{"id":1477402,"date":"2022-05-17T07:15:38","date_gmt":"2022-05-17T11:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1477402"},"modified":"2022-05-17T07:16:30","modified_gmt":"2022-05-17T11:16:30","slug":"jury-selected-in-trial-for-ex-clinton-lawyer-sussmann","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/jury-selected-in-trial-for-ex-clinton-lawyer-sussmann\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury Selected in Trial for Ex-Clinton Lawyer Sussmann"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fjury-selected-in-trial-for-ex-clinton-lawyer-sussmann%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1477402&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<div class=\"RichTextArticleBody\">\n<div class=\"RichTextArticleBody-body\">\n<div class=\"Enhancement\">\n<div class=\"Enhancement-item\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"ArticlePage-articleBody-firstLetter\">J<\/span>ury selection for the high-profile <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/justice\/trial-by-fire-durham-takes-former-clinton-lawyer-to-court\">criminal trial<\/a> against Democratic cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann took place Monday, with a rare public appearance by special counsel John Durham, who brought the case in his long-running investigation&#8217;s first trial. <\/p>\n<p>Sussmann <u><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/sco\/pr\/grand-jury-indicts-dc-attorney-making-false-statements-fbi-2016-regarding-alleged\">was charged<\/a><\/u> last year with <u><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/durham-grand-jury-indicts-lawyer-allegedly-lying-fbi-concealing-ties-clinton-campaign\">concealing<\/a><\/u> his clients \u2014 Hillary Clinton&#8217;s 2016 presidential campaign and \u201cTech Executive-1,\u201d known to be former Neustar executive Rodney Joffe \u2014 from FBI general counsel James Baker when he <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/fusion-gps-must-hand-over-docs-to-durham-but-he-cant-use-them-at-trial\">presented<\/a> debunked allegations suggesting a secret back channel between the Trump Organization and Russia\u2019s Alfa-Bank during a September 2016 meeting. <\/p>\n<p>Durham spent much of Monday sitting just behind the full prosecution table close to the gallery half-filled with press and other audience members who had shown up to the Washington, D.C., federal courthouse. He was wearing a mask, which largely concealed his trademark mustache and goatee. Robert Mueller did not make a similar appearance in court when he was special counsel. <\/p>\n<p>The \u201cvoir dire\u201d process \u2014 in which dozens of potential jurors were questioned by the judge, the prosecution, and the defense \u2014 lasted almost the full day, and a full jury was finalized Monday evening. The jury consists of 12 jurors and four alternates, though it is not clear which are which. The full jury panel contains 11 women and five men. <\/p>\n<p>Many of the members of the broader jury pool, as well as some selected for the jury itself, expressed strong disdain for former President Donald Trump and\/or support for Clinton. Most said they hadn&#8217;t heard of the Sussmann case until the judge told them about it last week. <\/p>\n<p><b><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/fusion-gps-must-hand-over-docs-to-durham-but-he-cant-use-them-at-trial\">FUSION GPS MUST HAND OVER DOCS TO DURHAM BUT HE CAN&#8217;T USE THEM AT TRIAL<\/a><\/b> <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remembered that the 2016 election was kind of a mess and that there were a lot of shenanigans,\u201d one of the selected jurors told the court. She said she \u201cstrongly\u201d disliked Trump and that she didn\u2019t think she could be impartial if the case was about someone on his team but noted that &#8220;if it\u2019s not directly about Trump,\u201d then she could be impartial. <\/p>\n<p>Another selected juror, a man who works for the Treasury Department, said he had donated money to the Democratic side during the 2016 primaries but said he believed he could be fair. He was also aware that Robby Mook, one of the names listed on a jury questionnaire, had worked for the Clinton campaign. (Mook was the campaign manager.) <\/p>\n<p>An additional juror, this one an attorney, said she had heard of Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the Clinton campaign in 2016, but had no interactions with it and has heard of Sussmann and Durham but didn\u2019t recall any details. She claimed she couldn\u2019t recall if she had donated money in 2016 but said if she had, it would\u2019ve been to Clinton. She did donate money in 2020. The juror said she \u201ccertainly had a strong preference for one candidate over the other\u201d but that she believed she could be impartial. <\/p>\n<p>Judge Christopher Cooper said the &#8220;case certainly has political overtones\u201d and that \u201cwe\u2019re not here to relitigate the 2016 election.\u201d Cooper repeatedly told jurors, \u201cDonald Trump is not on trial. Hillary Clinton is not on trial.