Update: A federal grand jury has indicted Michael Sussman on one count of making a false statement to federal authorities.
Former United States Attorney John Durham is reportedly nearing the end of his investigation into the origins of the debunked “Russian collusion” hoax, and according to sources, will be seeking a grand jury indictment of one lawyer at the left-wing law firm Perkins Coie, the New York Times reports.
Durham will be seeking one charge of making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation against lawyer Michael Sussman, who served as a federal prosecutor before joining Perkins Coie, which is closely connected to 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, among other prominent Democratic Party officials. Sussman represented the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in the aftermath of the 2016 election, repeatedly claiming with no evidence that Russia had hacked the DNC’s servers.
Specifically, the charge stems from the possibility that Sussman lied to the FBI when he claimed that he did not work for the Clinton campaign at the time he first made such claims about President Trump and Russia in September of 2016. Both of Sussman’s lawyers, Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth, of the law firm Latham and Watkins, said that they expect him to be indicted while at the same time insisting that he was innocent of any wrongdoing.
“Mr. Sussman has committed no crime,” the two lawyers said in a joint statement. “Any prosecution here would be baseless, unprecedented, and an unwarranted deviation from the apolitical and principled way in which the Department of Justice is supposed to do its work. We are confident that if Mr. Sussman is charged, he will prevail at trial and vindicate his good name.”
Durham, who was first appointed to lead the investigation in April 2019, just one month after the special counsel investigation by former FBI Director Robert Mueller had ultimately confirmed that there was no collusion between the 2016 presidential campaign of President Donald Trump and the Russian government, while also exonerating the 45th president on allegations of obstruction of justice.
Former Attorney General William Barr announced in October 2020 that he was elevating Durham to the status of special counsel. After taking office in January, Joe Biden ultimately refused to order his attorney general, Merrick Garland, to shut down Durham’s investigation.