By your reference to part 28, you mean the reference to the hand written notes of the meeting which read in relevant part: "Michael Sussman[n] -Atty: [Law Firm-I] -said not doing this for any client" (emphasis in original). Or do you mean where it was recorded that Sussmann said he was approached (rather than approaching) the scientists?
Actually I meant 27a and 28 together. 27a is the private meeting with Baker. 28 is the Assistant Director's notes on his interpretation of Baker's discussing the meeting with the Assistant Director. The note is hearsay, the indictement doesn't mention any notes by Baker.
The note is admissable to impeach testimony of Baker and/or the Assistant Director if they were to deny its contents. You also ignored item 42, where Sussman is alleged to have repeated the claims to another agency in front of 2 people. There may be records of that as well. You're making a giant assumption, one that's almost certainly unfounded that an experienced prosecutor would make those charges in such a tightly held investigation if they couldn't prove them.
Nothing requires, or even suggests it would be appropriate, to provide every piece of evidence in an indictment. But you have a minimum of 4 government witnesses, and at least one contemporaneous record to support the lying charge.
I do note, you are partially correct. Hearsay is generally not admissable, you are not however correct that this note and the information in it are necessarily easily excluded as hearsay. Not only are there exceptions that could apply, there's a number of ways to have it introduced for "other purposes."
That seems open and shut, and you seem to be assuming that they don't have records of the original meeting or relevant testimony as well. The fact that they included a reference to an on point contemporaneous writing is pretty key. Your only alternative is to assert that Baker lied to the Assistant Director or that the Assistant Director falsified the record. Take your pick. I don't recall Baker testifying that he lied to the FBI, but maybe you can point me at that.
Neither, the Assistant Director that Baker talked to after the meeting could easily have misunderstood what Baker was saying. Hearsay is generally inadmissible, especially likely given that it is already contradicted by Baker's testimony before congress.
The written record is not hearsay when it's used as evidence of the discussion between Baker and the Assistant Director. Moreover, it's almost certainly going to be trivially easy to show other records that rely on and support that record.
It sounds like you're going with the Assistant Director created a false record as your argument, and that means you're asserting that Sussmann told Baker that he was there on behalf of the Clinton campaign. If that's the case (and I'd really laugh if that's what they assert) you're going to see some serious follow up criminal charges as he'd be admitting to participating with his client in a crime (not the one charged in this indictment). Assuming Durham doesn't get short circuited.
So just to be clear, your position seems to be that Sussmann went in with his story and told Baker that he was bringing it to the FBI on behalf of the Clinton campaign?
In all likelihood he didn't mention anyone. Why would he, there is no requirement for him to do so. As a lawyer he probably used weasel words if he was asked.
That's counterfactual. We know he mentioned his clients (this one should be a no brainer to understand on your part, there's no way he could have not mentioned certain representations without creating additional legal risk). The assertion was that he expressed he was not acting on their behalf.
Are you asserting that the allegations in 27 are false as well? 28 is a reference to a record of an internal follow up meeting, but 27 is fascinatingly detailed. I'd be stunned if Durham can't separately prove the allegations in 27, given that he could easily have used the record in 28 as a source (but elected not to do so).
27a and 28 are the same meeting with Baker, they aren't separate allegations.
Actually they are. 27 is stating as fact certain things that occurred in the Baker meeting. 28 is stating that a second meeting confirmed the first. I'm sorry if you're confused on this, but that's a basic interpretation issue.
Baker met with Sussman alone, then talked with the AD after the meeting, the AD made a note. There aren't any notes from Baker asserting what is in the AD's note and Baker has given sworn testimony that essentially states that the AD's note is incorrect.
There aren't any notes from Baker described in the indictment. That's not the same thing as saying there is nothing in writing about the meeting. Sussmann delivered a number of files, Baker would have made calendar entries, there's bound to be email traffic, there may be recordings, there could be texts or other communications. Heck Baker could have made his own notes (as could Sussmann) that are in the position of Durham.
Any notes Sussmann made at the meeting are not priviledged as Baker is not his client.
Well that's a fascinating assertion. Your options here are that Sussman lied and said he didn't represent the Clinton campaign, or that the FBI falsified its records to deliberately mask that they knew the Clinton campaign was the source. There really isn't another possible conclusion based on the written records.
Again, no lie necessary. Baker's notes did not contain the allegation and his congressional testimony contradicts the allegation. The AD's note, which is hearsay contains the allegation, it is quite possible that the AD merely misunderstood Baker. No lies or conspiracy necessary - just common human communication skills.
Again you misunderstand how hearsay works in this context, but putting that aside, you seem to what to conclude that some how a specific (and key) item in the Assistant Director's notes, something that clearly would have been discussed and be material to the investigation, was a "misunderstanding"? No chance sir. That's not going to fly, not at the level that was being dealt with here. That's honestly like arguing that the FBI agents in the Nassar case just misunderstood and wrote down that there was no sexual assault.
Haven't read nor seen the white papers so I've not much to comment on. What is said about them in the indictment doesn't appear to show anything illegal to have been done - they "avoided addressing weaknesses" isn't illegal.
