Posted on 05/20/2022 6:52:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
James Baker’s testimony yesterday in United States v. Sussmann proved devasting to the former Clinton campaign attorney both in substance and in circumstance.
Former FBI General Counsel James Baker felt responsible for dragging his friend Michael Sussmann “into a maelstrom,” yet remained “100 percent confident” that Sussmann had claimed, when providing Baker the Alfa Bank “intel,” that he was not there “on behalf of any particular client.” Baker’s testimony yesterday in United States v. Sussmann proved devasting to the former Hillary Clinton campaign attorney both in substance and in circumstance.
The indictment charged Sussmann with violating Section 1001 of the federal criminal code by telling Baker he was passing on the Alfa Bank information as a concerned citizen, not on behalf of any client, when in fact Sussmann represented both the Clinton campaign and tech executive Rodney Joffe. Earlier this week, during opening arguments, Sussmann’s legal team told the jury that prosecutors would be unable to establish what Sussmann actually said to Baker and would fail to prove the alleged lie “mattered.”
Yesterday, Baker proved Sussmann’s high-powered Latham and Watkins’ attorneys wrong when the former FBI general counsel testified he was “100 percent confident” that Sussmann had denied acting “on behalf of any particular client” during their September 19, 2016 meeting. “My memory on this point, sitting here today, is clear,” Baker told the jury.
Sussmann made the comments “pretty close to the beginning of the meeting,” Baker explained, noting it was “part of his introduction to the meeting.” Sussmann would go on to provide Baker with two thumb drives and several whitepapers, which Baker said Sussmann explained concerned “an apparent surreptitious communications channel between Alfa-Bank, which he described as being connected to the Kremlin in Russia, and some part of the Trump Organization in the U.S.”
Besides attesting to his 100 percent confidence level in what Sussmann had said, Baker explained to the jury his apparent earlier equivocation about Sussmann’s representations. When asked by lead prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis about his congressional testimony in which he appeared not to remember Sussmann’s statements, Baker told the jury he had not prepared for questions about his meeting with Sussmann and had not refreshed his memory at the time.
The transcript of his House testimony confirms that the congressional hearing’s focus concerned the Christopher Steele dossier and not Sussmann or the Alfa Bank hoax. Baker’s full testimony reveals he was a witness caught off-guard by a topic and attempting to recall the events while being peppered with questions.
Baker further testified on Thursday that “it wasn’t until Durham’s investigators began ‘homing in’ on meeting with Sussmann in June 2020 that he thought in detail about what Sussmann said about not having a client.”
A jury is likely to find Baker’s explanation believable given Baker’s belated discovery of a text message Sussmann sent to Baker the night before the September 19, 2016 meeting. “I’m coming on my own – not on behalf of a client or company. [W]ant to help the Bureau,” the text from Sussmann to Baker read.
Baker’s Thursday testimony also helped seal a second substantive point being challenged by Sussmann’s defense: the government’s claim that Sussmann’s alleged lie “mattered.”
As a matter of law, a lie must “matter,” or in legalese be “material,” for it to constitute a Section 1001 offense. To be material, the lie must be “capable of influencing a decision” of the government actor. While Sussmann’s legal team has told the jury that Sussmann’s alleged statement did not matter even if false, in his testimony yesterday, Baker explained several ways in which the lie “influenced a decision” of the FBI.
First, Baker testified that he would not have taken the private meeting with Sussmann if he knew Sussmann was working on behalf of the Clinton team. Next, Baker explained he had “vouched” for Sussmann, telling top FBI counterintelligence agents that Sussmann was a serious lawyer “who could understand the importance and validity of the information,” based on his belief that Sussmann was acting as a concerned citizen. The former FBI general counsel further explained that because Sussmann had brought the information to him supposedly on his own behalf, he treated Sussmann as a sensitive confidential human source and protected his identity from other agents investigating the data.
On cross-examination, Sussmann’s legal team challenged Baker’s testimony and attacked his memory. But the defense is unlikely to leave a mark on Baker’s credibility, and not merely because of Baker’s 100 percent confidence in the substance of his testimony. Rather, it is the circumstances under which Baker testified that render him untouchable.
