Marc Elias, the former Clinton campaign lawyer, testified for over three hours in the trial of Michael Sussmann, his former partner at Perkins Coie.
Sussmann is accused of lying to the FBI by bringing the agency bogus dirt on Donald Trump and claiming to have been acting as a concerned citizen, and not on behalf of a client. Sussmann told the FBI that Trump had a secret communications channel with the Kremlin via Alfa Bank. FBI agents found no evidence that such a channel existed.
Special counsel John Durham has long alleged that Sussmann was working for the Hillary campaign and technology executive Rodney Joffe when he presented the bogus dirt on Trump to FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016. Part of the proof was that Sussmann billed Hillary’s campaign for his work.
Related: Durham Releases ‘Smoking Gun’ in Case Against Hillary Lawyer
Elias confirmed in his testimony that he hired Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016. He also testified that he would share “the fruits of their work” with senior Clinton campaign officials, and that Fusion GPS was also working for the DNC as part of its support for Hillary’s campaign.
Elias also revealed that a number of Clinton campaign officials were aware of the opposition research Fusion GPS was conducting against Trump, including campaign manager Robby Mook, campaign chairman John Podesta, policy director Jake Sullivan, and communications official Jennifer Palmieri.
Jake Sullivan is currently serving as Joe Biden’s National Security advisor.
According to the report, Sussmann billed the Clinton campaign for nearly five hours of work on Sept. 17, 2016. Elias testified that he could not recall what Sussmann billed for, but nevertheless conceded that he was occasionally checking in with Sussmann about the bogus Alfa Bank allegations.
Elias did attempt to distance himself from Sussmann by claiming he didn’t direct Sussmann to take the bogus dirt on Trump to the FBI. But he nevertheless admitted that his firm had hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Trump, and that this dirt was shared with high-level Clinton campaign officials.
Durham has the receipts that show Sussmann was working on behalf of a client when he claimed he wasn’t, and now he has testimony from Marc Elias that Sussmann was involved in the opposition research.
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