On Tuesday, Michael Sussmann will be tried as a Hillary Clinton apparatchik for spreading false conspiracy theories about Donald Trump. This follows the selection and trial of the jury. It is John Durham’s first major prosecution in the Russian collusion hoax investigation.
Sussmann’s previous attempts to dismiss the case failed after Durham responded with the skill to the contradictory arguments. The final decision will now be made by a jury that includes a Hillary Clinton donor as well as a woman who claims to be impartial regarding Donald Trump.
Many members of both the larger jury pool and those selected for the jury expressed a strong dislike for Trump and/or support for Clinton. Many said that they had not heard about the Sussmann case before the judge informed them.
One of the jurors said to the court that she remembered the 2016 election being a “misunderstood” and that there had been “a lot of shenanigans. She stated that Trump is a person she dislikes and she doesn’t believe she can be impartial if the case involves someone from his team. However, she noted that it could be impartial “if it’s about Trump.”
This case concerns Donald Trump, which is a problem. It’s not Trump associates on trial. The entire case hinges around Sussmann lying to the FBI about the Alfa Bank conspiracy theory. This claimed that the former president had secret servers communicating with the Russians.
How can a juror, who has stated that they are strongly animus towards Trump, be impartial when judging someone on trial for deliberately trying to destroy Trump’s credibility? This woman was able to make it to the final jury pool.
But she’s not the only one. Another juror revealed that they also donated to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and/or to Joe Biden in 2020. It seems unlikely that anyone would be disqualified for donating to any presidential campaign, given that most people don’t donate to them. There are many other potential jurors who aren’t too political to donate money to Clinton.
The jury itself is made up of only five men and 11 women. This is important. Women, particularly liberal women, are one of the most important demographics for the Democrat Party.
This is the problem when criminal trials are held against people involved in corruption at the federal level in Washington. DC was the most liberal in the country and voted 92.5 percent in favor of Biden during the last presidential election. It is amazing to see the bias among potential jurors. Beyond that, the Obama appointee who allowed these jurors to the pool is also the judge. Take what you want from this.
However, there is some good news. A conviction almost always comes about when a case against someone is filed.
As Sussman’s trial begins, I thought you guys would be interested in what the statistics are for convictions & acquittals in federal court. In 2018, acquittals were 0.0034% of total cases. (That’s much less than 1% of all cases & it’s only 17% of the cases that went to trial.) pic.twitter.com/Ft99Zn96bP
— Leslie McAdoo Gordon ⚖️ 👠🇺🇸 (@McAdooGordon) May 16, 2022
However, I am skeptical that these stats will apply to the Sussmann trial. Federal court trials are almost always non-political. It is rare for Durham to do what he is doing, so it is a concern that he will be prosecuted fairly. I am a natural cynic about this stuff, given the lack of justice in the past.
We can still assume that Durham would choose to go to trial if he wanted to. Is it possible that the jury will view it this way? That is another matter.
