Russian Interference in 2016 US Elections and Ties to Trump Associates

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      La víctima cultural de la guerra de Putin en Ucrania

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      La guerra en Ucrania es una catástrofe interminable. Las fuerzas rusas, concentradas en el este, siguen infligiendo un daño terrible en los soldados y civiles ucranianos. Una infinidad de vidas han sido perdidas y trastornadas. Una vez más, el mundo debe afrontar la posibilidad de una guerra nuclear y lidiar con unas crisis de refugiados y del costo del nivel de vida que están empeorando. Este no es el “fin de la historia” que habíamos esperado.Se está dando otra transformación, aunque menos violenta: luego de tres décadas de intercambio, interacción e involucramiento, la puerta entre Rusia y Estados Unidos se está cerrando. Casi todos los días otra compañía estadounidense —incluyendo la más simbólica de todas, McDonald’s, cuyos arcos dorados anunciaron una nueva era hace 30 años— sale de Rusia. Los diplomáticos han sido expulsados, los productos han sido retirados y las visitas personales pospuestas. En los consulados cerrados, nadie está emitiendo visas y, aunque lo hicieran, el espacio aéreo estadounidense ahora está prohibido a las naves rusas. La única interacción significativa parece ser la emisión de sanciones y contrasanciones.Para una rusaestadounidense como yo, cuya vida se ha forjado en los intersticios de las dos culturas, es un cambio de circunstancias doloroso y desconcertante. Hay que ser claros: las medidas para reducir la capacidad de agresión del Kremlin son necesarias en lo político y en lo moral. Pero el daño colateral es una ruptura de vínculos que está destinada a reavivar estereotipos perjudiciales y a cerrar el terreno para la polinización intercultural. Sobre todo, la actual ruptura marca el fin definitivo de un periodo en el que la integración de Rusia con Occidente, por más conflictiva que fuera, parecía posible y el antagonismo entre superpotencias ideológicas era cosa del pasado.Al menos eso fue lo que sentí un cálido día de marzo de 1989 en Krasnodar, la ciudad provincial al sur de Rusia, cerca del mar Negro, donde crecí. Mi escuela iba a recibir a un grupo de estudiantes de último año de una preparatoria en Nuevo Hampshire: estaba por cumplir 17 años y hasta ese momento Estados Unidos solo existía en mi mente como un concepto abstracto. Era el villano de un espectáculo para las fiestas de fin de año, el objeto de la misión de Nikita Khrushchev de “Alcanzar y sobrepasar a Estados Unidos” y el hogar del programa de La guerra de las galaxias, solo uno de los muchos diseños de los imperialistas para acabar con la Unión Soviética.Pero esos chicos y chicas que llegaron al patio de la escuela vistiendo sudaderas y pantalones de mezclilla no parecían imperialistas ni amenazantes en ningún sentido. Eran como nosotros, pero mejor vestidos: tímidos, con buenas intenciones y fascinados. Tan solo unas horas antes, durante nuestra clase de entrenamiento militar habíamos estado montando rifles kalashnikov para usarlos contra agentes enemigos. Y aquí estaban, de pie frente a nosotros. Nos quedamos mirándonos los unos a los otros. Entonces, alguien sonrió, otra persona saludó. En cuestión de minutos, la desconfianza entre nosotros había desaparecido. “Estoy leyendo Crimen y castigo para las vacaciones de primavera”, me dijo un tipo alto con un arete de plata. “¡Raskolnikov es genial!”.Tengo un cuaderno verde en el que he guardado los nombres de ciudades estadounidense, junto con una carta de amor, un clavel seco y un montón de fotografías en blanco y negro, recuerdos de la magia de 1989: el muro de Berlín desmantelado, la cortina de hierro cayendo, el temible “nosotros” y “ellos” esfumándose en el aire que finalmente era libre. Al cantar “Goodbye America, where I have never been” (Adiós, Estados Unidos, a donde nunca he ido), un himno popular, nos estábamos despidiendo de Estados Unidos como enemigo, de Estados Unidos como un mito y anticipábamos el descubrimiento del Estados Unidos real. Las palabras como “fronteras” e “ideología” ya no eran relevantes. Los dos países parecían estar unidos por un anhelo compartido de paz.Los años que siguieron generaron una buena voluntad inmensa entre nuestras naciones. Como rusa en Estados Unidos, conocí a innumerables personas que la construyeron: un médico californiano que ayudó a crear centros de cardiocirugía infantil en toda la Rusia postsoviética, un director de cine del área de la bahía de San Francisco que organizó el primer festival de cine judío en Moscú y un capitán de Seattle que creó empresas marítimas conjuntas con pescadores en el lejano oriente ruso. Los graduados universitarios rusos, por su parte, acudieron en masa a Estados Unidos, aportando su cerebro y talentos a todo tipo de actividades, desde películas de Hollywood hasta la secuenciación del ADN. Hubo muchos matrimonios. En los años noventa, una popular banda