Still more on the Sussman indictment and what it signifies
People have continued to opine on the subject of Durham’s indictment of Sussman. While I’m inclined to be very skeptical that it will lead to much, more legally informed minds are expressing at least somewhat greater optimism than I. And even if they’re not especially optimistic, they are saying things that shed further light on Russiagate, one of the biggest political crimes in our history and perhaps the biggest.
So I bring you Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection. In a post entitled “Indictment of Campaign Lawyer Demonstrates How Hillary Clinton Is The Most Systemically Manipulative Politician Of Our Lifetime,” he connects the dots to Hillary Clinton via two articles, one by Andrew C. McCarthy (yes, I know; he hasn’t exactly been a favorite since this past January) and one by Glenn Greenwald.
The post is long, but it’s quite fascinating and I recommend it even if you think you know a lot on the subject, and even if you are pessimistic about where it’s all leading. If nothing else, it will inform you in detail if you ever want to argue on the subject of Russiagate with a liberal Democrat.
Biden will pardon this guy. Bet on it.
Hillary belongs in jail. She’s the worst. And if she would have cranked up the Dem vote stealing machine in 6 cities – like Biden did – she’d be President today.
How did we get to this place?
I find it interesting that Elias quit his firm earlier this month, right before the Sussman indictment came down. That may also be a sign of something bigger coming down the pike. Elias would be a very big fish.
Cornhread is right, though. Biden will use Trump’s pardons of Muelller targets as an excuse to pardon Sussman and whomever else Durham ultimately charges, that is if they don’t get off with a slap on the wrist like the FBI attorney who falsified the FISA warrant material.
Regardless, there is a lot of value in putting the truth on the record. If Durham does that, he will have done his country a service.
Has Hillary tweeted her sincere condolences to the Sussman family on his tragic suicide yet?
Just how aggressively do you imagine Merrick Garland’s DOJ will be in prosecuting Sussman? But if there’s any chance of forcing legal accountability, it will require focusing as much public attention as possible on the issue. This is now much harder than it should be due to the media’s self-censorship, and it’s ability to censor others, but I think not impossible.
I hate to be a pessimist about what I believe to be a crime worse than Watergate but nothing is going to happen to anyone–in fact many will benefit professionally & financially. They will make sure a “Trump” will never happen again.
Bill Serra:
They’ll certainly try, and they may succeed, but I’m not willing to give up hope and make a probability a certainty.
Given all that has happened in this country since Hillary first launched her flying monkeys against Trump, the details of the Steele Dossier and the Russian collusion investigation seem almost quaint. Does anyone really believe that the people behind the corruption of our government will ever be held accountable? After a stolen election? After the members of the DoD and intelligence agencies unconstitutionally usurped Trump’s authority as president? After a government and media continue to prop up a demented man who makes one disastrous decision after the other?
I read the McCarthy piece on NRO out of curiosity. It’s been quite some time since I’ve been over to NRO and many of the comments on the McCarthy piece are hysterical. There are a lot of people over there who are still insisting that Trump was a Putin stooge and there really is no case against even a small fry like Sussman.
When the intelligence agencies decided to go ahead with the Trump investigation when they knew there was nothing there and when people who knew it was wrong stood by and said nothing, they destroyed the foundation of this country. It will be up to our children and grandchildren to try to build something from the wreckage.
Joke Bidet will not pardon Sussman.
Sussman will be a free man at the conclusion of any trial, or more likely, there will be no trial at all and Sussman will plea bargain – and the DOJ lawyers all probably good chums with Sussman – will suggest to the judge (let me guess; it will be an Obama or Bidet or Clinton appointed judge) to give Sussman 15 seconds of community service and lose his law license for 20 seconds (if that much).
And that will be the end of it.
No amount of legal arguing or actual legal facts can be presented that will challenge the predominant fact that this entire Sussman affair will be decided by politics and politics alone.
Frankly, given Sussman’s political leaning and his pals in high places, he can be shown on video murdering a small child and his political friends would make sure he got off scot-free.
Is Legal Insurrection now a paywall site? The post is cut off after a two-paragraph block quote from the McCarthy article then goes right to the Comments.
I’ll check back later. Maybe something’s up with the site.
Watt:
I used the link earlier to read the article, and I just checked and it’s still working for me. A few months ago Neo posted a link that seemed to work for everyone but me, so it looks like it’s your turn. I don’t know enough about the functioning of the internet to offer any reasons.
John Tyler:
I actually agree with you.
But I am willing and eager to be pleasantly and agreeably surprised.
I read the McCarthy piece on NRO out of curiosity. It’s been quite some time since I’ve been over to NRO and many of the comments on the McCarthy piece are hysterical. There are a lot of people over there who are still insisting that Trump was a Putin stooge and there really is no case against even a small fry like Sussman.
