{"id":1484914,"date":"2022-05-19T18:46:10","date_gmt":"2022-05-19T22:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1484914"},"modified":"2022-05-19T18:46:20","modified_gmt":"2022-05-19T22:46:20","slug":"sussmann-judge-rejects-prosecutors-protests-after-juror-reveals-tie-to-defendant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sussmann-judge-rejects-prosecutors-protests-after-juror-reveals-tie-to-defendant\/","title":{"rendered":"Sussmann Judge Rejects Prosecutors\u2019 Protests After Juror Reveals Tie To Defendant"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><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-judge-rejects-prosecutors-protests-after-juror-reveals-tie-to-defendant%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=1484914&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\/John-Durham-2.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper denied a request by special counsel John Durham\u2019s team of prosecutors to remove a juror who\u2019s daughter competes on the same high school sports team as the defendant\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>A woman identified as juror #5 told Cooper on Thursday that she recently discovered that her daughter competes with cybersecurity attorney Michael Sussmann\u2019s daughter on their high school crew team. The juror said she was unaware of the connection when she was filling out her jury questionnaire last week and that the two girls, separated by a three-year age gap, are not close, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2022\/may\/19\/judge-sussmann-trial-denies-prosecution-request-re\/\">The Washington Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The juror said that she had never met Sussmann or his wife, and thought she could be an impartial juror despite the connection. The judge agreed, voicing disappointment that the issue couldn\u2019t have been brought to light earlier, but saying that the juror\u2019s willingness to come forward after finding out herself spoke to seriousness with which she approached her duty as a juror.<\/p>\n<p>Cooper overruled protests from the prosecution. Durham\u2019s team moved to have the juror dismissed, arguing they would not have agreed to seat her had they known of the connection. Sussmann\u2019s defense team argued she should stay.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe connection is not so close that it affects her impartiality,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cShe did not know the connection, unfortunately, when she filled out the questionnaire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a senior, her daughter is probably out of there anyway,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>The juror will eventually have to decide whether Sussmann made a false statement to then-FBI general counsel James Baker during a 2016 meeting. Sussmann is accused of hiding his clients, the Clinton campaign and tech executive Rodney Joffe, in a meeting in which he pushed for the FBI to investigate false claims about Trump-Russia collusion.<\/p>\n<p>George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who served as an expert witness during former President Donald Trump\u2019s first impeachment and former President Bill Clinton\u2019s impeachment, said Cooper\u2019s decision is the latest in a host of court rulings that have set a more favorable field for the defendant.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe judge in the Sussmann trial just delivered another blow to the prosecution in refusing to remove a juror due to a connection to the defendant\u2019s daughter,\u201d Turley <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JonathanTurley\/status\/1527385639968067590\">tweeted<\/a>. \u201cSo one of the jurors will be allowed to vote on whether to send the father of her daughter\u2019s teammate to prison. So [she] is joining three Clinton donors on the jury, including one who could only promise to \u2018strive for impartiality as best I can.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cooper has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/justice\/trial-by-fire-durham-takes-former-clinton-lawyer-to-court\">ties<\/a> to Trump-Russia collusion figures and leading Democrats going back decades. His 1999 marriage to his wife was officiated by sitting Attorney General Merrick Garland. Former President Barack Obama appointed Cooper to his district court seat in 2014 after unanimous approval by the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>Cooper has said he was \u201cprofessional acquaintances\u201d with Sussmann decades ago when both worked at the Justice Department in the 1990s. Cooper\u2019s wife has served as attorney for former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, a key figure in the FBI\u2019s Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the Trump campaign, since 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Durham\u2019s team did not ask for Cooper to recuse himself from the Sussmann case despite his history. Sussmann is on trial for allegedly lying to the FBI about his reasons for presenting debunked evidence of Trump-Russia collusion to then-FBI general counsel James Baker in 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper denied a request by special counsel John Durham\u2019s team of prosecutors to remove a juror who\u2019s daughter competes on the same high school sports team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":1484924,"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-1484914","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\/1484914","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=1484914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1484914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1484924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1484914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1484914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1484914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}