USA 2020 Elections: Thread

[grarpamp]

FBI Lawyer Admits Knowing Clinton Was Behind Trump Allegations Would
Have Changed Things

https://www.theepochtimes.com/fbi-lawyer-knowing-clinton-was-behind-trump-allegations-would-have-changed-things_4478501.html

The FBI lawyer who served as a conduit for flimsy allegations against
Donald Trump said May 19 he would have acted differently if he knew
Trump’s rival for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, was behind the
claims.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during an event in
New York on Feb. 17, 2022. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

James Baker, who now works for Twitter, said that he likely would not
have have met with Michael Sussmann, who is accused of passing on data
that allegedly linked Trump’s business to a Russian bank, if he knew
Sussmann was acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign.

“I don’t think I would have,” Baker said on the stand in federal court
in Washington.

Knowing Trump’s opponent was behind the allegations “would have raised
very serious questions, certainly, about the credibility of the
source” and the “veracity of the information,” Baker said. It would
also have heightened “a substantial concern in my mind about whether
we were going to be played.”

The testimony bolsters a key piece of special counsel John Durham’s
case against Sussmann—that knowing the sources propelling Sussmann to
meet with Baker would have altered how the FBI analyzed the
information, which the bureau ultimately found did not substantiate
the claims of a secret backchannel between the Trump Organization and
Alfa Bank.

“Absent Sussmann’s false statement, the FBI might have taken
additional or more incremental steps before opening and/or closing an
investigation,” prosecutors said in Sussmann’s indictment, which
charged him with lying to the FBI.

Defense lawyers have argued that the impact of Sussmann’s alleged lie
was “trivial or negligible.”

Sussmann met Baker in the FBI lawyer’s office on Sept. 19, 2016, just
weeks before the presidential election. No other persons were present.

Baker said Thursday that would not have been the case if he knew the
Clinton campaign’s involvement. He said he likely would have directed
Sussmann to other FBI personnel—bureau lawyers don’t typically receive
information—or would have still met with Sussmann, but made sure other
personnel were present.

“I was willing to meet with Michael alone because I had high
confidence in him and trust,” said Baker, who has described Sussmann
as a friend. “I think I would have made a different assessment if he
said he had been appearing on behalf of a client.”
Michael Sussmann arrives at federal court in Washington on May 18,
2022. (Teng Chen/The Epoch Times)

Sussmann told Baker in a text message the night before the meeting
that he had sensitive information he wanted to pass on but that he was
doing so on his own accord, not on behalf of any clients. Baker
testified that Sussmann repeated the lie during the meeting. Sussmann
later told a congressional panel that the information was given to him
by a client.

“I think it’s most accurate to say it was done on behalf of my
client,” Sussmann said, apparently referring to Rodney Joffe, a
technology executive who has said he was promised a position in the
government if Clinton won the election.

While Sussmann, Joffe, and others worked on the white papers that he
ultimately passed to Baker, the lawyer was billing the Clinton
campaign, according to billing records. Sussmann also told the
campaign about the allegations before he met with Baker, though the
campaign allegedly did not approve the meeting.

Sussmann was well-known to the FBI, having worked with the bureau on
multiple cases, including the alleged hack of Democratic National
Committee servers. Sussmann “had a vibrant national security practice
that had contact with the FBI a lot,” Baker said. Sussmann worked for
Perkins Coie, which was the Clinton campaign’s law firm during the
2016 election, and has a long history of working with Democrats.

On cross-examination, Sean Berkowitz, representing Sussmann, hammered
Baker over inconsistencies in his testimony and what he’s said before.

Baker, for instance, told the Department of Justice Office of
Inspector General in 2019 that Sussmann said he had information
stemming from “people that were his clients.” Baker said he was using
a “shorthand way” of describing the cyberexperts with whom Sussman was
working.

In 2018, testifying to a House of Representatives panel behind closed
doors, Baker said he couldn’t remember whether he knew at the time
that Baker was representing the Clinton campaign. “I don’t know that I
had that in my head when he showed up in my office,” Baker said at the
time.

“I just find that unbelievable that the guy representing the Clinton
campaign, the Democrat National Committee, shows up with information
that says we got this, and you don’t ask where he got it, you didn’t
know how he got it,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) responded.

“I was uncomfortable with being in the position of having too much
factual information conveyed to me, because I’m not an agent. And so I
wanted to get the information into the hands of the agents as quickly
as possible and let them deal with it. If they wanted to go interview
Sussmann and ask him all those kinds of questions, fine with me,”
Baker said.

According to Baker’s testimony and previous remarks from Sussmann, no
agents ended up asking those kinds of questions.