rusa de mujeres plasmó ese espíritu cuando le imploraron, con los acordes de la balalaika eléctrica, a un hipotético “American Boy” que se las llevara.Esa fue la ruta que yo tomé. Dado que al casarme entré en una familia de antiguos disidentes protegidos por Estados Unidos, yo también fui testimonio del flujo de personas e ideas. El dinero también fluyó. Por ejemplo, mi primer trabajo remunerado en Estados Unidos, en 1998, consistió en traducir para el segundo simposio anual sobre inversiones ruso-estadounidenses, organizado por la Universidad de Harvard; participaba un gran elenco de estrellas de la banca internacional que se disputaban la atención de los invitados rusos, entre ellos el magnate Boris Berezovsky y Yuri Luzhkov, entonces alcalde de Moscú.Sin embargo, en algún punto del camino, la buena voluntad se frenó. Después de haber expresado su entusiasmo por el primer presidente ruso postsoviético, Boris Yeltsin, los líderes estadounidenses consideraron que su sucesor forjado en el KGB, Vladimir Putin, no era tanto de su agrado. Putin dejó en claro que eso no le molestaba. “Hegemonía estadounidense”, una frase de mi infancia soviética, empezó a aparecer en los medios de comunicación rusos pro-Kremlin. En Occidente, los rusos ya no eran vistos como rehenes liberados de un régimen totalitario, villanos reformados de las películas de James Bond o emisarios de la gran cultura de Tolstói y Dostoievski, sino como personas que compraban lujosas propiedades en Manhattan y Miami pagando en efectivo. El encanto entre los países y sus ciudadanos se atenuó, pero los intereses compartidos y los vínculos sociales se mantuvieron.La anexión de Crimea en 2014 fue un punto de inflexión. Es cierto que Putin ya había dado rienda suelta a su agresividad en Georgia y, de forma devastadora, en Chechenia, pero fue su pretensión de reclamar el territorio ucraniano lo que dio a Occidente la llamada de atención. Las sanciones subsecuentes impactaron fuertemente en la economía rusa. También proporcionaron al Kremlin amplios medios para azuzar el sentimiento antiestadounidense. Culpar a Estados Unidos de los problemas del país era una narrativa familiar, casi nostálgica, para los rusos, más de la mitad de los cuales nacieron en la Unión Soviética. La simple cantinela “la expansión de la OTAN”, “la agresión occidental”, “el enemigo en la puerta”, se repetía, haciendo creer a los rusos que Estados Unidos pretendía la destrucción de su patria. La propaganda funcionó: en 2018, Estados Unidos volvió a ser considerado como el enemigo número 1 de Rusia, con Ucrania, su “títere”, en segundo lugar.En Estados Unidos, las cosas no estaban tan mal. Pero la llegada de Donald Trump a la escena política mundial complicó la ya tensa relación ruso-estadounidense. Trump se encariñó con el abiertamente autoritario Putin, reforzando el sentimiento antirruso que había ido en aumento desde la intromisión del Kremlin en las elecciones presidenciales estadounidenses de 2016 y que rara vez distinguía entre Putin y el país que gobernaba. Los lazos económicos y culturales empezaron a debilitarse a medida que se hacía más difícil obtener visas y financiación. Aun así, hubo intercambios de estudiantes, se proyectaron películas y se realizaron visitas familiares, aunque a intervalos más largos.Los misiles rusos que atacaron ciudades ucranianas el 24 de febrero extinguieron esa luz parpadeante. Estados Unidos ahora proporciona miles de millones de dólares en armas para usarse contra Rusia y el objetivo declarado de Rusia es poner fin a la dominación global “irrestricta” de Estados Unidos. Los dos países, que en su día fueron aliados en la guerra contra la Alemania nazi, están librando una guerra indirecta. Mientras veo videos de padres rusos incitando a sus hijos a destruir iPhones o leo sobre las amenazas contra una venerable panadería de Seattle conocida por sus productos horneados al estilo ruso, me invade, sobre todo, la tristeza. Nuestro sueño postotalitario de un futuro pacífico y amistoso ha terminado.Aparte de causar un horror físico, la guerra de Putin en Ucrania está borrando muchos activos intangibles, entre ellos la buena voluntad colectiva de Occidente hacia Rusia. En el futuro de mis hijos no veo ningún milagro cultural parecido al que yo viví en 1989. Es una pérdida para ambos países y la de Rusia será mayor si Putin sigue redoblando la carnicería y el aislamiento. Pero ese futuro no está tallado en piedra. Al fin y al cabo, los años de la perestroika, cuando la Unión Soviética se embarcó en reformas a gran escala en nombre de la apertura, demostraron que Rusia es capaz de cambiar.Por ahora, empero, cada explosión en Ucrania también ataca las bondades de la relación entre Estados Unidos y Rusia. En la tierra de Putin, “Goodbye America”, que antes era una canción irónica llena de esperanza, se ha convertido en una oscura profecía autocumplida.Anastasia Edel (@aedelwriter) es la autora de Russia: Putin’s Playground: Empire, Revolution, and the New Tsar. More

