The Durham Prosecution Team Has Rested It's Case

What Happens Next?

The Durham prosecutors trying Michael Sussmann on a single count of making a false statement to a federal official have rested their case.

The last day of the government’s case against Sussmann included some eye-opening disclosures.

The government has provided sufficient evidence to the jury that in both setting up his meeting with Baker via a text message on the night of Sept. 18, 2016, and then during the meeting at FBI headquarters the following day, Sussmann did indeed make a materially false statement to Baker when he claimed both in writing and then verbally that he had not requested this meeting on behalf of any of his clients or any company.

What happens next?

Well the defense gets to try to poke holes in the prosecution’s case. They’ll attempt to prove that ‘everybody knew’ that Sussmann was working for the DNC and the Clinton campaign, so his lie to FBI General Counsel James Baker on Sept.19, 2016 is not material and therefore the jury should find him not guilty.

As the defendant’s legal team began making their own case today, the first thing they did was bring in some FBI witnesses who wrote notes which contain a single line stating that Andrew McCabe - then Assistant Director of the FBI - had told them in a briefing that Sussmann had said he went to meet with Baker for his clients.

As I have patiently pointed out, the fact that Sussmann subsequently told the truth to other people later on after this meeting with Baker does not in any way change the fact that he told Baker something that was 100% false.

Several observers in the courtroom noted that lead defense attorney Sean Berkowitz appeared flustered and repetitive.

Once the defense has finished making it’s case to the jury and rests, the next phase, the rebuttal phase, of the trial begins.

The prosecution gets to answer the main points of the defendant’s case, and then final statements to the jury will be delivered by both sides.

How long the jury will deliberate is anybody’s guess. Since it’s pretty clear that the government had an overwhelming amount of evidence to establish Sussmann’s false statement, I don’t think the jury will be out for all that long.

I’m fairly confident that a verdict of guilty will be returned, though of course as many people love to point out, this is Washington D.C. and it only takes one person to hang a jury.