Thread by @DawsonSField

As expected, Sussmann's attorney's filed their motion for dismissal today.
Focusing on the materiality of his lies to the FBI, it's not going to work but this is meant for public consumption not the judge.
Let's see if he forces Durham to reveal more!
courtlistener.com/docket/6039058…

But Sussmann did provide a false tip, the Alfa Bank information was false. At a minimum Sussmann knew the results were misleading & he was attempting to get the FBI to investigate Trump so he could leak that to the media & influence the 2016 election.

Judges almost always leave these decision to the trial & don't dismiss cases before the evidence is presented.

Sussmann knew about this material from July until September but did not notify FBI out of a concern for national security.
Instead he notified the press, & belated notified the FBI to trick the press into thinking the FBI was investigating Trump for being a Russian agent.

The indictment certainly shows that the information was not the whole truth. That the researchers knew the data meant nothing, but massaged it, & pretended it was relevant to make a false inference or narrative.
The narrative Sussmann attached to the data was false.

As Durham laid out in the indictment, without Sussmann's false statements to Baker about not working for a client. The FBI would have known that this was just false oppo research being used to influence an election, instead of a real national security issue.

And this is why these motions fail, for Sussmann to get the dismissal, the judge has to analyze the case assuming everything Durham alleged in the indictment is true & can be proved at trial.
Making spin & slight of hand like in this document irrelevant for the decision.

There are a couple of pages of boilerplate materiality law discussions.
Then trying to claim that the FBI didn't make the decision to investigate the Alfa Bank server issue because of Sussmann's lies to them.
But had he told them he was billing Hillary for the meeting...

Had they known Sussmann was billing Hillary for the meeting, his allegations would have been met with more skepticism. He didn't really want an investigation, just the ability to have reporters claim that there was an investigation.

Then they fire off an own goal.

Quoting Scalia in Hansen, they claim that since there was no investigation, the only govt decision where lies would be material is if the lies affected the decision to initiate an investigation or not.

Exactly what Sussmann did.

Claims his statements could not have affected FBI's decision to start an investigation.
But the entire purpose of the meeting was to trigger an investigation.
I go back to Gowdy's question of Simpson, did your assignment include conditions for triggering an FBI investigation?

The indictment certainly alleges that the data was created to generate a false narrative, a narrative designed to trick the FBI & the media into thinking it was evidence of collusion.

Another own goal, discussing the motives of the other false tipsters convicted of lying to the FBI.
Sussmann & Joffe had commercial motives to lie to the FBI.
Sussmann & his team were "intending to dupe the government into harrassing innocent individuals..."

And they succeeded!

This is going to set a good new precedent.
Knowledge of the motivation of the tipster can certainly be capable of influencing the government's decision to initiate an investigation.
Evidence is weighed for credibility, this came from a biased source who concealed his reasons.

The data does not have to be 'false' in order for it to influence the decision of the FBI. A finding of reasonable suspicion or probable cause is based upon the credibility of the evidence. The report would have had no credibility if they knew it was paid for by Hillary & Joffe.

Of course the FBI might have acted differently if they knew this was a paid political opposition research document. It undermines the credibility of the data, which is why Sussmann concealed who was paying him.

Then Sussmann claims he & Hillary aren't guilty by making false allegations against the FBI.
Claiming the FBI would have made the same decisions even if they knew he was being paid by Hillary to feed them a false narrative.
Is he trying to get MAGA on his side with Hillary?

Sussmann ducks the most clear point of why concealing Hillary's involvement was material.
The FBI had been warned by CIA that Hillary had approved an effort to frame Trump for ties to Russia.
Making the fact that Hillary was paying Sussmann to deliver those allegations critical.

Why didn't Hillary Clinton herself hand over the evidence to the FBI?
Because she was under investigation for her efforts to frame Trump for collusion, and needed a surrogate like Sussmann to lie to the FBI to get them to take it seriously.

The issue at hand is not whether Sussmann was a D or R.
The issue is that Sussmann was being paid to trick the FBI into opening an investigation. While tricking the media into reporting that as proof that Trump was guilty of Russian collusion.

Trying to argue that he has a First Amendment right to lie to the FBI to get an investigation of a Presidential Candidate to influence an election.

But his lie did work particular & specific harm by interfering with the FBI's Russia investigation.

Claiming it would scare tipsters into not telling FBI truthful information to avoid being accused of lying about why they are telling the FBI.

Laughable.

It might even chill the entire legal industry if lawyers think they can't lie to the feds about what clients they are lobbying the government on behalf of.

I think that would be a good thing, maybe they should wear sponsor labels like they are a stock car...

Sussmann is screwed if this is the best his team has...

Durham can prove it impacted the FBI, Sussmann trying to blame the FBI will backfire on this.

One issue I want to remind people about.
In the motion in response to Durham’s conflict of interest filing, Sussmann’s lawyers claimed that he did not bill Hillary’s campaign for the Baker meeting.
No mention of that in this motion, seems weird to not mention that issue.

Why claim that the billing records are false & then not claim Durham is using the false billing records to show why Sussmann lied to hide his client?