A half dozen years ago, NRO made use of disqus commenting which allowed for guests. And their commenters sliced up the managing editor every time he opened his mouth. Then they gratuitously re-designed their site so as to make it stupefyingly buggy (then worked out the bugs piecemeal, heckuva job). One change was to a new and quite puzzling commenting system. Coincident with this, their comment traffic fell off a cliff after which their depopulated boards were chock-a-block with partisan Democrats.
They’re living on tech industry donations now, so the commenters one might wager are Google employees looking in on the boss’s investments.
Howie Carr says that the judge handling the Sussman indictment is married to Lisa Page’s lawyer. And they were married by…Merrick Garland.
So I am not thinking that Judge Cooper will torpedo any sweetheart plea deal.
DC is a remarkably small town.
Gregory+Harper,
“It will be up to our children and grandchildren to try to build something from the wreckage.”
“But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” Year: 1775 Context: Letter to Abigail Adams
I don’t know if Adams was right about that but I fear he may well be. Liberals are enabling the fashioning of the chains of their and their children’s future enslavement. Indeed, their hearts and minds are already enslaved.
I read it all, and the added information reduces my initial enthusiasm at little.
The indictment discusses this phony internet traffic that a conspiracy of 4 (?) mostly unnamed individuals concocted as a frame up, to be delivered to the FBI. So then Sussman delivers it, which is lying to the FBI. OK. What’s new to me: Then the FBI rejects it, as not a strong enough indication of any type of national security crime. Bummer.
The angle of this whole affair that bothers me the most (not directly addressed in the indictment) is the foreign spy “laundering” of otherwise illegal acts. Chris Steele, and other spies in Australia, Malta, plus one more I’ve forgotten were involved in various types of fraud that would be illegal if committed by Americans on US soil. Those activities are relatively routine for spies dealing with “foreigners” in the spy’s country’s best interest.
But what if it is not in the spy’s country’s best interest? What if it is in some other foreigner’s political best interest? Perhaps there is some secret quid pro quo that will benefit the spy’s country. Does that make it OK? I don’t think so, but there is no mechanism for prosecuting any of this, as far as I know.
Yesterday, Barry posted a link to shipwreckedcrew’s Tweet which referenced a post he made on his Substack blog, which I didn’t know existed, since I’ve read him only at Red State so far.
It’s long, detailed, and professional (he is a lawyer with much experience in the government shenanigans field), and puts a lot of things into perspective. He is trending optimistic that Durham really does intend to lower the boom.
https://shipwreckedcrew.substack.com/p/the-sussmann-indictment-reads-like
Technofog also has a long post, with lots of detail and analysis (h/t Powerline).
Conclusion, after drawing lines between lots of dots:
https://technofog.substack.com/p/where-does-john-durham-go-from-here
FWIW, my access to the LI post also dead-ends after the McCarthy excerpt.
However, I want to address a point he made earlier –
“And even then, while Sussman was an important lawyer at an important Democrat operative law firm, his indictment has a “that’s it?” feel to it.
But, the 27-page Indictment is a wealth of information, and hopefully a roadmap to wider and more substantial prosecutions..”
I’ve thought a couple of times in reading about Durham’s “speaking indictment” that it sounded an awful lot like the way James Comey laid out all (well, a lot) of Hillary’s shenanigans with her email server, and then dismissed everything he had just presented and self-righteously proclaimed that “no reasonable prosecutor would indict her.”
Which no one (reasonable or otherwise) did, of course, helped along by the blatantly unethical process the Feds used to interview Clinton & her staff dba conspirators, deep-sixing their own evidence, and proving that the USA has a two-tier justice system, and we are not on the top.
I’ll believe in the coming indictments when I see them.
Just saw this in the comments – addressing another commenter who quoted Greenwald:
“For me, the article ended after the first two paragraphs of Andy McCarthy’s piece. None of the rest was visible.
With your quote, I figured something was blocked, took off AdBlock, and suddenly there was a much longer article with a lot more information.
I’ll know what to do next time the article seems to be missing something”
Another commenter, addressing concerns that the Garland DOJ will not prosecute and a DC jury will not convict, brings up a point Shipwreckedcrew leaned on heavily:
“It’s in the indictment. Sussman lied to another official,outside DC, at a later date. A backup indictment. There are many telling details in the 27 pages. Stuff to make the guilty very uneasy.
The quotation marks are important. They demonstrate that Durham has documents to quote from.”
Apparently, due to the offenses, Durham has several jurisdictions he can juggle.
And another wrinkle in the prune, in addition to the pits.
@Cornhead…
You ask ‘How did we get to this place?’ The more interesting question is: ‘How do we get out of it?’
