That the Sussmann indictment is an undisguised signal that conspiracy charges are soon to follow is transparent in the first few paragraphs of the indictment. One need not read past page one to understand where Durham is heading. All unlawful conspiracies have an object or
purpose. For example, a group of criminals might meet one night to plan to rob a bank the next day. When the robbers get caught and charged with conspiracy, the charging papers will describe the object of the conspiracy to be the robbery of the bank. In the Clinton Campaign
conspiracy, the object or purpose was successfully obtained beyond the wildest dreams of any of the conspirators. Durham begins the Sussmann indictment with a description of the success achieved by the conspiracy: Paragraph 1 describes and quotes from a NY Times article in
October 2016, which asserts that agencies of the federal government have received and are investigating evidence that the Trump organization has been making secret back channel communications to a Russian bank. Durham describes not only the object of the conspiracy, but its
it’s successful achievement of the conspiracy’s primary purpose. The object never was that Trump would ultimately be prosecuted for crimes he was framed for. Rather, this was always about the narrative and the press- something that the indictment stresses again and again.
The Clinton Campaign wanted a friendly press not only to publish the fake narrative, but they needed the reporting to allude to the criminal or national security investigation by the FBI and other agencies. The fact of such an investigation served two ends: The narrative would
have more gravitas, thereby casting Trump in a hugely suspicious light, and the fact of an investigation gave the press they may have needed to publish the uncorroborated reports. Durham’s indictment skillfully lays out this plan, and it places Sussmann at the center of inducing
The FBI to launch an investigation, and then to immediately carry the fact of the investigation to a compliant press. This was not a one-man show, which is why there are many in Washington who are not sleeping very well right now.
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