“Our country is going to hell”
Former “president” Trump’s response following the verdict in the trial of Michael Sussmann: “Our country is going to hell.” No, that happened when you came on the scene, and it’s not getting better any time soon. Never mind that Trump likely never heard any evidence in this trial. He’s just mad because Sussmann represented Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic Party, and he was acquitted. Regardless of what Trump thinks, a jury thought otherwise.
Trump, of course, took this opportunity to air all his grievances about the border being open and rigged elections, among other things. He also continued to complain about the “deep state.” John Durham, the special prosecutor appointed by former Attorney General William Barr, said that he was “disappointed” in the jury’s verdict. Perhaps there was nothing there to begin with. The Hill reported that this verdict was “a major blow” to Durham’s investigation, but the fact is that he has found nothing of consequence to support Trump’s claims that the investigation into his ties with Russia was politically motivated.
Sussmann allegedly lied to James Baker, the FBI’s general counsel at the time, about a meeting. Sussmann claimed to have evidence of ties between Trump and a Russian entity called Alfa Bank, and Sussmann’s alleged lie was that he did not attend this meeting on behalf of his clients, Clinton’s campaign and cybersecurity researcher Rodney Joffe, who gathered the data. This case was built on hearsay and assumptions, which don’t typically go anywhere in a court of law. Remember, the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and that guilt must be proven by some type of irrefutable evidence. In this case, it was not. Sussmann’s attorneys pointed out that there were no third-party witnesses or any notes that any of the parties made or kept. They went on to say that Sussmann called the meeting to turn over evidence to the FBI and regardless of the origins of the data, it had no impact on the FBI’s investigation. In other words, it was useless, so why prosecute him on evidence that neither helped nor harmed their investigation? Because Dunham has a job to do, and that job is to somehow prove that everyone was out to get Donald Trump. Please. Trump isn’t worth it.
Sussmann’s lawyers called the indictment “a case of extraordinary prosecutorial overreach.” It will be interesting to see where the rest of Dunham’s case goes. He is so far batting one for one, though he has one more bite at the proverbial apple. He did successfully get a guilty plea from a former FBI agent, who admitted to altering an email, and his next chance is Igor Danchenko, who is accused of lying about working on the Steele Dossier. His trial is set for October. Hopefully, after the October trial, we can put all this to bed and move on. Of course, it’s difficult to move on with Trump using every little thing he can to claim wrongdoing against him, which is ironic given that everything Trump does falls in the wrongdoing category.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years