The word is now breaking that Michael Sussmann has just been found not guilty for lying to the FBI, according to Fox News, after two weeks of deliberations.
Sussmann was accused of lying to FBI General Counsel James Baker when he said that he wasn’t representing any client. The prosecution had said that he was working on behalf of the Clinton campaign and tech executive Rodney Joffe. The prosecution had shown evidence that Sussmann had even billed the Clinton campaign for the time that he was meeting with James Baker and spreading the debunked Alfa Bank smear to him.
We don’t have the breakdown yet as to why they made this decision when it was clear that he was representing the Clinton campaign. It was also a part of the charge that it be material and Baker testified that he would likely not have referred the matter out for further investigation had he known about the Clinton connection. So that would seem to have fulfilled the materiality requirement.
The jury included one federal government employee who told the judge they donated to Democrats in 2016 and another government employee who told the judge they “strongly” dislike former President Trump. Both of those jurors told the judge they could be impartial throughout the trial.
The jury also included a teacher, an illustrator, a mechanic and more. One juror had a child who was on the same high school sports team as Sussmann’s child.
The overwhelming majority of jurors selected told Cooper they had not heard of the case prior to jury service.
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