On Thursday, the federal judge overseeing former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann’s case denied his motion to “strike” the “factual background” section of Special Counsel John Durham’s February filing.
Sussmann’s legal team asked the court last month to “strike” portions of Durham’s Feb. 11 filing, including the “Factual Background” section, claiming it would “taint” a jury pool.
“I’m not going to strike anything from the record,” said U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Christopher Cooper during a status hearing on Thursday.”Whatever effect the filing has had has already passed.”
Durham claimed in a Feb. 11 filing with the “Factual Background” in question that Sussmann provided two U.S. government agencies with information from a tech executive attempting to link Donald Trump, who was running for president at the time, to Russia-based Alfa Bank.
Rodney Joffe has since been identified as the tech executive.
Joffe’s name is not mentioned in Durham’s filing, and he has not been charged with any crime.
Sussmann, Joffe, and Joffe’s associates, according to Durham, “exploited” internet traffic about a “specific healthcare provider,” Trump Tower, Trump’s Central Park West apartment building, and the Executive Office of the President of the United States in order to “establish ‘an inference’ and ‘narrative'” linking Trump to Russia.
According to Durham, Sussmann’s “billing records show” that he “repeatedly billed the Clinton campaign for his work” on the Alfa Bank allegations.
In its motion to “strike” the allegations, Sussmann’s legal team stated that Durham had “done more than simply file a document identifying potential conflicts of interest.”
“Rather, the special counsel has made another filing in this case that includes prejudicial — and false — allegations that are irrelevant to his motion and to the charged offense, and are clearly intended to politicize this case, inflame media coverage, and taint the jury pool,” Sussmann’s lawyers said.
While denying Sussmann’s motion to strike, Judge Cooper appeared to criticize the prosecution on Thursday, saying the latest “dust-up” strikes him as “a sideshow.”
Sussmann allegedly told then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016, less than two months before the 2016 presidential election, that he was not doing work “for any client” when he requested and held a meeting in which he presented “purported data and ‘white papers’ that allegedly demonstrated a covert communications channel” between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, which has ties to the Kremlin.
Sussmann has also filed a motion to dismiss the case entirely.
