Andrew McCarthy writes for the New York Post about the latest developments in a trial linked to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Special Counsel John Durham appears to have methodically built a case of historic consequence. It’s just not the case he has brought against bigshot Democratic Party lawyer Michael Sussmann.
Jury selection begins in Sussmann’s trial on Monday, in Washington, DC. It will be the first trial to arise out of the Russiagate probe, which began over three years ago. …
… According to court filings in the Sussmann case, Durham has fingered the Hillary Clinton campaign as the culprit. The problem is that Durham has not charged that fraudulent scheme. Yet, he wants to offer evidence of the sweeping scheme in order to prove a comparatively minor and narrow offense — namely, that Sussmann lied to the FBI at a single meeting, on September 19, 2016. …
… In short, Durham portrays the Clinton campaign as guilty of perhaps the worst dirty trick in the history of American presidential elections: a conspiracy to defraud the government into probing her opponent, the better to slander Trump, in the electorate’s eye, as a nefarious threat to the United States.
But, again, Durham has not charged anyone — not Hillary Clinton, her campaign, or any of its operatives — for such a sensational crime. This sets up the central dynamic of the trial: How much of evidence of the big, uncharged fraud scheme will the judge, Obama-appointee Christopher Cooper, permit Durham to introduce as proof of why he allegedly lied to the FBI?
Durham describes the fraud scheme as the “joint venture” involving the Clinton campaign, its lawyers, a group of Internet researchers, and the so-called “information” firm Fusion GPS.
Prosecutors say the Clinton campaign acted through Elias, the notoriously plugged-in Democrat who served as top counsel for the campaign and the DNC, and Sussmann, a former top Justice Department cyber-security lawyer, who represented the DNC when its servers were allegedly hacked by Russia.