Yes, interesting you pull that from the very section where they discuss how the evidence wouldn't hold up in front of a DNS expert like themselves, but focus on the question of whether it would appear valid to a non-specialist security expert. They literally discussed in emails how to fool people without specialized knowledge into thinking it was more than it was. Saying nothing about the conspiracy of sending the lawyer to leak the story to the press as well as the FBI, then leak to the press that FBI was investigating it, and then leaking to the FBI that they better do something because you heard the press got ahold of it.
From the limited description provided in the indictment, it appears they did time series analysis of Russian DNS originating traffic interacting with Trump servers, but were aware that DNS traffic can be spoofed.
Except it wasn't a Trump server and they knew it. They literally knew it was a mass marketing server and expressly discussed that it was a non-issue and not what they were looking for (at least until they didn't find anything else and needed to spruce it up).
You skip of course that all of their "research" was conducted through the misuse of non-public commercial and governmental data, the latter of which is certainly a crime and the former of which is very likely a crime.
They didn't mention the possibility of DNS spoofing in their analysis.
Lol, as if that was all they didn't mention. They didn't mention that they knew as DNS experts that their claim was fictitious.
They were trying to offer evidence that Trump's public statement of 'no interaction with Russia' was false.
They were trying to create evidence, using illegally obtained non-public data, to do so. And when they didn't find what they were looking for, they wrapped up a nothing burger and cloaked the problems only someone with the same level of access and expertise could have independently found, and sold it to the FBI and the media.
If you really think this kind of thing is okay, I'm wondering why I even bother.
There was traiffic from Russia interacting with Trump servers that they excluded once they realized the server resolved to a 'trump-email.com' CRM system (I get the impression it was excluded, but Durham seems to claim that the whitepaper analysis includes that server - since the person telling the researchers to ignore it is the tech executive funding the research I think Durham may have misinterpreted the white paper, but won't know for sure till it is public).
The FBI already conclusively determined that it wasn't a Trump server, you are pursuing a counter-factual there.
See this quote,
Tech Executive-1 therefore concluded that "we can ignore it, together with others that seem to be part of the marketing world.
So it seems clear to me that the white papers are a good faith effort by Tech Executive-1 to prove that Trump was lying about a lack of Russia interaction as shown by the internal emails. Rather than your characterization.
Except that they went with it when they didn't find anything else, even though they knew it was mass marketing material, and not actually a Trump server. But sure, other than their lies, misrepresentations, and appropriation of governmental and corporate data for their own purposes sure they were operating in "good faith." No you know what, that's just a bridge too far. They have quotes that establish they weren't acting in good faith.
We agree it was timed to beat the statute of limitations since it was filed the day they would run out. There don't appear to be any other alleged crimes or described crimes though.
shrug. It's like watching you walk through a murder scene with blood everywhere and saying you see nothing but that a bike got borrowed.
Honestly, LR it's over. I still don't have faith in Durham pulling this off, but this conspiracy is exposed. Clinton's agents completely made up the secret Trump server story. It's now a known lie.
Your batting record on such prognostications are so low, that a betting man would be wise to wager on the opposite of whatever you conclude.
That's a fascinating assertion. As far as I can tell, I've been right virtually everytime we disagreed on one of these issues. Maybe you can prove it though, go ahead and try. Otherwise I think I have to label that as just a lie.
Or nobody lied, and the AD misinterpreted what Baker told him.
Yep, and Hillary just misinterpretted what it meant to wipe a server when she asked about using a cloth. Lol. I don't get how you can possible think you're being credible here. That's not a line that gets misinterpreted. It's a material point.
Hard to credibly assert that it wasn't material to the investigation since the investigation actually occurred and would not have occurred if it was widely known that the story investigated was paid for by the Clinton campaign. So why are you asserting that which is not credible? Repeating Baker's self serving claim is ridiculous.
First off Christopher Steele became a Confidential Human Source for the FBI in October 2013, and did work for the FBI from 2014-2015, and had worked with the FBI on a 2009 corruption probe into FIFA, long before he was hired for the dossier. So they absolutely would have opened an investigation based on his research. He was a well known and respected source. He wasn't contracted by Fusion GPS till June 2016.
You do understand the server investigation was its own investigation? There's no question here. The records of the investigation are in the possession of the Special Counsel, including the basis for beginning it. Are you really trying to assert that they don't know how to read them?
Manafort was already under investigation for money laundering, Page was already under investigation for contact with suspected Russian Intelligence officers.
Lol. Page's investigation was faked as well, as you well know. We've already had a conviction on that one. The investigation of Manafort was completely inactive until he began working for the Trump campaign.
Steele independently reported the information in July 2016 for his first two reports, telling the FBI he had been hired by Fusion GPS, that Fusion GPS had been retained by a law firm to investigate relationships between Trump and Russia, and Steele gave his opinion that the research was likely politically motivated.
Steele didn't "independently" report this. That's just a lie.
So your speculation that knowing that the information originated due to Clinton campaign funding would result in the FBI rejecting it is incorrect.
It would be if I'd said that. Knowing it was paid for by the Clinton campaign would have changed how it was relied on. Everything about this conspiracy and the indictment makes clear that the goal was to make it appear that the information invented and/or misleading packaged by Clinton partisans was independent of their influence.
It was Page's meeting with Russian agents in Moscow on July, 2016 and Manafort's criminal behavior, etc. that were the primary driver's of the investigation.
What a bunch of lies you're telling yourself.
