Sussmann, Michael

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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

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      Trump-Era Prosecutor’s Case Against Democratic-Linked Lawyer Goes to Trial

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      The first case developed by the special counsel, John Durham, involves a lawyer who is accused of lying when he shared a tip with the F.B.I. about possible links between Donald J. Trump and Russia.WASHINGTON — When the Trump administration assigned a prosecutor in 2019 to scour the Russia investigation for any wrongdoing, President Donald J. Trump stoked expectations among his supporters that the inquiry would find a “deep state” conspiracy against him.Three years later, the team led by the special counsel, John H. Durham, on Monday will open the first trial in a case their investigation developed, bringing before a jury the claims and counterclaims that surrounded the 2016 presidential campaign. But rather than showing wrongdoing by the F.B.I., it is a case that portrays the bureau as a victim.The trial centers on whether Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer with ties to Democrats, lied to the F.B.I. in September 2016, when he relayed suspicions about possible cyberconnections between Mr. Trump and Russia. The F.B.I. looked into the matter, which involved a server for the Kremlin-linked Alfa Bank, and decided it was unsubstantiated.In setting up the meeting, Mr. Sussmann had told an F.B.I. official that he was not acting on behalf of any client. Prosecutors contend he concealed that a technology executive and the Hillary Clinton campaign were his clients to make the allegations seem more credible.The defense argues that Mr. Sussmann was not acting on their behalf at the meeting. The F.B.I. was aware that he had represented Democrats on matters related to Russia’s hacking of their servers, and subsequent communications made clear that he also had a client who had played a role in developing the data analysis concerning Alfa Bank, his lawyers say.While the charge against Mr. Sussmann is narrow, Mr. Durham has used it to release large amounts of information to insinuate that there was a broad conspiracy involving the Clinton campaign to essentially frame Mr. Trump for colluding with Russia.That insinuation also hangs over the other case Mr. Durham has developed, which is set to go to trial later this year. It accuses a researcher for the so-called Steele dossier — a since-discredited compendium of opposition research about purported links between Mr. Trump and Russia — of lying to the F.B.I. about some of his sources.Both cases have connections with the law firm Perkins Coie, where Mr. Sussmann worked then. One of his partners, Marc Elias, was the general counsel of the Clinton campaign and had commissioned opposition research that led to the Steele dossier.The Alfa Bank allegations and the Steele dossier were largely tangential to the official investigation into whether there was collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. F.B.I. officials had opened that investigation on other grounds, and the special counsel who completed the inquiry, Robert S. Mueller III, did not rely on either in his final report.(His report detailed “numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign,” but he did not charge any Trump associate with a criminal conspiracy with Russia.)But supporters of Mr. Trump have rallied around Mr. Durham’s narrative, which resonates with Mr. Trump’s oft-repeated claim that the entire Russia investigation was a “hoax.”Defense lawyers for Mr. Sussmann have also rejected prosecutors’ broader insinuations about the constellation of events that led to his indictment, accusing the Durham team of fueling politicized conspiracy theories.Against that backdrop, much of the pretrial jostling has centered on how far afield prosecutors may roam from the core accusation. Judge Christopher Cooper of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, an Obama appointee, has imposed some limits on what Mr. Durham’s team may present to the jury.Through his court filings, Mr. Durham and his team have signaled that they suspect that the Alfa Bank data or analysis may have been faked, even though they were unable to prove it.But the judge barred Mr. Durham from presenting evidence or arguments along those lines, saying that unless there was proof Mr. Sussmann had reason to doubt the data when it was brought to him, there should not be “a time-consuming and largely unnecessary mini-trial to determine the existence and scope of an uncharged conspiracy.”Still, the judge has given prosecutors broader latitude to call witnesses associated with the Clinton campaign, including