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Special counsel John Durham left more hints on Tuesday of where his investigation may be headed.
It came in in the case of Michael Sussmann, the Perkins Coie attorney who, Durham’s prosecutors allege, lied to an FBI official in September 2016 about whether he was working on behalf of a specific client when he told federal investigators about allegations that a Trump Organization server was communicating with a Russian company.
Last we here at TPM prime checked in on the Sussmann case, Sussmann’s attorneys had put forth some startling allegations: there was significant evidence to suggest that the sole witness in the case — the FBI official on the receiving end of the alleged lie — offered conflicting accounts of what Sussmann said. One of those conflicting accounts came in a July 2019 interview with the DOJ Inspector General.
Former high-ranking DOJ officials told TPM then that, to them, the Sussmann prosecution seemed like a classic attempt to build a case “up the chain” of a “criminal organization,” suggesting that Durham had his sights set not on the Perkins Coie partner, but, perhaps, his client or those with whom he worked.
In a new filing on Tuesday over questions about evidence production in the case, Durham revealed a few more intriguing details about his investigation.
First of all, Durham admits in the document that his office contacted the DOJ Inspector General after Sussmann’s indictment for information regarding Sussmann.
Durham seems to have learned a lot from this encounter. For one thing, Durham’s office appears to have unearthed a transcript of an interview in which the case’s only witness — former FBI General Counsel James Baker — offered a differing account of the alleged lie. Per the filing, Durham’s office also discovered that the OIG had “two FBI cellphones” belonging to Baker and that, for an unspecified reason, it would be nearly impossible for the inspector general to search through its materials in the way that Durham’s team wants.
And, as Marcy Wheeler points out, Durham seems to have learned that Sussmann shared another tip with the FBI from the same source of his mentioned in the indictment.
That’s all relevant, especially given the narrowness of the charge: failing, in one meeting, to disclose who your client was.
Durham also reveals where some of his investigative inquiries — either in the form of grand jury subpoenas or document requests — have been directed.
One recipient of these inquires was the 2016 Clinton campaign, which Durham conspicuously continues to name-check.
Two other entities — an unnamed “political organization” and “the entity referred to in the Indictment as the ‘U.S. Investigative Firm'” — also appear.
It’s not clear what the “political organization” would be. Reports have identified the “investigative firm” in question as Fusion GPS, of Steele dossier fame.
The list also includes “law firm 1.” CNN reported in September that Durham had obtained a grand jury subpoena for Perkins Coie, long known to be a law firm associated with the Democratic Party.
Finally, Durham stressed in the document multiple times that his investigation is “ongoing,” “active,” and “criminal.” It was looking into both Sussmann’s “conduct” and “other matters.”
We’ll see where this goes. But this document gives both a good snapshot of where Durham is looking — and of what the limitations of that search have been to date.