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      Russia and America Are Parting Ways

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      The war in Ukraine is a never-ending catastrophe. Russian forces, concentrated in the east, continue to inflict terrible damage on Ukrainian soldiers and civilians alike. Countless lives have been lost and upended. Once again, the world must confront the possibility of nuclear war and grapple with a compounding refugee and cost of living crisis. This isn’t the “end of history” that we hoped for.Less violently, another transformation is taking place: After three decades of exchange, interaction and engagement, the door between Russia and America is slamming shut. Practically every day another American company — including the most symbolic of them all, McDonald’s, whose golden arches heralded a new era 30 years ago — pulls out of Russia. Diplomats have been expelled, concerts canceled, products withdrawn, personal visits called off. In the shuttered consulates, nobody is issuing visas, and even if they were, American airspace is now closed to Russian aircraft. The only substantive interaction left seems to be the issuing of sanctions and counter-sanctions.For a Russian American like me, whose life has been forged in the interstices between the two cultures, it’s a bewildering, sorrowful turn of events. Measures to curtail the Kremlin’s capacity of aggression are, to be clear, politically and morally necessary. But the collateral damage is a severing of ties that is bound to revive harmful stereotypes and close down the space for cross-cultural pollination. More profoundly, the current parting of ways marks the definitive end of a period when Russia’s integration with the West, however vexed, appeared possible — and the antagonism between ideological superpowers was a thing of the past.That’s certainly how it felt on a warm March day in 1989 in Krasnodar, the provincial southern town near the Black Sea where I grew up. My school was hosting a group of seniors from a high school in New Hampshire: I was about to turn 17, and until that day America existed in my mind only as an abstract concept. It was the villain of a New Year’s holiday show, the object of Nikita Khrushchev’s quest “To catch up and overtake America” and home to the “Star Wars” program — just one, we were told, of the imperialists’ many designs to take down the Soviet Union.Only those boys and girls in jeans and sweatshirts who appeared in our schoolyard didn’t look like imperialists, or appear to be threatening at all. They looked like better-dressed versions of us: shy, well-meaning and fascinated. Just a few hours ago, during our military training class, we had been assembling Kalashnikov guns to be used on enemy agents. And here they were, standing in front of us. We stared at each other. Then someone smiled, someone said hello. In a matter of minutes, the wariness between us was gone. “I’m reading ‘Crime and Punishment’ for spring break,’” a tall guy with a silver earring told me. “Raskolnikov is cool!”Over the next five days of mutual discovery, we learned that the Americans were also afraid of nuclear war, only in their version, it would be waged by us. That when transcribed, the lyrics of “Ice Ice Baby” didn’t make much sense. That “pot” had a meaning other than a kitchen item, as explained by the Raskolnikov fan. And that when a boy tells a girl that she’s “special,” that’s, well, special. Together we roamed the streets, snapping photos next to Lenin statues — or rather, as the Americans put it, we “hung out.” Before a tearful goodbye, we traded addresses and promised to be friends for life.I’ve kept a green notebook filled with the names of American towns, along with a love letter, a dried carnation and a stack of black and white photographs, tokens of the magic of 1989: the Berlin Wall dismantled, the Iron Curtain coming down, the scary “us” and “them” disappearing into the finally free air. Chanting “Goodbye America, where I have never been,” a popular anthem, we were bidding farewell to America the enemy, America the myth — and anticipating the discovery of the real thing. Words like “borders” and “ideology” were no longer relevant. America and Russia seemed to be united by a common yearning for peace.The years that followed generated immense good will between our nations. As a Russian in America, I met countless people who built it: a Californian doctor who helped set up children’s heart surgery centers across post-Soviet Russia; a Bay Area filmmaker who organized the first Jewish film festival in Moscow; a Seattle captain who set up joint maritime ventures with fishermen in Russia’s far east. Russian college graduates, meanwhile, flocked to America, giving their brains and talents to everything from Hollywood films to DNA sequencing. There were a lot of marriages. A popular Russian all-female band captured the spirit in the 1990s when they implored, to electric balalaika chords, a hypothetical “American Boy” to come and whisk them away.That happened to be my route. Having married into a family of former dissidents sheltered by America, I too was a testament to the flow of people and ideas. Money flowed also. My first paid job in America back in 1998, for example, was translating for the second annual U.S.-Russian Investment Symposium, hosted by Harvard University and featuring an all-star lineup of international bankers vying for the attention of the Russian guests, among them the tycoon Boris Berezovsky and the mayor of Moscow at the time, Yuri Luzhkov.Yet somewhere along the way, the good will slowed. After expressing enthusiasm for Russia’s first post-Soviet president, Boris Yeltsin, America’s leaders found his K.G.B.-fashioned successor, Vladimir Putin, less to their taste. Mr. Putin made it clear that he didn’t care. “American hegemon,” a phrase from my Soviet childhood, began popping up in Russia’s pro-Kremlin media. In the West, Russians were no longer viewed as liberated hostages of a totalitarian regime, reformed villains from James Bond movies or emissaries of the great culture of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, but rather as all-cash buyers of luxurious properties in Manhattan and Miami. The enchantment between the countries and their citizens dimmed, yet shared interests and social bonds held.The annexation of Crimea in 2014 was a turning point. True, Mr. Putin had previously given vent to his aggression in Georgia and, devastatingly, in Chechnya, but it was his claiming of Ukrainian territory that gave the West its wake-up call. The sanctions that followed hit the Russian economy hard. They also supplied the Kremlin with ample means to stoke anti-American sentiment. Blaming America for the country’s troubles was a familiar, almost nostalgic narrative for Russians, more than half of whom were born in the Soviet Union. The simple tune — “NATO expansion,” “Western aggression,” “enemy at the gate”— played on repeat, keying Russians to believe that America aimed for their motherland’s destruction. The propaganda worked: By 2018, America was once more regarded as Russia’s No. 1 enemy, with Ukraine, its “puppet,” coming second.In America, things weren’t nearly as bad. But Donald Trump’s arrival on the global political stage complicated the already strained Russian-American relationship. Mr. Trump cozied up to the openly authoritarian Mr. Putin, strengthening anti-Russian sentiment that had been rising since the Kremlin’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and rarely distinguished between Mr. Putin and the country he ruled. Economic and cultural ties began to wilt as it got harder to secure visas and funding. Still, student exchanges happened, films were screened and family visits paid, if at longer intervals.The Russian missiles that struck Ukrainian cities on Feb. 24 extinguished that flickering light. America now provides billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to be used against Russia, while Russia’s stated aim is to put an end to America’s “unfettered” global domination. The two countries, once allies in the war against Nazi Germany, are effectively fighting a proxy war. As I watch videos of Russian parents egging on their children to destroy iPhones or read about threats against a venerable Seattle bakery known for its Russian-style baked goods, I’m gripped, above all, by sadness. Our post-totalitarian dream of a peaceful, friendly future is over.Apart from wreaking physical horror, Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine is erasing countless intangibles, among them the collective good will of the West toward Russia. In my children’s future, I see no cultural miracles akin to the one that I experienced back in 1989. This is a loss for both countries, and Russia’s will be greater if Mr. Putin continues doubling down on carnage and isolation. That future isn’t set in stone. After all, the perestroika years, when the Soviet Union embarked on wholesale reforms in the name of openness, showed that Russia is capable of change.For now, though, each explosion in Ukraine also strikes at what was good in the relationship between America and Russia. In Mr. Putin’s land, “Goodbye America,” once a tongue-in-cheek song suffused with hope, has become a darkly self-fulfilling prophecy.Anastasia Edel (@aedelwriter) is the author of “Russia: Putin’s Playground: Empire, Revolution, and the New Tsar.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Sussmann Acquittal Raises Question: What Is Durham Actually Trying to Do?