Mr. Elias and Robby Mook, the campaign manager.The Alfa Bank issue traces back to the spring of 2016, when it came to light that Russia had hacked Democrats.That summer, as suspicions escalated about Mr. Trump’s relationship with Moscow, a group of data scientists identified odd internet data that appeared to link servers for the Trump Organization to Alfa Bank.Working with Rodney Joffe, a technology executive and cybersecurity expert, they theorized that it might be a covert communications channel. Mr. Joffe, who was already a client of Mr. Sussmann’s, brought the matter to him, and Mr. Sussmann relayed those suspicions to reporters and the F.B.I. He also told Mr. Elias about it, and Clinton campaign officials were apparently aware that he was trying to get reporters to write about it.Seeking a meeting with the F.B.I. to share the material, Mr. Sussmann reached out to James A. Baker, then the agency’s top lawyer. Mr. Sussmann said in a text that he was not bringing it on behalf of any client and was motivated by a desire to help the bureau. Mr. Baker is expected to be a primary prosecution witness.But Mr. Durham’s team obtained law firm billing records showing that Mr. Sussmann had logged time working on the Alfa Bank suspicions to the Clinton campaign. The team argued that he lied because if the F.B.I. knew of the political connection, agents might have treated the matter differently.“The strategy, as the government will argue at trial, was to create news stories about this issue, about the Alfa Bank issue,” Andrew DeFilippis, a prosecutor for Mr. Durham, said at a recent hearing. “And second, it was to get law enforcement to investigate it; and perhaps third, your honor, to get the press to report on the fact that law enforcement was investigating it.”John H. Durham is the special counsel the Trump administration assigned in 2019 to scour the Russia investigation for any wrongdoing.Bob Child/Associated PressAt the same hearing, a defense lawyer, Sean Berkowitz, said that he would not contest that Mr. Sussmann represented the Clinton campaign in telling reporters about those allegations. But he suggested that the defense would contend that Mr. Sussmann did not believe he was taking the matter to the F.B.I. “on behalf” of the campaign or Mr. Joffe.Mr. Berkowitz noted that Mr. Sussmann had told Mr. Baker that he believed The New York Times planned to publish an article on the Alfa Bank suspicions, which was why he was reaching out.“We expect there to be testimony from the campaign that, while they were interested in an article on this coming out, going to the F.B.I. is something that was inconsistent with what they would have wanted before there was any press,” Mr. Berkowitz said. “And in fact, going to the F.B.I. killed the press story, which was inconsistent with what the campaign would have wanted.”Some details of that matter remain murky. Mr. Baker has testified that the F.B.I. tried to ask The Times “to slow down” on publishing. But news reports indicate that editors were not ready to run that article, which was being written by the reporter Eric Lichtblau, although the paper published one mentioning Alfa Bank six weeks later.Defense lawyers have also argued that even if Mr. Sussmann lied, it would have been immaterial because the F.B.I. would have still investigated the allegations. And they have suggested that despite his initial statement, Mr. Sussmann was open about having a client in subsequent communications. Notes of a March 2017 F.B.I. meeting with Mr. Baker show that the bureau understood he had one by then.The defense has also subpoenaed Mr. Lichtblau, who is no longer at The Times, to testify. A lawyer for Mr. Lichtblau has asked the judge to limit questioning to his discussions with Mr. Sussmann, avoiding other confidential sources and journalistic matters. Mr. Durham’s team is expected to object to any such constraint. More

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      Durham Distances Himself From Furor in Right-Wing Media Over Filing

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      The special counsel implicitly acknowledged that White House internet data he discussed, which conservative outlets have portrayed as proof of spying on the Trump White House, came from the Obama era.WASHINGTON — John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel scrutinizing the investigation into Russia’s 2016 election interference, distanced himself on Thursday from false reports by right-wing news outlets that a motion he recently filed said Hillary Clinton’s campaign had paid to spy on Trump White House servers.Citing a barrage of such reports on Fox News and elsewhere based on the prosecutor’s Feb. 11 filing, defense lawyers for a Democratic-linked cybersecurity lawyer, Michael Sussmann, have accused the special counsel of including unnecessary and misleading information in filings “plainly intended to politicize this case, inflame media coverage and taint the jury pool.”In a filing on Thursday, Mr. Durham defended himself, saying those accusations about his intentions were “simply not true.” He said he had “valid and straightforward reasons” for including the information in the Feb. 11 filing that set off the firestorm, while disavowing responsibility for how certain news outlets had interpreted and portrayed it.