A Democratic-linked lawyer must face a charge that he lied to the FBI before the start of its Trump-Russia probe, a judge ruled, handing a victory to the special counsel probing the origins of the investigation.
Michael Sussmann’s motion to dismiss the criminal case against him was denied Wednesday in Washington by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who ruled a jury would need to decide if his alleged lie was “material” to any decision made by the FBI — a key requirement for the charge to stick.
“The battle lines thus are drawn, but the Court cannot resolve this standoff prior to trial,” Cooper, an Obama appointee, wrote in a six-page ruling.
Sussmann, a cybersecurity expert with ties to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, is accused of lying to the FBI by saying he wasn’t representing any client when he gave information to the agency purportedly linking Donald Trump’s company to a Russia-based bank a few months before the election.
Sussmann denies lying and argued the FBI can’t prove that it wouldn’t have opened the Russia probe anyway, given all the other suspicious links between Trump and Russia being reported at the time. Cooper said he could not determine before trial whether the alleged lie was material to the FBI’s decision to open the investigation, which Trump has derided as a “witch hunt.”
“While Sussmann is correct that certain statements might be so peripheral or unimportant to a relevant agency decision or function to be immaterial” as a matter of law, “the court is unable to make that determination as to this alleged statement before hearing the government’s evidence,” the judge said.
Sussmann’s lawyer, Michael Bosworth, declined to comment.
Special Counsel John Durham, appointed during the Trump administration to investigate the probe, is lining up evidence for a trial this year. He has previously suggested that Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic Party may be improperly withholding evidence.
