An indictment against a prominent cybersecurity lawyer was obtained on Thursday by the special counsel appointed by the Trump administration to scrutinise the Russia investigation, accusing him of lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation five years ago during a meeting about President Donald J. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Expectations had been raised about the indictment of Michael Sussmann, the lawyer in question. As a representative of the law firm Perkins Coie, which has strong connections to the Democratic Party, Sussmann has been accused of making a false statement about his client at the meeting.
According to the indictment, he came to the conclusion that the Clinton campaign conspired with the FBI and journalists to spread those concerns. While the Federal Bureau of Investigation looked into the concerns regarding Alfa Bank, it determined that they were baseless, and the special counsel who subsequently took over the Russia investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, chose to overlook the issue in his final report.
It had been anticipated that the lawyer, Michael A. Sussmann, would be charged. He is accused of lying to a senior FBI lawyer at a discussion regarding those concerns, in which he said he was not representing any of the clients present. He was instead representing two other clients: a technology executive and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, according to prosecutors.
His attorneys, Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth, have categorically rejected the allegation, stating that Mr. Sussmann did not claim he had no client and that the evidence against him is insufficient. They further disputed that the issue of who Mr. Sussmann was working for was relevant, claiming that the Federal Bureau of Investigation would have examined the case regardless of who he was working for.
The Democratic National Committee hired Mr. Sussmann in 2016 to represent them on matters relating to Russia’s hacking of the DNC’s computers. He is a former computer crimes prosecutor who previously worked for the Justice Department for 12 years.