“If third parties or members of the media have overstated, understated or otherwise misinterpreted facts contained in the government’s motion, that does not in any way undermine the valid reasons for the government’s inclusion of this information,” he wrote.But even as he did not acknowledge any problem with how he couched his filing last week, Mr. Durham said he would make future filings under seal if they contained “information that legitimately gives rise to privacy issues or other concerns that might overcome the presumption of public access to judicial documents.”Former President Donald J. Trump has seized on the inaccurate reporting to declare that there is now “indisputable evidence” of a Clinton campaign conspiracy against him — and to suggest that there ought to be executions. Mr. Trump, Fox News hosts and others have also criticized mainstream journalists for not covering the purported revelation.The dispute traces back to a pretrial motion in the case Mr. Durham has brought against Mr. Sussmann accusing him of making a false statement during a September 2016 meeting with the F.B.I. where he relayed concerns about possible cyberlinks between Mr. Trump and Russia. The bureau later dismissed those as unfounded.Mr. Durham says Mr. Sussmann falsely told the F.B.I. official he had no clients, but was really there on behalf of both the Clinton campaign and a technology executive named Rodney Joffe. Mr. Sussmann denies ever saying that, while maintaining he was only there on behalf of Mr. Joffe — not the campaign.Several sentences of the filing recounted a second meeting, in February 2017, where Mr. Sussmann had presented different concerns about odd internet data and Russia to the C.I.A., which came from the same cybersecurity researchers who developed the suspicions he had presented to the F.B.I.At the C.I.A. meeting, Mr. Sussmann shared concerns about data that suggested that someone using a Russian-made smartphone may have been connecting to networks at Trump Tower and the White House, among other places.Mr. Sussmann had obtained that information from Mr. Joffe. The court filing also stated that Mr. Joffe’s company, Neustar, had helped maintain internet-related servers for the White House, and accused Mr. Joffe — whom Mr. Durham has not charged with any crime — and his associates of having “exploited this arrangement” by mining certain records to gather derogatory information about Mr. Trump.In the fall, The New York Times had reported on Mr. Sussmann’s C.I.A. meeting and the concerns he had relayed about the data suggesting the presence of Russian-made YotaPhones — smartphones that are rarely seen in the United States — in proximity to Mr. Trump and in the White House.But over the weekend, the conservative news media treated those sentences in Mr. Durham’s filing as a new revelation while significantly embellishing what it had said. Mr. Durham, some outlets inaccurately reported, had said he had discovered that the Clinton campaign had paid Mr. Joffe’s company to spy on Mr. Trump. But the campaign had not paid his company, and the filing did not say so. Some outlets also quoted Mr. Durham’s filing as using the word “infiltrate,” a word it did not contain.Most important, the coverage about purported spying on the Trump White House was premised on the idea that the White House network data involved came from when Mr. Trump was president. But Mr. Durham’s filing did not say when it was from.Lawyers for a Georgia Institute of Technology data scientist who helped analyze the Yota data said on Monday that the data came from the Obama presidency. Mr. Sussmann’s lawyers said the same in a filing on Monday night complaining about Mr. Durham’s conduct.Mr. Durham did not directly address that basic factual dispute. But his explanation for why he included the information about the matter in the earlier filing implicitly confirmed that Mr. Sussmann had conveyed concerns about White House data that came from before Mr. Trump was president.The purpose of the earlier filing was to ask a judge to look at potential conflicts of interest on Mr. Sussmann’s legal team. Mr. Durham included those paragraphs, he wrote, in part because one of the potential conflicts was that a member of the defense had