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      Supporters of the Trump-era prosecutor are lauding his work as a success in unearthing politically charged information, even though his first case to go to trial ended in failure.WASHINGTON — Even before 12 jurors voted to acquit Michael Sussmann of lying to the F.B.I. in a rebuke of the Trump-era special counsel, John H. Durham, supporters of Donald J. Trump were already laying the groundwork to declare that the prosecutor won despite losing in court.What really mattered, they essentially claimed, was that Mr. Durham had succeeded in exposing how Hillary Clinton framed Mr. Trump for the “Russia collusion hoax,” an argument that ricocheted across the right-wing news media.Indeed, Mr. Durham did show that associates of the 2016 Clinton campaign — a victim of Russian hacking — wanted reporters to write about the allegations that played a role in the case, an obscure theory about the possibility of a covert communications channel between Mr. Trump and Russia. But most news outlets were skeptical, and the F.B.I. swiftly discounted the matter.Still, that Mr. Durham’s cheerleaders have embraced this explanation for Mr. Durham’s actions is striking. Stephen Gillers, a New York University professor of legal ethics, said the case was “incredibly weak” and he doubted a prosecutor pursuing normal law enforcement goals would have brought it.“The case wasn’t a nothing-burger, but it was very thin, and it’s hard to understand why it was brought other than to support Trump’s allegation that the Clinton campaign falsely alleged a Trump-Russia connection,” he said. “That motive is unacceptable. The government’s only legitimate goal in bringing this case was conviction.”A spokesman for Mr. Durham did not respond to a request for comment. But in a pretrial filing in the Sussmann case in April, the Durham team denied any suggestion it was “a political actor when, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.”When Attorney General William P. Barr assigned Mr. Durham in May 2019 to investigate the Russia investigation, he did not have a reputation for pursuing iffy cases or for using law enforcement power to publicize politically fraught information.A longtime career prosecutor before becoming a United States attorney under Mr. Trump, Mr. Durham was best known for investigating the C.I.A.’s post-Sept. 11 torture of detainees. He had brought no charges, then fought a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to avoid disclosing his findings and witness interview records.Mr. Barr’s assignment was likely to be the last major act in Mr. Durham’s career. It portended difficulties.For starters, he appeared largely redundant: Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department’s independent inspector general, was already scrutinizing the origins of the investigation into possible ties between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia.Mr. Durham seemed to begin by searching for signs of political bias among F.B.I. officials Mr. Horowitz had already scrutinized and by hunting for wrongdoing among intelligence agencies outside Mr. Horowitz’s jurisdiction. No charges resulted.In December 2019, Mr. Horowitz issued his report uncovering serious flaws with certain wiretap applications but debunking Trump supporters’ baseless theory that the overall investigation was a “deep state” conspiracy. The F.B.I. officials had sufficient legal basis to open it, he found.In a break with his earlier silence toward his investigative work, Mr. Durham issued a statement disagreeing that there was an adequate basis for the investigation and suggesting that he had access to more information. He has yet to disclose what that is.Mr. Horowitz also uncovered that an F.B.I. lawyer had doctored an email used in preparation for wiretap applications, referring the matter for prosecution. While Mr. Durham’s team had not developed the case, it negotiated a plea agreement that resulted in no prison time. That is its only conviction to date.Mr. Trump and his supporters expressed frustration that Mr. Durham failed to charge any deep state conspiracy before the 2020 election.But Mr. Durham’s reputation with Trump supporters began to reverse course last fall, when he charged Mr. Sussmann in connection with telling the F.B.I. about the suspected covert communications channel, involving a server for Russia’s Alfa Bank.Soon after, he indicted a researcher for the Steele dossier — a discredited compendium of rumors about Trump-Russia links compiled for an opposition research firm funded by Democrats — for lying to the F.B.I. about some sources.John H. Durham’s court filings have become fodder for the conservative news media.Samuel Corum for The New York TimesIn both cases, Mr. Durham festooned the narrow charges with copious information, heavy with insinuations that there had been a conspiracy to trick people into thinking Mr. Trump colluded with Russia — not by “deep state” officials, but by associates of Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 campaign.This narrative was not the original hope of Trump supporters, but has nevertheless provided them with new material to continue relitigating the events of 2016 and the Russia investigation.Mr. Durham’s court filings have become fodder for the conservative news media to express outrage about purported wrongdoing to Mr. Trump, typically conflating the Alfa Bank and Steele dossier matters with the official investigation.When Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, testified at the trial that she approved efforts to get reporters to write about Alfa Bank, The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial headlined “Hillary Clinton Did It,” subtitled “Her 2016 campaign manager says she approved a plan to plant a false Russia claim with a reporter.”The piece offered no basis for implying that Mrs. Clinton believed the allegations were false. It also inaccurately stated the campaign had “created” the allegations, and made no mention of the most important news if the charge was what mattered: The campaign neither authorized nor wanted Mr. Sussmann to go to the F.B.I., he testified, undermining Mr. Durham’s narrative that Mr. Sussmann represented the campaign at a key meeting.Some of the most explosive Durham filings themselves have proved to be misleading or tangential to the case.The indictment of Mr. Sussmann selectively quoted from emails among the researchers who developed the Alfa Bank suspicions, fostering an impression that they did not believe their own analysis. But the full emails included passages in which the researchers expressed enthusiastic belief in their final handiwork.Moreover, the material seemed extraneous to a mere false-statement indictment because Mr. Sussmann was not part of those conversations. Indeed, the judge ruled nearly all that evidence inadmissible at the trial.In a pretrial filing in February, prosecutors added a few ambiguous sentences about separate concerns the researchers developed regarding data suggesting that Russian smartphones had been connecting to sensitive networks, including Trump Tower and the White House.Singling those out, the conservative news media erupted in a furor, inaccurately informing readers that Mr. Durham had evidence that the Clinton campaign paid to spy on the network of the Trump White House.Mr. Durham’s filing had not actually said that. The campaign did not pay the cybersecurity researchers, and the White House network data they had sifted for signs of possible Russian infiltration came from Barack Obama’s presidency. Mr. Durham disavowed responsibility for “misinterpreted facts.”Whatever his motives, Mr. Durham’s investigation has demonstrably functioned as a kind of fun-house mirror image of aspects of the work of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel in the Russia investigation.Some liberal commentators once seemed to routinely suggest that developments in Mr. Mueller’s investigation meant the walls were closing in on Mr. Trump. But while Mr. Mueller’s March 2019 report detailed “numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign,” he charged no Trump associate with conspiring with Russia.Similarly, pro-Trump commentators have repeatedly stoked expectations that Mr. Durham would soon charge some of Mr. Trump’s perceived enemies with a conspiracy to do him wrong. But after more than three years, he has offered only insinuations.There are limits to any equivalence. The F.B.I., as Mr. Horowitz indicated, had a sound factual basis to open the Russia investigation; Mr. Barr’s mandate to Mr. Durham appears to have been to investigate a series of conspiracy theories.Mr. Mueller’s team also charged or obtained guilty pleas from about three dozen people and companies and wrote a lengthy report in less time than Mr. Durham has taken to develop only two indicted cases, the first of which just ended in failure. After the verdict on Tuesday, the jury forewoman told reporters the case should not have been prosecuted.But on the night of the acquittal, Sean Hannity of Fox News said Mr. Sussmann was “just a small player in this whole case,” and dismissed the verdict as nothing more than political bias among a jury pool drawn from a heavily Democratic district.The trial, he assured his millions of viewers, was just a “preview of coming attractions.” More

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      Michael Sussmann Is Acquitted in Case Brought by Trump-Era Prosecutor

