(John Ransom, Headline USA) Special counsel John Durham issued trial subpoenas to members of the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton campaign staff, Fusion GPS and leftist law firm Perkins Coie in the upcoming trial of attorney Michael Sussmann, according to the Epoch Times.
John Durham Issues Trial Subpoenas To Members Of Clinton Campaign, DNC https://t.co/rhKbrTZbAH
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 25, 2022
Investigators are in the process of attempting to get the parties to turn over documents related to the charges against Sussmann, but the probe is being stonewalled under the claim of attorney–client privilege.
Durham has contended that when Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS, the company that created the fake Russia–Trump dossier, they did not hire the company on behalf of the Clinton campaign to do actual legal work, but rather to do opposition research, which should not be protected under attorney–client privilege.
Fusion GPS “was not primarily providing or supporting expertise relating to legal advice; instead, it appears that the investigative firm’s primary, if not sole, function was to generate opposition research materials that the firm then shared widely,” said Durham, according to the Washington Examiner.
In a filing with the court in support of the subpoenas, Durham noted that “almost all of these materials appear to lack any connection to actual or expected litigation or the provision of legal advice.”
For example, Durham said that of 1,455 documents requested of Fusion GPS that have not been submitted to him, only 18 actually contain privileged legal communication.
Durham then requested the court to review the documents and order the production of the materials where attorney–client privilege does not apply.
Increasingly, Democrats are attempting to use law firms as a shield against the transparency that they claim to embrace in government.
Former Perkins Coie attorney Marc Elias, for example, has perfected the art of dark money donations, with nearly unlimited coffers for progressive causes that don’t have to be disclosed, in part, because so far they have been allowed to operate under attorney–client privilege.
“All of this together means … that Mr. Elias will have access to nearly unlimited funding to file lawsuits across the country,” Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust told Fox News.