After 14 Juillette, 1789, there was a guillotine in the Place de la Revolution, known as the ‘Nation’s Razor.’ Today, it’s the Place de la Concorde, and the ‘razor’ has been replaced by an obelisque. A lot of blood was spilt, much of it belonged to the revolutionaries. Danton and fellow conspirators planned the revolution from his desk at Procope, the oldest restaurant in Paris. His desk is still there on display. It’s just off of the Place de l’Odeon.
@William Graves:
“and the ‘razor’ has been replaced by an obelisque”
Just you wait for the Frotteur to be replaced by the Odalisque!
@Zaphod…
Bonaparte captured the obelisque in Egypt and brought it back as a trophy. There are 13 of them in the world, all stolen from Egypt and adjoining countries. Interestingly, they are all the indicators of sun dials. It’s as though the Europeans were like some mad aliens, who landed in space ships and stole the hands off of all of the public clocks in Europe…
BTW…your comment was a bit naughty! I was posted to the Ecole Polytechnique by the French CNRS & IN2P3 for several years. The best thing to come out of Bonapart’s campaign was the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, which Champollion desciferd (A Polytechnician!)
@WG:
“I was posted to the Ecole Polytechnique” — Hard Core! Respect!
Had never thought of obelisks being used as sundial gnomons. But of course, you get a sundial thrown in for free with every obelisk bought, borrowed or stolen.
Frivolous off-colour commentary and bad puns are all part of the service.
The Powerline guys have turned. And Shipwreckcrew explains at his substack:
“The Sussmann Indictment Reads Like Overts Acts In Furtherance of a Conspiracy – Because That’s What It Is.
It does not take 27 pages to allege a “false statement” charge — but it does if you are alleging a conspiracy to create false documents to influence a federal investigation.”
The key is piercing client-lawyer confidentiality and using the furtherance of crimes exception to expose it
TJ —
Shipwreckedcrew repeatedly says that we didn’t hear anything about all the grand jury machinations because they probably took place outside DC.
Considering that he also says all of that is by law behind closed doors and sealed, isn’t the obvious inference that DC is so corrupt that of course the information would be leaked?
For years I’ve been thinking the FISA judges who accepted the FBI crap should have been impeached.
It was their job to make certain that the FBI fulfilled all the FISA requirements, but the FBI obfuscated in a fairly obvious way of NOT saying the names of the witnesses. The judges were in on it – with winks and nods, and essentially rubber stamps.
Trump hating Republicans refused to complain loudly enough that Mueller was failing to investigate the Russian collusion with Hillary’s campaign. More GOPee (established elites), than RINO.
They all know some of the crimes; none of the top criminals at any agency are innocent. Those not criminally complicit are incompetently ignorant – or trying to make the Dem media push the “I didn’t know” BS. Like Rod (the weasel) Rosenstein.
Republicans should be chanting, along with Fuck Joe Biden, also:
Defund the FBI.
It’s too bad BDS was defined as derangement, because it’s based on Dems being deluded. I wish Reps would now call it:
Democrat Delusion Syndrome. Because there are so many delusions so many Dems are deluded in believing as true stuff that is false. And not believing the actual truth.
Democrat Delusion Syndrome (previously I suggested Dem Derangement Syndrome, but Delusion is easier to explain).
No excitement without an indictment – oh, Sussman indicted!
Medium big fish – medium excitement. Medium is not Huge nor Tiny, it’s actually non-binary (continuous). In our digital, binary age, so much is considered Great or Terrible, which often drives out the possibly more important mixed good & bad points.
At least my expectations are so low, Durham at this point will either meet them, or exceed them. (Everybody walks; no trials with jail time.)
“…all stolen from Egypt…”
Well, most of them maybe.
The one behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art was a gift from the Khedive.
(Of course, that MIGHT merely be the Met’s boilerplate version…or maybe the Khedive stole it!)
Alas, its hieroglyphics are virtually unreadable (Champollion notwithstanding), NYC pollution being what it was/is…
– – – – – – –
Regarding sussing out Sussman, I REFUSE TO BELIEVE that this thing won’t be bigger than many dismiss (though one can certainly understand why they dismiss it). Why? Because there’s just too much going there “behind the scenes”…meaning, this is a much bigger elephant than many think. Meaning that the Democrats had better get a much bigger elephant gun than the one they may currently be relying on.
File under: The Lonely Man of Faith?
Tom Grey,
FISA Court AND Judge James E. Boasberg AND Kevin Clinesmith…
…OH MY!!!
Consider the plight of a juror in the DC or Virginia area who has to decide in a case like this. If they convict their life will be over.
I suspect the reason no other indictments have been sought is because there is no hope of a jury that would convict.
Tipio:
Thanks. The problem appears to be with Mozilla Firefox (and probably specifically with newly installed v. 92). The article is truncated when I use that browser. But I just opened it with Edge, and I can see the whole thing.