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      The Democratic-linked lawyer was accused of lying to the F.B.I. about his clients when he passed on a tip about possible connections between Donald J. Trump and Russia.WASHINGTON — Michael Sussmann, a prominent cybersecurity lawyer with ties to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, was acquitted on Tuesday of lying to the F.B.I. in 2016 when he shared a tip about possible connections between Donald J. Trump and Russia.The verdict was a significant blow to the special counsel, John H. Durham, who was appointed by the Trump administration three years ago to scour the Trump-Russia investigation for any wrongdoing.But Mr. Durham has yet to fulfill expectations from Mr. Trump and his supporters that he would uncover and prosecute a “deep state” conspiracy against the former president. Instead, he has developed only two cases that led to charges: the one against Mr. Sussmann and another against a researcher for the so-called Steele dossier, whose trial is set for later this year.Both consist of simple charges of making false statements, rather than a more sweeping charge like conspiracy to defraud the government. And both involve thin or dubious allegations about Mr. Trump’s purported ties to Russia that were put forward not by government officials, but by outside investigators.The case against Mr. Sussmann centered on odd internet data that cybersecurity researchers discovered in 2016 after it became public that Russia had hacked Democrats and Mr. Trump had encouraged the country to target Mrs. Clinton’s emails.The researchers said the data might reflect a covert communications channel using servers for the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, which has ties to the Kremlin. The F.B.I. briefly looked at the suspicions and dismissed them.On Sept. 19, 2016, Mr. Sussmann brought those suspicions to a senior F.B.I. official. In charging Mr. Sussmann with a felony, prosecutors contended that he falsely told the official that he was not there on behalf of any client, concealing that he was working for both Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and a technology executive who had given him the tip.Mr. Durham and prosecutors used court filings and trial testimony to describe how Mr. Sussmann, while working for a Democratic-linked law firm and logging his time to the Clinton campaign, had been trying to get reporters to write about the Alfa Bank suspicions.But trying to persuade reporters to write about such suspicions is not a crime. Mr. Sussmann’s guilt or innocence turned on a narrow issue: whether he made a false statement to the senior F.B.I. official at the 2016 meeting by saying he was sharing those suspicions on his own.Mr. Durham used the Sussmann case to put forward a larger conspiracy: that there was a joint enterprise to essentially frame Mr. Trump for collusion with Russia by getting the F.B.I. to investigate the suspicions so reporters would write about it. The scheme, Mr. Durham implied, involved the Clinton campaign; its opposition research firm, Fusion GPS; Mr. Sussmann; and the cybersecurity expert who had brought the odd data and analysis to him.That insinuation thrilled Mr. Trump’s supporters, who have embraced his claim that the Russia investigation was a “hoax” and have sought to conflate the official inquiry with sometimes dubious accusations. In reality, the Alfa Bank matter was a sideshow: The F.B.I. had already opened its inquiry on other grounds before Mr. Sussmann passed on the tip; the final report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, made no mention of the Alfa Bank suspicions.But the case Mr. Durham and his team used to float their broad insinuations was thin: one count of making a false statement in a meeting with no other witnesses. In a rebuke to Mr. Durham; the lead lawyer on the trial team, Andrew DeFilippis; and his colleagues, the 12 jurors voted unanimously to find Mr. Sussmann not guilty.Some supporters of Mr. Trump had been bracing for that outcome. They pointed to the District of Columbia’s reputation as a heavily Democratic area and suggested that a jury might be politically biased against a Trump-era prosecutor trying to convict a defendant who was working for the Clinton campaign.The judge had told the jurors that they were not to account for their political views when deciding the facts. The jury forewoman, who did not give her name, told reporters afterward that “politics were not a factor” and that she thought bringing the case had been unwise.Mr. Durham expressed disappointment in the verdict but said he respected the decision by the jury, which deliberated for about six hours.“I also want to recognize and thank the investigators and the prosecution team for their dedicated efforts in seeking truth and justice in this case,” he said in a statement.Outside the courthouse, Mr. Sussmann read a brief statement to reporters, praising the jury, his defense team and those who supported him during what had been a difficult year.“I told the truth to the F.B.I., and the jury clearly recognized that with their unanimous verdict today,” he said, adding, “Despite being falsely accused, I am relieved that justice ultimately prevailed in this case.”During the trial, the defense had argued that Mr. Sussmann brought the matter to the F.B.I. only when he thought The New York Times was on the verge of writing an article about the matter, so that the bureau would not be caught flat-footed.Officials for the Clinton campaign testified that they had not told or authorized Mr. Sussmann to go to the F.B.I. Doing so was against their interests because they did not trust the bureau, and it could slow down the publication of any article, they said.James Baker, as the F.B.I.’s general counsel in 2016, met with Mr. Sussmann that September. Mr. Baker testified that he had asked Eric Lichtblau, then a reporter at The Times working on the Alfa Bank matter, to slow down so the bureau could have time to investigate it.Mr. Sussmann’s defense team offered the jurors many potential paths to acquittal, contending that the prosecution had yet to prove multiple necessary elements beyond a reasonable doubt.His lawyers attacked as doubtful whether Mr. Sussmann actually uttered the words that he had no client at his meeting with the F.B.I. in September.That issue was complicated after a text message came to light in which Mr. Sussmann, arranging for the meeting a day earlier, indicated that he was reaching out on his own. But it was what, if anything, he said at the meeting itself that was at issue.Mr. Baker testified that he was “100 percent” certain that Mr. Sussmann repeated those words to his face. But defense lawyers pointed out that he had recalled the meeting differently on many other occasions.The defense team also argued that Mr. Sussmann was in fact not there on behalf of any client, even though he had clients with an interest in the topic. And they questioned whether it mattered, since the F.B.I. knew he represented the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign on other issues, and agents would have investigated the allegations regardless.Midmorning, the jury asked to see a trial exhibit meant to bolster the defense’s argument that Mr. Sussmann did not consider himself to be representing the Clinton campaign. It was a record of taxi rides Mr. Sussmann expensed for the Sept. 19 meeting at F.B.I. headquarters.He logged those rides to the firm rather than to the Clinton campaign or to the technology executive, Rodney Joffe, who had worked with the data scientists who developed the suspicions and brought them to Mr. Sussmann. Prosecutors asserted that Mr. Joffe was his other hidden client in the meeting.During the trial, prosecutors had made much of how Mr. Sussmann logged extensive hours on the Alfa Bank matter to the Clinton campaign in law firm billing records — including phone calls and meetings with reporters and with his partner at the time, Marc Elias, the general counsel of the Clinton campaign.Defense lawyers acknowledged that the Clinton campaign had been Mr. Sussmann’s client for the purpose of trying to persuade reporters to write about the matter, but argued that he was not working for anyone when he brought the same materials to the F.B.I.In a statement, Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth, two of Mr. Sussmann’s defense lawyers, criticized Mr. Durham for bringing the indictment.“Michael Sussmann should never have been charged in the first place,” they said. “This is a case of extraordinary prosecutorial overreach. And we believe that today’s verdict sends an unmistakable message to anyone who cares to listen: Politics is no substitute for evidence, and politics has no place in our system of justice.” More

