the FBI is our institution that should not be used as a political tool for anyone; not Republicans, not Democrats, not anyone.”
But after hearing overwhelming evidence that Sussmann lied when he told the then-FBI General Counsel James Baker he was providing data and whitepapers about a supposed secret communications channel between Trump and the Russian-based Alfa Bank on his own behalf, when in fact Sussmann was representing both the Clinton campaign and tech executive Rodney Joffe, the 12 D.C. residents found Sussmann not guilty.
It was not the verdict, however, that confirmed that the FBI belongs to career bureaucrats, high-powered D.C. elites who revolve in and out of the government as political appointees, and the families and friends of all the above. Rather, it was the speed with which the acquittal came, coupled with the in-court testimony and other evidence exposed by the special counsel throughout the prosecution that proved the FBI isn’t America’s anymore.
After hearing from some 20 witnesses, all but a few testifying for the prosecution, the jury spent a couple of hours on Friday deliberating before the long Memorial Day weekend. Tuesday morning, the 12 jurors returned to the D.C. federal courthouse to continue deliberations. But after requesting to see a copy of Sussmann’s taxi receipt and one of the whitepapers Sussmann peddled to Baker, they delivered their verdict of “not guilty.”
In total, then, the jury did not even deliberate for a full day, which means not one of the 12 jurors pushed the other 11 to wade through the detailed evidence presented by the special counsel’s office. Who could blame them, though, if the government’s own witnesses registered more offense at Congress for investigating the Russia collusion hoax than they did at Sussmann for misleading the FBI.
Consider Baker, to whom Sussmann was charged with lying. The former FBI general counsel testified he was “100 percent confident” Sussmann said during their September 19, 2016 meeting that he was not representing a client. Baker also told the jury he likely wouldn’t have taken the meeting if he knew Sussmann represented the Clinton campaign.
Yet Baker blamed himself for throwing Sussmann “into a maelstrom” and expressed outrage at how the congressmen investigating the investigation into Trump and his campaign behaved when they questioned Baker about his meeting with Sussmann. Baker displayed not even a sliver of the same distress over his friend lying to him.
On the contrary, when asked why he had just discovered the text message Sussmann sent him the night before their meeting, in which Sussmann wrote, “I’m coming on my own – not on behalf of a client or company. [W]ant to help the Bureau,” Baker told prosecutors: “I’m not out to get Michael. This is not my investigation. This is your investigation. If you ask me a question, I answer it. You asked me to look for something, I go look for it.”