(RepublicanInformer.com)- In a move that shocked absolutely nobody, on Tuesday, the jury in former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann’s trial found him not guilty of lying to the FBI when he gave the bureau the bogus opposition research about a secret backchannel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank.
But what else would happen when the jury consisted of Trump-hating Clinton donors and someone whose daughter is on the same rowing team as Sussmann’s daughter?
A DC jury was never going to convict Sussmann.
But Special Counsel John Durham’s single biggest blunder was assuming that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was the unwilling dupe hoodwinked by the sneaky Michael Sussmann.
The FBI wasn’t a dupe; it was complicit.
An FBI agent who testified in Sussmann’s trial all but admitted it.
During testimony last Tuesday, FBI agent Curtis Heide said that the senior FBI leadership was “fired up” about investigating Trump’s so-called back channel to Moscow.
Heide, who was one of the two case agents assigned to investigate the bogus Alfa Bank oppo-research, said the bureau’s top brass were the ones pushing for the investigation.
Two days after Sussmann met with FBI counsel James Baker, Joe Pientka, the FBI agent supervising the “Russian Collusion” Crossfire Hurricane investigation, sent Heide an instant message letting him know that the brass was “fired up” about the Alfa Bank allegations and not opening an investigation was not an option.
Heide testified that it didn’t take long for him to noodle out that the Alfa Bank allegations were bogus. In an October 3 email, Heide requested that he be able to interview the so-called anonymous source behind the allegations because he believed the claims were unfounded.
But Heide was not permitted to interview Sussmann, most likely because the FBI knew Sussmann’s connection to the Clinton campaign would cast further doubt on the allegations and stop the investigation in its tracks.
FBI Agent Ryan Gaynor had testified last Monday that it was the FBI’s senior leadership that placed a “close-hold” on Sussmann’s identity preventing his name from being revealed.
Two weeks after opening the investigation, Heide believed the Alfa Bank allegations were unsubstantiated. But the top brass at FBI headquarters ordered the investigation to continue.