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      Prosecutors and Defense Duel in Closing Arguments of Sussmann Trial

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      A verdict is expected as early as Tuesday in the case brought by a Trump-era special counsel against a lawyer with ties to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.WASHINGTON — Prosecutors and a defense lawyer put forward starkly opposing views on Friday in closing arguments for the politically charged trial of Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer with ties to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.The case against Mr. Sussmann involves a narrow charge — an accusation of lying to the F.B.I. in a 2016 meeting — but is freighted with partisan overtones. It is also a test of the special counsel who brought it, John H. Durham, because it is his first case to go to trial since he was appointed three years ago to scour the Trump-Russia investigation for any wrongdoing.Two prosecutors told a jury that there was no doubt that Mr. Sussmann had lied to the F.B.I. to conceal his clients — including the Clinton campaign — at the September 2016 meeting, which focused on suspicious data that cybersecurity experts said suggested the possibility of a covert communications channel between Russia and someone close to Donald J. Trump.“It wasn’t about national security,” said one of the prosecutors, Jonathan Algor. “It was about promoting opposition research against the opposition candidate — Donald Trump.”But a defense lawyer, Sean M. Berkowitz, portrayed the case as riddled with uncertainties — including about what Mr. Sussmann actually said, whether it was false and whether it mattered if he was there on behalf of clients since the F.B.I. would have investigated the tip regardless. Each was a path to find reasonable doubt and vote to acquit, he said.“Mr. Sussmann’s liberty is at stake,” he said. “The time for political conspiracy theories is over. The time to talk about the evidence is now.”A verdict is expected as early as Tuesday.The case centers on odd internet data that cybersecurity researchers discovered in 2016 after it became public that Russia had hacked Democrats and Mr. Trump encouraged the country to hack Mrs. Clinton’s emails. The researchers said the data might reflect a covert communications channel using servers for the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked bank.The researchers began working with Rodney Joffe, a technology executive who was an expert in the type of internet data they were scrutinizing. Mr. Joffe brought the suspicions to Mr. Sussmann, who at the time represented the Democratic National Committee on matters related to Russia’s hacking of its emails. A partner at Mr. Sussmann’s law firm, Marc Elias, was the Clinton campaign’s general counsel.Mr. Sussmann and Mr. Joffe tried to get reporters — including Eric Lichtblau, then of The New York Times — to write about the matter, arguments in the trial showed. Mr. Sussmann continued to inform Mr. Elias about those efforts and discussed the matter with an opposition research firm the Clinton campaign had hired through Mr. Elias called Fusion GPS; the firm drafted a paper about Alfa Bank’s Kremlin ties that Mr. Sussmann later gave the F.B.I.Mr. Sussmann logged those efforts in law firm billing records as time spent working for the Clinton campaign, Mr. Durham discovered.On Sept. 18, 2016, soon after receiving an email claiming that Mr. Trump was upset about a Russia-related article that was soon to be published, Mr. Sussmann texted James A. Baker, the F.B.I.’s general counsel, and asked for a meeting the next day. He indicated that he was coming not on behalf of any client, but to help the F.B.I.The case is John H. Durham’s first to go to trial since he was appointed three years ago to scour the Trump-Russia investigation for any wrongdoing.Julia Nikhinson/ReutersMr. Durham’s team has accused Mr. Sussmann of making the same claim when he met the next day with Mr. Baker. In reality, prosecutors argue, Mr. Sussmann was concealing two of his clients — Mr. Joffe and the Clinton campaign.Mr. Algor told the jury on Friday that the effort was a conspiracy to engineer an “October surprise,” meaning a game-changing revelation late in a campaign, by getting the F.B.I. to open an investigation so reporters would write about it.The F.B.I. — which had already opened its investigation scrutinizing possible ties between associates of Mr. Trump and Russia on other grounds — briefly looked at the Alfa Bank suspicions and quickly dismissed them.In late October, Slate published an article about the matter, but it did not mention any F.B.I. investigation. That same day, The Times published an article co-written by Mr. Lichtblau that mentioned the Alfa Bank suspicions but reported that the F.B.I. had so far found no conclusive or direct link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government.The closing arguments focused on whether Mr. Sussmann repeated what he had said in his text message to Mr. Baker at their meeting the next day — a crucial technicality, because he is charged only for what he purportedly said at the meeting itself.Mr. Algor and another prosecutor, Andrew DeFilippis, told the jury that the evidence left no doubt that Mr. Sussmann repeated to Mr. Baker’s face that he was not there on behalf of any client.But Mr. Berkowitz pointed to Mr. Baker’s varying recollections of that meeting. And he noted that Mr. Durham had been investigating Mr. Baker for an unrelated offense but did not charge him, insinuating that the witness had an incentive to remember what the prosecutor wanted to hear: “It’s no wonder he delivered on the stand.”The F.B.I. headquarters in Washington. Two prosecutors told a jury that there was no doubt that Mr. Sussmann had lied to the bureau.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMr. Berkowitz also argued that it was true that Mr. Sussmann was not there on behalf of any client. While Mr. Sussmann had two clients with an interest in Alfa Bank, the defense lawyer said, Mr. Sussmann was not advocating that the F.B.I. take some step on their behalf — or any step at all.Countering that idea, prosecutors emphasized that on Sept. 13, Mr. Sussmann purchased thumb drives at Staples that he later expensed to the Clinton campaign; at the Sept. 19 meeting, he gave thumb drives to the F.B.I. Mr. DeFilippis called that “damning evidence.”Mr. Berkowitz mocked that evidence — a Staples receipt, he noted — saying it was a time when Mr. Sussmann was doing all kinds of work for the campaign. He also emphasized that Mr. Sussmann had not expensed to the campaign his taxi rides for the F.B.I. meeting, nor had he logged an “F.B.I. meeting” in billing records, as was his practice for such meetings.And Mr. Berkowitz cited testimony by Mr. Elias and Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, that they did not direct or authorize Mr. Sussmann to go to the F.B.I. and did not see that step as in the interest of the campaign. They testified that they had just wanted The Times to publish an article; Mr. Baker testified that the F.B.I. asked Mr. Lichtblau to hold off on publishing anything so it could investigate first. More

