WASHINGTON — When a particular counsel accused a distinguished cybersecurity lawyer of mendacity to the F.B.I. throughout a September 2016 assembly about Donald J. Trump’s attainable hyperlinks to Russia, the indictment introduced a prolonged narrative however the direct proof appeared lean.
The indictment mentioned the lawyer, Michael A. Sussmann, had made a false assertion by telling an F.B.I. official that he was not representing a consumer in presenting the data. Mr. Sussmann, who has pleaded not responsible, has denied saying that. Nobody else was current and their dialog was not recorded, so the direct and clearly admissible proof appeared to boil down to at least one witness.
This week, extra items of proof emerged into public view that weren’t within the indictment — one in every of which seems to dovetail with the accusation towards Mr. Sussmann by the particular counsel, John H. Durham, who was appointed in the course of the Trump administration, whereas a number of others seem to battle with it.
The fabric emerged in courtroom filings and at a standing convention earlier than a choose on Wednesday.
It isn’t clear whether or not the entire newly disclosed proof can be admissible. However the jostling between prosecutors and protection attorneys might supply a preview of facets of the trial, which they mentioned on Wednesday would final about two weeks and Decide Christopher R. Cooper mentioned might start in Could or early June.
Whereas the cost towards Mr. Sussmann is slim, it has obtained vital political consideration partly as a result of Mr. Durham concluded that the Hillary Clinton marketing campaign had helped push the suspicions, which involved attainable secret communications between pc servers related to Mr. Trump’s firm and the Kremlin-linked Alfa Financial institution. The F.B.I. determined the suspicions have been unfounded.
In accusing Mr. Sussmann of telling the F.B.I. official — James A. Baker, then the bureau’s common counsel — that he had no shoppers, Mr. Durham claimed that Mr. Sussmann was truly representing each a expertise govt and the Clinton marketing campaign. Mr. Sussmann, through his attorneys, denied that he instructed Mr. Baker that he had no consumer, whereas sustaining he was there on behalf of solely the manager, not the marketing campaign.
One piece of newly disclosed proof, described in a filing by Mr. Durham’s team on Tuesday evening, consists of handwritten notes by an F.B.I. lawyer to whom Mr. Baker spoke concerning the assembly that day. The Durham submitting quoted the notes as saying “no particular consumer.”
That proof is just like one other set of handwritten notes beforehand cited within the indictment by one other F.B.I. official who additionally spoke to Mr. Baker after the assembly. The indictment quoted these notes as itemizing Mr. Sussmann’s title, then a touch, then the title of his regulation agency, then a touch, after which the phrases “mentioned not doing this for any consumer.”
It isn’t clear whether or not such notes — or testimony by the F.B.I. officers who took them — could be admissible at a trial underneath complex rules of evidence. These guidelines typically ban statements made outdoors courtroom as rumour, however they make exceptions topic to judges’ interpretations.
The indictment additionally mentioned that in February 2017, Mr. Sussmann met with the C.I.A. and conveyed comparable and associated issues, citing a post-meeting memorandum by two company workers that mentioned he was “not representing a specific consumer.” Mr. Durham portrayed that as displaying Mr. Sussmann had repeated a false assertion.
However on the listening to on Wednesday, a lawyer for Mr. Sussmann, Sean Berkowitz, cited proof turned over by the prosecutors final week that muddies that image by suggesting he might as an alternative have instructed them he had a consumer.
Emails by company personnel forward of the assembly, Mr. Berkowitz mentioned, included statements like “Sussmann mentioned he represents a consumer who doesn’t wish to be identified” and “the plan must be to persuade Sussmann that it’s in his and his consumer’s curiosity to go to the F.B.I.” A draft model of the company’s post-meeting memo additionally referred to Mr. Sussmann having a consumer, he mentioned.
A prosecutor working for Mr. Durham, Andrew DeFilippis, instructed the choose that “though we’re not, , fascinated about a full factual debate earlier than the courtroom,” an company worker had noticed the reference to a consumer within the draft memo and “corrected” it for the ultimate model. Mr. De Filippis didn’t handle references to a consumer within the earlier emails.
These disclosures adopted a courtroom submitting on Monday by Mr. Sussmann’s protection staff that exposed contradictory issues Mr. Baker had mentioned underneath oath about the important thing interplay in Justice Division interviews, which Mr. Durham’s staff disclosed to them final week.
In 2019 and 2020 interviews, Mr. Baker recalled the interplay in two completely different ways in which every clashed with the indictment’s model. Within the first, he mentioned Mr. Sussmann instructed him the cyberexperts who developed the Alfa Financial institution idea “have been his shoppers.” Within the second, he mentioned Mr. Sussmann by no means mentioned if he was representing anybody and Mr. Baker didn’t ask, however assumed he had no consumer.
Within the Tuesday courtroom submitting, Mr. Durham’s staff accused the protection of “cherry-picking” the proof and placing ahead a “skewed portrayal.”
The 2019 and 2020 interviews “occurred years after the occasions in query, and Mr. Baker made these statements earlier than he had the chance to refresh his recollection with contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous notes,” they mentioned, including that he had since “affirmed after which re-affirmed his now-clear recollection of the defendant’s false assertion.”