{"id":1484605,"date":"2022-05-19T15:15:32","date_gmt":"2022-05-19T19:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1484605"},"modified":"2022-05-19T15:15:42","modified_gmt":"2022-05-19T19:15:42","slug":"sussmann-defense-team-requests-mistrial-over-testimony-from-steele-dossier-linked-attorney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sussmann-defense-team-requests-mistrial-over-testimony-from-steele-dossier-linked-attorney\/","title":{"rendered":"Sussmann Defense Team Requests Mistrial Over Testimony From Steele Dossier-Linked Attorney"},"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\">22<\/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%2Fsussmann-defense-team-requests-mistrial-over-testimony-from-steele-dossier-linked-attorney%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=1484605&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><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/05\/Marc-Elias-1.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Michael Sussmann\u2019s defense team requested a mistrial be declared after the jury heard testimony from Sussmann\u2019s former boss, Marc Elias, on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Elias, a former partner at the Democrat-linked law firm Perkins Coie, testified in a D.C. federal court in the trial over whether Sussmann lied to the FBI in 2016 when he fed the agency debunked evidence of a secret backchannel between the Trump Organization and Alfa-Bank. Elias hired Fusion GPS, which commissioned the Steele dossier, in 2016 to aid the Clinton campaign\u2019s opposition research into the Trump team.<\/p>\n<p>Sussmann is accused of hiding his then-clients, Hillary Clinton\u2019s presidential campaign and tech executive Rodney Joffe, from FBI general counsel James Baker during a September 2016 meeting.<\/p>\n<p>During his testimony, Elias told prosecutors to \u201cask Mr. Sussmann\u201d if he had requested the meeting with Baker on behalf of a client. Sussmann\u2019s legal team argued that Elias\u2019 directive was prejudicial against Sussmann\u2019s Fifth Amendment right not to testify, which Sussmann\u2019s team is still weighing whether to invoke for the trial.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHere, Mr. Elias expressly invited the jury to look to Mr. Sussmann for answers,\u201d Sussmann\u2019s lawyers said, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/justice\/marc-elias-throws-durham-trial-into-disarray-with-sussmann-comments\">Washington Examiner<\/a>. \u201cThis has caused obvious prejudice to Mr. Sussmann, who has not yet decided whether or not to testify in this case.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Judge Christopher Cooper ruled out ending the case in a mistrial. Sussmann\u2019s attorneys requested in lieu of a mistrial that Elias\u2019 comments in question be stricken from the record. To that, Cooper said he would wait until after Sussmann made a decision to testify or not.<\/p>\n<p>The defense attorneys also hit Durham\u2019s prosecution team over part of its line of questioning toward Elias, which focused on how to determine if Sussmann spoke with Baker on behalf of a client or, as he <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/05\/18\/durham-team-reveals-damning-text-from-hillary-clinton-lawyer-sussmann-to-fbi\/\">claimed<\/a> at the time, \u201con [his] own.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr. Elias\u2019s nonresponsive testimony on cross-examination, as well as the repeated, improper questioning by the special counsel, directly suggested to the jury that in order to answer a key question in this case, whether Mr. Sussmann went to the FBI on Sept. 19, 2016, on behalf of a client, Mr. Sussmann would need to testify,\u201d Sussmann\u2019s defense team said. \u201cBut as the special counsel and Mr. Elias are well aware, a defendant in a criminal trial has a constitutional right not to testify.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sussmann\u2019s trial is the first courtroom test of special counsel John Durham\u2019s investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy that hounded the former president for most of his presidency.<\/p>\n<p>Elias\u2019 testimony grew somewhat political as the discussion moved around Trump and Clinton. Elias <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/democrats-high-powered-attorney-marc-elias-testifies-in-sussmann-trial\">described<\/a> Trump as a \u201cbully\u201d and criticized the former president\u2019s comments about Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. On Clinton, Elias said that her treatment by the FBI was \u201cunfair.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The jury in the Sussmann case was drawn from a pool in deep-blue Washington, D.C. Many potential jurors, and some who were eventually picked to serve in the trial, expressed disdain toward Trump and support for Clinton. Cooper urged jurors to put their biases aside during the trial and focus on the evidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Sussmann\u2019s defense team requested a mistrial be declared after the jury heard testimony from Sussmann\u2019s former boss, Marc Elias, on Wednesday.Elias, a former partner at the Democrat-linked law firm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":1484653,"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-1484605","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\/1484605","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\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1484605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1484605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1484653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1484605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1484605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1484605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}