Margot Cleveland of the Federalist learned at least one lesson from the Michael Sussmann trial.
[A]fter less than one full day of deliberations, a D.C. jury stacked with pro-Hillary Clinton jurors acquitted former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann, proving the FBI is not “ours” but the swamp’s.
Just more than two weeks ago, prosecutor Brittain Shaw began opening statements in United States v. Sussmann, by stating the obvious: “Some people have very strong feelings about politics and about Russia, and many people have strong feelings about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.”
“But we are not here because these allegations involve either of them,” Shaw continued. “Nor are we here because the defendant’s client was the Clinton campaign.” Rather, “we are here because the FBI is our institution that should not be used as a political tool for anyone; not Republicans, not Democrats, not anyone.”
But after hearing overwhelming evidence that Sussmann lied when he told the then-FBI General Counsel James Baker he was providing data and whitepapers about a supposed secret communications channel between Trump and the Russian-based Alfa Bank on his own behalf, when in fact Sussmann was representing both the Clinton campaign and tech executive Rodney Joffe, the 12 D.C. residents found Sussmann not guilty.
It was not the verdict, however, that confirmed that the FBI belongs to career bureaucrats, high-powered D.C. elites who revolve in and out of the government as political appointees, and the families and friends of all the above. Rather, it was the speed with which the acquittal came, coupled with the in-court testimony and other evidence exposed by the special counsel throughout the prosecution that proved the FBI isn’t America’s anymore. …
… But the proof that the FBI is no longer “ours” came even before the jury verdict—months earlier, when Special Counsel John Durham revealed in a discovery update that the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General withheld evidence from Durham’s team.
