(RoyalPatriot.com )- Last week, the federal judge in the case against former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann rejected a defense motion to strike certain information from Special Counsel John Durham’s February court filing that caused a media uproar.
Sussman was charged in September for lying to the FBI when interviewed by former FBI general counsel James Baker during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the phony claims of Russian ties to the Trump campaign.
According to the indictment, Sussman falsely stated that he was not representing any client when he brought allegations of a secret back channel of communication between the Trump organization and a Russian bank.
On February 11, Special Counsel Durham had filed a motion to inquire into Sussman’s potential conflict of interests. The motion included details that revived the controversy that the Clinton campaign had spied on Donald Trump both before and after the 2016 election.
The defense had filed a motion to strike that information from Durham’s February 11 filing arguing that the details Durham included were false and irrelevant allegations designed to “politicize the case, inflame media coverage, and taint the jury pool.”
Sussmann’s attorneys accused Special Counsel Durham of “provocatively and misleadingly” describing the details and argued that Sussman only provided the agency with data from before Trump took office.
But Judge Christopher Cooper for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected the defense’s motion saying he would not strike anything from the record noting that “whatever effect the filing has had has already passed.”
However, Judge Cooper did acknowledge that he agreed with the defense that the details included in Durham’s motion did not need to be included in the filing, saying the details weren’t necessary for him to “understand the potential conflicts of interest.”
In the February 11 motion, Special Counsel Durham alleged that Sussmann had provided two government agencies with information from a tech executive paid by Sussmann on behalf of the Clinton campaign that attempted to link candidate Donald Trump to the Russian Alfa Bank.
