A federal judge called out John Durham's prosecutors

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A federal judge called out John Durham's prosecutors for creating a 'sideshow'. A federal judge dinged prosecutors from the special counsel John Durham's office for creating a "sideshow" with a court filing last month that former President Donald Trump and his allies falsely claimed provided proof that he was illegally spied on by the Clinton campaign. At the center of the hearing was a conflict-of-interest motion that Durham's office filed in its ongoing case against the former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann. The conflict motion contained almost no new information and highlighted potential conflicts of interest regarding Sussmann's legal representation. But right-wing news outlets and former President Donald Trump took several details in the filing out of context (NOTHING NEW) and falsely said that it showed the Clinton campaign illegally surveilled Trump. The Judge is correct. This is a total sideshow. Durham charged Sussmann last year with lying to the FBI during a conversation with then FBI general counsel James Baker in 2016. Durham's indictment said that Sussmann "lied about the capacity in which he was providing" allegations to the FBI about what he claimed was a "secret communications channel" between the Trump Organization and Russia's Alfa Bank. The indictment said Sussmann lied to the FBI when he told Baker he wasn't working on behalf of any client. In fact, the indictment said, Sussmann was acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign, the tech executive Rodney Joffe, and the internet company Neustar. Sussmann's motion to dismiss said that in the past, those who have been charged in connection to providing tips to the government have been prosecuted for lying to the FBI "only where the tip itself was alleged to be false, because that is the only statement that could affect the specific decision to commence an investigation." When Sussmann met with Baker in September 2016, the filing said, he went "to provide a tip." There is no allegation in the Indictment that the tip he provided was false. And there is no allegation that he believed that the tip he provided was false. Sussmann has been charged with making a false statement about an entirely ancillary matter—about who his client may have been when he met with the FBI—which is a fact that even the Special Counsel's own Indictment fails to allege had any effect on the FBI's decision to open an investigation.