(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) Like any successful mob underboss or career criminal, Clinton attorney and cabal bagman Michael Sussmann declined to testify in the closing day of his trail Friday, where he stands accused of lying to the FBI about his colluding with the Clinton 2016 presidential campaign to promote the now debunked Russia hoax fable.
Special counsel John Durham’s prosecution team rested its case after presenting nearly two weeks of damning evidence, including receipts, memos, court records, the defendant’s own words, and devastating testimony from a former Clinton campaign manger who tied both Hillary and Sussmann directly to the Russia hoax.
“There are sometimes close cases,” prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis told the jury.
“This is not even close to a close case.”
NEW: Jury now has big Durham case in which Hillary Clinton was documented in sworn testimony to have approved the release of smears about Donald Trump in order to destroy him. Obama FBI corruption disclosed at trial may yet save Sussmann. Soonest verdict will be Tuesday…
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) May 27, 2022
Durham’s prosecution team told the jury that the evidence against Sussmann is “overwhelming,” reported Politico.
That evidence, they said, clearly showed Sussmann lied to the FBI to hide his active participation in advancing, at the behest of and payment from the Clinton campaign, misinformation about then-candidate Donald Trump’s supposed ties to a Russian bank and Kremlin operatives.
Sussmann has long claimed that he brought the allegations to the FBI as a concerned citizen with no political agenda, when prosecutors say he was acting bagman for the Clinton campaign.
The purpose of that deception was to push a narrative that would hurt Trump in the week’s running up to the presidential election, and to collude with a compliant leftist media to spread the lies.
“The defendant knew that he had to hide his clients if there was any chance of getting his allegations into the FBI,” assistant special counsel Jonathan Algor said.
“It wasn’t about national security. It was about promoting opposition research against the opposition candidate Donald Trump.”
Sussmann’s defense team insisted that their mob mute client didn’t lie to the FBI, because everyone knew he was a Clinton hack.
“Mr. Sussmann has HFA [Hillary for America] and DNC tattooed on his forehead,” defense attorney Sean Berkowitz told jurors, Politico reported.
“He’s dealing with them all the time. Everybody knew who he was.”
Not exactly a rousing defense, but attorneys work with what they have. And that’s not much, prosecutors said.
“You can see what the motive was here: It was to create an October surprise,” DeFilippis said.
“No one is entitled to weaponize a law enforcement agency in support of a political agenda. Not Democrats. Not Republicans.”
Despite agreeing that the evidence against Sussmann is clearly “overwhelming,” attorney and George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told Fox News that he wouldn’t be surprised if Durham comes up empty on a conviction. The judge in the trial indicated the soonest to expect a verdict would be Tuesday.
“For John Durham, I think the impression that, short of having Chelsea Clinton on the jury, I couldn’t be doing much worse in terms of a jury pool,” Turley said.
That pool, he said, is infested with pro-Hillary jurors, including three Hillary Clinton donors and another whose kid plays on the same soccer team as Sussmann’s daughter.
“It’s sort of bizarre twist,” Turley said.
“When we guarantee you a jury of your peers, we don’t mean if you’re a Clinton person you’ll be tried by other Clinton people.”
