Durham wants records from Clinton 2016, Fusion GPS for Sussmann trial
Special counsel John Durham is pressing for access to records from Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign and others tied to the FBI’s probe into a purported “secret channel” between former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.
All sides are scheduled to appear in court Wednesday for a hearing on defense contentions that the materials shouldn’t be used in the upcoming trial of lawyer Michael Sussmann.
He’s charged with lying about his ties to the Clinton campaign when he told the FBI about since-debunked research into suspected cyber communications between Russia’s Alfa-Bank and the Trump Organization.
In court papers filed last month, Durham said the Democratic National Committee, Hillary for America, the Fusion GPS research company and the powerhouse Perkins Coie law firm — where Sussmann was formerly a partner — “have all withheld and/or redacted documents and communications” that could potentially be used against the defendant.
Durham said they made that decision “based on an apparent theory that political opposition research and/or public relations work … falls within the legitimate scope of attorney-client privilege and work-product protections.”
“They have done so despite the fact that almost all of these materials appear to lack any connection to actual or expected litigation or the provision of legal advice,” members of Durham’s team wrote.
“In fact, of the 1,455 documents withheld by [Fusion GPS], only 18 emails and attachments involve an attorney.”
Durham asked Washington, DC, federal Judge Christopher Cooper to review the records in secret to “ensure that only legitimately privileged and/or attorney work product-protected communications and testimony be withheld from the otherwise admissible evidence and testimony that is presented to the jury.”
In a mammoth, 342-page response filed last week, Fusion GPS — which commissioned the infamous dossier on Trump compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele — said Cooper should instead grant a defense motion to reject Durham’s motion as “procedurally improper.”
The company also accused Durham of mounting an “eleventh-hour attempt to pierce” its attorney-client privilege with Perkins Coie and the work it did for the firm in 2016.
Durham “attempts to characterize Fusion’s work as opposition research and media outreach, rather than privileged investigative work and analysis,” Fusion GPS lawyers wrote.
“But it is not a binary choice between opposition research or privileged investigative work protected by the attorney work product doctrine.”
Sussmann’s trial is set to begin with jury selection on May 16. If convicted, he would face a maximum five years in prison.