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The case will be a big test for Durham. The nation\u2019s capital, and thus many of its jury pools, is overwhelmingly Democratic. Clinton <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/elections\/2016\/results\/district-of-columbia-president-clinton-trump\">received<\/a> 90.9% of the vote, while Trump received 4.1% in 2016. In 2020, President Joe Biden <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2020\/11\/03\/us\/elections\/results-district-of-columbia.html\">got<\/a> 92.1%, while Trump received 5.4%. <\/p>\n<p>The Department of Justice had trouble convicting another Democratic lawyer in Washington fairly recently in a spin-off case from Mueller\u2019s investigation, which had charged Obama White House counsel Greg Craig with misleading the DOJ about his work in Ukraine. He was found <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/prosecutors-press-obama-counsel-on-ukraine-report\">not guilty<\/a> in 2019. <\/p>\n<p>Also among the Sussmann jurors are a former gymnast who is unemployed but a teacher by training, a medical illustrator, a mechanic, an employee of the Council on Foreign Relations, a worker for the Peace Corps, and a government contractor, among others. <\/p>\n<p>The judge told the potential jurors who weren\u2019t selected that \u201cpicking a jury is more of an art than a science.\u201d After those who were not selected were dismissed, the jury was sworn in, instructed not to do independent research about the case and not to discuss the case with other jury members until all the evidence is in, and to return by 9 a.m. Tuesday. <\/p>\n<p>The prosecution\u2019s case will begin Tuesday with the government\u2019s opening statements, followed by the start of witness testimony. Among the witnesses Durham\u2019s team said it would likely call are Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias and FBI agent David Martin of the bureau&#8217;s cyber unit. <\/p>\n<p>Durham has said that if the defense attempts to obtain trial testimony about the accuracy of the Alfa-Bank data Sussmann pushed to the FBI, then Martin would explain that the underlying data did not support those collusion claims. <\/p>\n<p>The judge has <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/durham-limited-in-presenting-evidence-that-collusion-claims-were-untrue-judge-says\">limited<\/a> Durham\u2019s ability to present testimony debunking the collusion claims. <\/p>\n<p>Mueller, the FBI, the CIA, and a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee investigation <u><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/durham-limited-in-presenting-evidence-that-collusion-claims-were-untrue-judge-says\">cast doubt<\/a><\/u> on or rejected the Alfa-Bank claims touted by the Clinton campaign in the closing days of the 2016 election. <\/p>\n<p>Elias, who last year started his own law firm, the Elias Law Group, hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which hired British ex-spy Christopher Steele in 2016. Elias testified he was aware of Fusion&#8217;s plans to have the discredited dossier author, Steele, brief reporters during the 2016 contest, <u><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/clinton-campaign-knew-about-fusion-gps-plan-to-have-christopher-steele-brief-reporters-about-dossier\">met with<\/a><\/u> Steele in 2016, and periodically briefed the campaign about the findings from Fusion and Steele. Elias coordinated closely with former Perkins Coie colleague Sussmann on anti-Trump research in 2016. <\/p>\n<p>Durham has said members of the Clinton campaign, Fusion, and Perkins played a coordinated role in <u><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/justice\/durham-focuses-on-russian-yotaphones-clinton-campaign-lawyer-linked-to-trump\">pushing<\/a><\/u> <u><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/justice\/sussmann-doesnt-want-clinton-tweet-touting-collusion-claims-to-be-admissible\">collusion claims<\/a><\/u>. <\/p>\n<p>Another expected prosecution witness tested positive for COVID-19, so his testimony was pushed back. <\/p>\n<p>The judge also said that he would issue guidance about two remaining matters, on Steele as well as the scope of expert testimony, in the morning. <\/p>\n<p><b><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\">CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/a><\/b> <\/p>\n<p>Steele testified in a British court that Sussmann provided him with claims about Alfa-Bank\u2019s purported ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a July 2016 meeting. These allegations made their way into a September 2016 memo that became part of the dossier. <\/p>\n<p>The special counsel says the <u><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/christopher-steele-holds-firm-on-defending-discredited-dossier\">dossier author<\/a><\/u> is at the \u201cintersection\u201d of Trump-Russia <u><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/bidens-disinformation-chief-is-trump-dossier-author-fan-and-hunter-laptop-doubter\">collusion efforts<\/a><\/u>, while the Democratic lawyer calls evidence about him an unfair \u201clightning rod.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The former MI6 agent is not expected to testify, and it remains to be seen what role he will play in the trial.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jury selection for the high-profile criminal trial against Democratic cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann took place Monday, with a rare public appearance by special<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":498,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1477402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1477402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1477402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1477402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1477402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1477402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1477402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}