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      Defense Team for Democratic-Linked Lawyer Won’t Call Ex-Times Reporter to Testify

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      Lawyers had argued that the reporter, Eric Lichtblau, should testify about his communications with their client, Michael Sussmann, who is accused of lying to the F.B.I.WASHINGTON — The defense team for Michael Sussmann, a lawyer with ties to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, has dropped its plans to call a former New York Times reporter to testify in a trial that centers on Mr. Sussmann’s motives in meeting with the F.B.I. in 2016.Testimony in the case has underlined the role the news media played during the bare-knuckle fight between Mrs. Clinton and Donald J. Trump in the 2016 presidential election, particularly as suspicions about Mr. Trump’s possible ties to Russia grew.Mr. Sussmann’s lawyers had argued that the former Times reporter, Eric Lichtblau, should testify about his communications with Mr. Sussmann over odd internet data that cybersecurity researchers said could be covert communications between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-affiliated bank.A special counsel, John H. Durham, has accused Mr. Sussmann of lying to the F.B.I. about his reason for meeting with a top bureau official at the time, James Baker, to convey that information, by saying he was not there on behalf of any client. Prosecutors contend he was in fact representing the Clinton campaign and a technology executive who worked with the researchers.Defense lawyers have argued that Mr. Sussmann represented the campaign in efforts to get reporters to write articles about the Alfa Bank suspicions, but not when he approached the F.B.I. about the data and his belief that a news article about it would soon be published.In his testimony last week, Mr. Baker said that the prospect of an imminent article led him to fear that the F.B.I. would not have time to investigate the possibility of a secret channel before the participants read the news and shut it down. But a week later, when he asked Mr. Lichtblau to delay, he said the reporter indicated that an article was not yet ready to publish.The Times published an article that mentioned the Alfa Bank matter about six weeks later, but it said the F.B.I. “ultimately concluded that there could be an innocuous explanation.”Prosecutors have insinuated that Mr. Sussmann sought to prompt an F.B.I. investigation so reporters would write articles about it, while defense lawyers have argued that he went to the bureau only when he believed an article was imminent.“The defense’s theory is that the story was going to come out, or was likely to come out, or was close to coming out; and Mr. Sussmann wanted to give a heads-up,” Sean Berkowitz, Mr. Sussmann’s lawyer, told the court on Monday.Mr. Lichtblau’s testimony could have shed light on what he told Mr. Sussmann regarding how soon an article might be published before he sought the F.B.I. meeting.Mr. Lichtblau apparently consented to testify as a defense witness about the narrow topic of his interactions with Mr. Sussmann. But a dispute arose over whether prosecutors could ask him about other sources during cross-examination.Late Tuesday, Mr. Sussman’s defense team withdrew its subpoena for Mr. Lichtblau’s testimony without stating a reason. A lawyer for Mr. Lichtblau declined to comment.The Sussmann trial, which began on May 16, is the first case to be developed by Mr. Durham, a special counsel appointed during the Trump administration by Attorney General William P. Barr to examine the origins of the F.B.I.’s investigation into ties between Mr. Trump and Russia.But the Alfa Bank matter was tangential to the official investigation. Trial testimony has shown that F.B.I. agents swiftly dismissed the suspicions as implausible.Mr. Durham’s prosecutors have accused Mr. Sussmann of trying to persuade the F.B.I. to investigate Mr. Trump over his ties with Russia, to facilitate negative coverage about Mrs. Clinton’s rival and disseminate unsubstantiated claims before the election.At the trial on Wednesday, prosecutors wrapped up their case by introducing a stack of written documents, including records from Mr. Sussmann’s law firm that showed he billed many hours on the Alfa Bank matter to the Clinton campaign.Defense lawyers sought to raise doubts. They emphasized that Mr. Sussmann’s billing of several hours on apparent Alfa Bank matters the day of the F.B.I. meeting did not mention the F.B.I. or a meeting, as was his habit for other such meetings. They also pointed out that he when he expensed taxis for the meeting, he charged them to the firm, not any client. More

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      Key Witness in Durham Case Offers Detailed Testimony of 2016 Meeting

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      A former F.B.I. official said Michael Sussmann, a lawyer accused of lying to the F.B.I., told him he was reporting Trump suspicions on his own, not on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.WASHINGTON — A former F.B.I. official testified on Thursday that when he met in 2016 with Michael Sussmann, a lawyer with ties to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, Mr. Sussmann told him that he had come to the F.B.I. on his own.The testimony bolsters the case brought by the special counsel, John H. Durham, against Mr. Sussmann, who has been accused of lying about his reason for bringing his suspicions to the F.B.I. about a possible secret communications channel between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Russian financial firm with ties to the Kremlin.The case centers on whether Mr. Sussmann sought to conceal his ties to Mrs. Clinton in the meeting with the F.B.I., so as not to seem as if he were coming for partisan reasons on behalf of a political opponent of Donald J. Trump.While the Sussmann case is a narrow false statement charge, Mr. Durham’s filings have broadly insinuated that the Clinton campaign tried to get the F.B.I. to investigate Mr. Trump over his ties with Russia, and to persuade reporters to write stories about the matter.The former F.B.I. official, James A. Baker, who in 2016 was the agency’s general counsel, was adamant that Mr. Sussmann had told him he was representing no one but himself during the meeting. “I’m 100 percent confident that he said that,” Mr. Baker said. “Michael’s a friend of mine and a colleague, and I believed it and trusted that the statement was truthful.”Mr. Baker’s testimony was not a surprise. It dovetailed with a text message Mr. Sussmann had sent to him the night before, and underscored that the case may turn on what it means to be somewhere “on behalf” of a client.Mr. Sussmann’s lawyers have acknowledged that he was working for the campaign when he tried to get reporters to write about the Alfa Bank matter. But they maintain he separately brought the matter to the F.B.I. when he thought a news article was about to be published on the topic so that the bureau would not be caught flat-footed.Still, on Thursday, they also sought to raise doubts about whether Mr. Baker accurately recalled what their client said at the six-year-old meeting and subsequent events.Sean Berkowitz, one of Mr. Sussmann’s lawyers, asked questions that seemed to indicate that Mr. Baker had to have known that Mr. Sussmann was working with the Clinton campaign.On the stand, Mr. Baker offered a detailed account of their meeting, and the steps he took to share the matter with top F.B.I. officials who could swiftly investigate the concerns, which had been raised by internet data and cybersecurity research. The F.B.I. would later conclude that the concerns about Alfa Bank were unsubstantiated.He would have “made a different assessment” if he had thought Mr. Sussmann had approached him on behalf of a client, particularly if that client were Mr. Trump’s political opponent, Mr. Baker said.“It would have raised very serious questions,” Mr. Baker added, about “the credibility of the source.”The Sussmann trial, which began this week, is the first case to be developed by Mr. Durham, a special counsel appointed during the Trump administration by the attorney general at the time, William P. Barr, to examine the origins of the F.B.I.’s investigation into ties between Mr. Trump and Russia.Believing that the bureau had limited time to act, Mr. Baker told top F.B.I. officials about the evidence, encouraging them to take it seriously because it originated with Mr. Sussmann.Mr. Baker said the F.B.I. spoke with two New York Times reporters, one of whom was working on an article about the possible communications channel, to say that the bureau needed time to start an investigation before an article was published.In that light, Mr. Baker said he would have also rethought his dealings with the news media. He said the F.B.I. was “aware of and wary of” the fact that the existence of an F.B.I. investigation could be used by reporters as a way to report on something that is “flawed or incomplete.” More