worked for the White House “during the relevant events that involved” the White House.The defense lawyer in question is Michael Bosworth, who was a deputy White House counsel in the Obama administration.Separately on Thursday, lawyers for Mr. Sussmann filed a pretrial motion asking a judge to dismiss the case.They argued that even if Mr. Sussmann did falsely say at the F.B.I. meeting that he had no client — which they deny — that would not rise to a “material” false statement, meaning one affecting a government decision. The decision facing the F.B.I. was whether to open an investigation about the concerns he relayed at that meeting, and it would have done so regardless, they said.Mr. Durham has said Mr. Sussmann’s supposed lie was material because had the F.B.I. known that he was acting “as a paid advocate for clients with a political or business agenda,” agents might have asked more questions or taken additional steps before opening an investigation. More

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      Court Filing Started a Furor in Right-Wing Outlets, but Their Narrative Is Off Track

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      The latest alarmist claims about spying on Trump appeared to be flawed, but the explanation is byzantine — underlining the challenge for journalists in deciding what merits coverage.WASHINGTON — When John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel investigating the inquiry into Russia’s 2016 election interference, filed a pretrial motion on Friday night, he slipped in a few extra sentences that set off a furor among right-wing outlets about purported spying on former President Donald J. Trump.But the entire narrative appeared to be mostly wrong or old news — the latest example of the challenge created by a barrage of similar conspiracy theories from Mr. Trump and his allies.Upon close inspection, these narratives are often based on a misleading presentation of the facts or outright misinformation. They also tend to involve dense and obscure issues, so dissecting them requires asking readers to expend significant mental energy and time — raising the question of whether news outlets should even cover such claims. Yet Trump allies portray the news media as engaged in a cover-up if they don’t.The latest example began with the motion Mr. Durham filed in a case he has brought against Michael A. Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer with links to the Democratic Party. The prosecutor has accused Mr. Sussmann of lying during a September 2016 meeting with an F.B.I. official about Mr. Trump’s possible links to Russia.The filing was ostensibly about potential conflicts of interest. But it also recounted a meeting at which Mr. Sussmann had presented other suspicions to the government. In February 2017, Mr. Sussmann told the C.I.A. about odd internet data suggesting that someone using a Russian-made smartphone may have been connecting to networks at Trump Tower and the White House, among other places.Mr. Sussmann had obtained that information from a client, a technology executive named Rodney Joffe. Another paragraph in the court filing said that Mr. Joffe’s company, Neustar, had helped maintain internet-related servers for the White House, and that he and his associates “exploited this arrangement” by mining certain records to gather derogatory information about Mr. Trump.Citing this filing, Fox News inaccurately declared that Mr. Durham had said he had evidence that Hillary Clinton’s campaign had paid a technology company to “infiltrate” a White House server. The Washington Examiner claimed that this all meant there had been spying on Mr. Trump’s White House office. And when mainstream publications held back, Mr. Trump and his allies began shaming the news media.“The press refuses to even mention the major crime that took place,” Mr. Trump said in a statement on Monday. “This in itself is a scandal, the fact that a story so big, so powerful and so important for the future of our nation is getting zero coverage from LameStream, is being talked about all over the world.”There were many problems with all this. For one, much of this was not new: The New York Times had reported in October what Mr. Sussmann had told the C.I.A. about data suggesting that Russian-made smartphones, called YotaPhones, had been connecting to networks at Trump Tower and the White House, among other places.The conservative media also skewed what the filing said. For example, Mr. Durham’s filing never used the word “infiltrate.” And it never claimed that Mr. Joffe’s company was being paid by the Clinton campaign.Most important, contrary to the reporting, the filing never said the White House data that came under scrutiny was from the Trump era. According to lawyers for David Dagon, a Georgia Institute of Technology data scientist who helped develop the Yota analysis, the data — so-called DNS logs, which are records of when computers or smartphones have prepared to communicate with servers over the internet — came from Barack Obama’s presidency.