Clinton lawyer accused of lying to FBI about Trump's ties to Russia

US officials investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election have now accused prominent lawyer Michael Sussman of lying to the FBI, reports with the BBC.

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Michael Sussman accused of hiding the fact that he worked for the campaign of Hillary Klintotone when he submitted information about Donald Trump.

Sussman's lawyers say he did not commit the crime.

The Trump administration launched this investigation into Russia, led by former prosecutor John Durham, in 2019.

Durham was tasked with investigating whether the government acted lawfully and appropriately in its intelligence gathering in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.

Trump and his supporters have often accused the FBI and the Justice Department of illegally monitoring his 2016 campaign.

On the subject: Trump ignored the White House telephone rules: when Melania was angry with him, he called her from mobile security

In an indictment released February 10, prosecutors on the Durham team alleged that Sussman made false statements during a September 19, 2016 meeting with former FBI General Counsel James Baker, months before the election.

Prosecutors say he lied about not saying he was a paid employee of the Clinton presidential campaign at the time. The allegation of a connection between a Trump-run company and a Russian bank was investigated by the FBI and found to be unfounded.

Officials said Baker was under the false impression that Sussman was not representing any client and was only acting as a concerned citizen.

The indictment charges Sussman with falsely telling Baker that he was not representing any client when he met with him in order to provide the FBI with official documents and other data files containing evidence of dubious cyber links between the Trump organization and Russian bank.

The indictment alleges that Sussman did not actually pass on the information as a "good citizen" but rather as a lawyer representing a US technology executive, an internet company and the Clinton presidential campaign.

In a statement, Sussman's lawyers, who are partners with law firm Perkins Coie, argued that he did nothing wrong.

"Any prosecution here would be a baseless, unprecedented and unwarranted deviation from the apolitical and principled way the Justice Department is supposed to do its job," his lawyers wrote.

“We are confident that if Sussman is indicted, he will prevail in court and protect his good name,” they added.

The investigation, which ran from 2017 to 2019, was led by Robert Mueller, a former director of the FBI.

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He focused on alleged collusion between Trump's 2016 campaign team and Moscow. No evidence of a conspiracy has been found, but Mueller has charged more than 30 people, including several key Trump officials, with lying to investigators.

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