Baker testified that he considered Sussmann both a friend and a colleague. When asked why he had not previously provided the special counsel with the damning text Sussmann sent him the evening before their September 19, 2016 meeting, Baker told the prosecutor (and the jury):
“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. To the best of my recollection, nobody had asked me to go look for this material. I had not recalled that he had texted me until I saw this text in March.”
Baker’s answer conveyed to the jury much more than an explanation for why he had only recently provided prosecutors with the Sussmann text: His response told the jury he is a reluctant witness, and that reality is much more damaging to the defense than Baker’s assertion of 100 percent confidence in his memory.
The jury is unlikely to forget that point because, in one of the few unforced errors coming from Sussmann’s legal team, defense attorney Sean Berkowitz made the mistake of highlighting the fact that Baker is a reluctant witness testifying against his friend.
In cross-examining Baker, who had earlier told the jury that testifying before Congress “was terrible” and “sucked at multiple levels,” Berkowitz asked Baker whether testifying against his friend Sussmann was also a “terrible” experience.
“This is more orderly,” Baker replied, reportedly pointing to his chair, “It’s terrible, but orderly.”
Sussmann’s legal team is unlikely to repeat that mistake today when it finishes its cross-examination of Baker, but the jury is also unlikely to forget Baker’s words—and the special counsel is unlikely to let them.
Baker back on the stand now
Defense up
Live thread
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4064524/posts?page=51
> Baker told the jury he had not prepared for questions about his meeting with Sussmann and had not refreshed his memory at the time.
i.e. he hadn’t got the story straight yet. This is yet another modified limited hangout.
Let’s see, one juror’s daughter is a friend of Sussman’s daughter at school/family friend and on the same rowing team, and another juror is a huge Clinton donor.
What could go wrong?
Political, DC Swamp Lawyer just walks into FBI office off the street, gives them all kinds of secret intelligence against Trump - and FBI just runs with it?
Sussmann is just a patsy. The FBI should be on trial.
Yeah, but Sussman got back and billed the Clinton campaign for his time. That indicates otherwise. And Baker probably has a selective memory. If he’s “100 percent confident” in his recollection from 6 years ago, I’m 100 percent confident he’s lying.
These are the DC courts, where the book is thrown at republicans and democrats walk.
A jury member who donated to Clinton's campaign and said he would "strive to be objective as possible" was allowed to remain by the Obammy appointed judge. There is also an AOC voter on the jury. You only need one jury member to say there's not enough evidence to convict, and Sussman will walk.
“Baker told the jury he had not prepared for questions about his meeting with Sussmann and had not refreshed his memory at the time.”
Then don’t answer the question...whoops.
I’ll pay attention as soon as the conviction is announced.
Spoken by someone who has no clue what the job of the alternate jurors is.
My speculative construct:
Joffe was an FBI informant at the time he started gathering the information about Alfa-Bank/Trump.
Isn’t it plausible that FBI resource and Dem/Hillary operative Joffe was acting on FBI orders, or at least with its knowledge, the entire time? Sussmann’s star turn was to re-introduce the cooked-up information so the FBI could have agents, not read into the operation, “investigate” it so the FBI could answer “yes” when “reporters” asked if there was such an investigation.
Will the Defense pursue the idea that Baker knew who Sussmann was working for because it was all part of an FBI operation? Er, no, even though they are in a position to know if it’s true.
Nope he’s rt. Alternate jurors don’t get into the deliberation room. They only get involved when a juror drops out or is removed. They hear the evidence during trial but don’t participate after the closing argument and Judge’s instruction. Criminal trials requite a unanimous verdict. One goes the other way and there is no conviction.
How were they even allowed on the jury? Oh wait, it’s the Swamp.
Alternates do not get pulled in in a hung jury situation, only if a juror is unable to serve or if there is misconduct, correct?
p
Please keep in mind, this is Washington DC.
DC. = Distinctly Crooked
I was going to say I'll get the popcorn ready, but than I realized this is DC.; and I shouldn't get my hopes that high.
I could hear my inner self: Back away from the popcorn.
I too wonder is the FIB weren’t knee deep in the construction of this narrative.
nobody is going to jail and it is all Kabuki theater..... and if he gets chatty.... suicide.
After being convicted Sussman is going to sing like a cornholed canary just to get the prosecution to ask for a lenient sentence.
Sing little Sussman, SING!
And them we will get all the swamp names we do not have now.
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