The jury in the trial of former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann began deliberations on Friday, after both the prosecutors of Special Counsel John H. Durham’s team and the defense attorneys delivered their closing arguments.
Sussmann is accused of lying to the FBI when he claimed to be acting as a private citizen when handing the FBI information in 2016 about a supposed connection between then-candidate Donald Trump and the Russian government via Alfa Bank.
That information, part of the broader “Russia collusion” conspiracy theory that the Clinton campaign was attempting to spin, was false, and fell apart under scrutiny. But the Clinton campaign, including aide Jake Sullivan — now the National Security Advisor to President Joe Biden — fed it to the media, regardless.
Prosecutors cited Sussmann’s own alleged statements, a text message to then-FBI general counsel James Baker, and billing records to claim that he was in fact acting for the campaign.
The trial revealed that Hillary Clinton herself approved a strategy to leak the Alfa Bank allegations to the media, before the campaign could verify whether they were true or not — thus linking Clinton directly to the “Russia collusion” hoax.
The jury was given until 5:00 p.m. to do conduct their work. If they reach a verdict by that time, it will not be reported until Tuesday, after the Memorial Day weekend. If they do not reach a verdict, they will continue their deliberations at that point.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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