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      Clashing Views of Cybersecurity Lawyer as Trial in Special Counsel’s Case Opens

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      Michael Sussmann, a prominent lawyer with Democratic ties, is accused of lying to the F.B.I. in a case with broader political overtones.WASHINGTON — Prosecutors and defense lawyers clashed in opening arguments on Tuesday in the trial of Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer with links to Democrats who has been charged by a Trump-era special counsel with lying to the F.B.I. in 2016 when he brought the bureau a tip about possible Trump-Russia connections.Deborah Shaw, a prosecutor working for the Trump-era special counsel, John H. Durham, told a federal jury that Mr. Sussman was in part representing Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign at the time. But he claimed to the F.B.I. that he was not bringing the tip on behalf of any client because he wanted to conceal his ties to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.Whether one loves or hates former President Donald J. Trump, Ms. Shaw said, the F.B.I. needs to know the truth “and should never be used as a political pawn.”But a defense lawyer, Michael Bosworth, argued to the jury that Mr. Sussmann did not lie to the F.B.I. when he relayed the suspicions. No one at the Clinton campaign told Mr. Sussman to take the matter to the F.B.I., Mr. Bosworth said.Mr. Bosworth did acknowledge that Mr. Sussmann was representing the Clinton campaign when he reached out separately to a reporter then at The New York Times about the suspicions. The move led the bureau, Mr. Bosworth said, to try to delay any news article while they investigated.“The meeting with the F.B.I. is the exact opposite of what the campaign would have wanted,” Mr. Bosworth said, adding: “They wanted a big story that hurts Trump and helps them. He was there to help the F.B.I.”The contrasting narratives were a highlight of the first day of the trial, which is expected to take about two weeks. Witnesses may include Marc Elias, who was then Mr. Sussmann’s law partner as well as the general counsel of the Clinton campaign, and James Baker, who was then the F.B.I.’s general counsel.The case centers on a meeting Mr. Sussmann had with Mr. Baker in September 2016, when Mr. Sussmann told Mr. Baker about some odd internet data and analysis by cybersecurity researchers who had said it might be a sign of a covert communications channel using servers for the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked financial institution. The F.B.I. investigated the matter but concluded the concerns were unsubstantiated.Although the false-statement charge against Mr. Sussmann is narrow, the case has attracted broad attention. It is the first developed by Mr. Durham, and the special counsel has used court filings to insinuate that Clinton campaign associates sought to frame Mr. Trump for colluding with Russia.It has been clear for months that the trial will turn in part on how to interpret what it means to bring information to the F.B.I. “on behalf” of a client. But the rival opening statements brought into sharper relief another dispute: Mr. Sussmann’s understanding of the status of a potential New York Times article.Ms. Shaw maintained that Mr. Sussmann and others decided to bring the information to the F.B.I. “to create a sense of urgency” when a Times reporter with whom he had previously shared the Alfa Bank allegations, Eric Lichtblau, did not swiftly publish a story about them.But Mr. Bosworth argued that Mr. Sussmann believed The Times was on the cusp of publishing the article when he reached out to the F.B.I. Mr. Sussmann, he emphasized, had been a federal prosecutor and had worked with the F.B.I. for years and wanted to give it advance warning so it would not be “caught flat-footed.”Mr. Lichtblau, who no longer works for The Times, may testify. In the meantime, some things remain unclear about the status of the potential article he was drafting. Mr. Baker has testified to Congress that the F.B.I. asked The Times “to slow down” on publishing it. But news reports have indicated that editors were not ready to run that article anyway.Mr. Sussmann was given the data and analysis by Rodney Joffe, an internet entrepreneur and expert in domain name systems who was already his client. The analysis had been developed by a group of data scientists who specialized in analyzing DNS data for signs of cyberthreats, and who eventually started working with him.After opening arguments, two F.B.I. agents testified. The first explained technical details to the jury about so-called DNS data, a type of internet log that was the basis for the suspicions.The second agent, Scott Hellman, an F.B.I. cybercrime specialist who was part of a two-person team that performed a quick initial assessment of the materials Mr. Sussmann had provided to Mr. Baker, testified that he was skeptical of its methodology and conclusions.Among other things, Mr. Hellman said, he did not think it made any sense that anyone would use a server with Trump’s name on it for a secret channel. He also testified that he had been frustrated that Mr. Baker did not tell him from whom he received the data.John H. Durham, center, is the special counsel assigned by the Trump administration in 2019 to scour the Russia investigation for wrongdoing.Samuel Corum for The New York TimesThe prosecution and defense appeared to be putting different emphasis on a matter that formed the backdrop to the constellation of events at issue in the trial: Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.In her opening statement, Ms. Shaw told the jury that Mr. Sussman had represented the Democratic National Committee when it was hacked in the spring of 2016, but she omitted the fact that Russia was the perpetrator.Mr. Bosworth, by contrast, emphasized to the jury that the onset the events took place “at a time when questions were swirling about Donald Trump’s connections to Russia.” More