“What Trump and some news outlets are saying is wrong,” said Jody Westby and Mark Rasch, both lawyers for Mr. Dagon. “The cybersecurity researchers were investigating malware in the White House, not spying on the Trump campaign, and to our knowledge all of the data they used was nonprivate DNS data from before Trump took office.”In a statement, a spokesperson for Mr. Joffe said that “contrary to the allegations in this recent filing,” he was apolitical, did not work for any political party, and had lawful access under a contract to work with others to analyze DNS data — including from the White House — for the purpose of hunting for security breaches or threats.After Russians hacked networks for the White House and Democrats in 2015 and 2016, it went on, the cybersecurity researchers were “deeply concerned” to find data suggesting Russian-made YotaPhones were in proximity to the Trump campaign and the White House, so “prepared a report of their findings, which was subsequently shared with the C.I.A.”A spokesman for Mr. Durham declined to comment.Mr. Durham was assigned by the attorney general at the time, William P. Barr, to scour the Russia investigation for wrongdoing in May 2019 as Mr. Trump escalated his claims that he was the victim of a “deep state” conspiracy. But after nearly three years, he has not developed any cases against high-level government officials.Instead, Mr. Durham has developed two cases against people associated with outside efforts to understand Russia’s election interference that put forward unproven, and sometimes thin or subsequently disproved, suspicions about purported links to Mr. Trump or his campaign.Both cases are narrow — accusations of making false statements. One of those cases is against Mr. Sussmann, whom Mr. Durham has accused of lying during a September 2016 meeting with an F.B.I. official about Mr. Trump’s possible links to Russia.(Mr. Durham says Mr. Sussmann falsely said he had no clients, but was there on behalf of both the Clinton campaign and Mr. Joffe. Mr. Sussman denies ever saying that, while maintaining he was only there on behalf of Mr. Joffe — not the campaign.)Both Mr. Sussmann’s September 2016 meeting with the F.B.I. and the February 2017 meeting with the C.I.A. centered upon suspicions developed by cybersecurity researchers who specialize in sifting DNS data in search of hacking, botnets and other threats.A military research organization had asked Georgia Tech researchers to help scrutinize a 2015 Russian malware attack on the White House’s network. After it emerged that Russia had hacked Democrats, they began hunting for signs of other Russian activity targeting people or organizations related to the election, using data provided by Neustar.Mr. Sussmann’s meeting with the F.B.I. involved odd data the researchers said might indicate communications between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked institution. The F.B.I. dismissed suspicions of a secret communications channel as unfounded. In the indictment of Mr. Sussmann, Mr. Durham insinuated that the researchers did not believe what they were saying. But lawyers for the researchers said that was false and that their clients believed their analysis.The meeting with the C.I.A. involved odd data the researchers said indicated there had been communications with Yota servers in Russia coming from networks serving the White House; Trump Tower; Mr. Trump’s Central Park West apartment building; and Spectrum Health, a Michigan hospital company that also played a role in the Alfa Bank matter. The researchers also collaborated on that issue, according to Ms. Westby and Mr. Rasch, and Mr. Dagon had prepared a “white paper” explaining the analysis, which Mr. Sussmann later took to the C.I.A.Mr. Durham’s filing also cast doubt on the researchers’ suggestion that interactions between devices in the United States and Yota servers were inherently suspicious, saying that there were more than three million such DNS logs from 2014 to 2017 — and that such logs from the White House dated back at least that long.But Ms. Westby and Mr. Rasch reiterated that YotaPhones are extremely rare in the United States and portrayed three million DNS logs over three years as “paltry and small relative to the billions and billions” of logs associated with common devices like iPhones.“Yota lookups are extremely concerning if they emanate from sensitive networks that require protection, such as government networks or people running for federal office,” they said. More