We offered a theory after Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann walked last week that we now formally call The "Loss Leader" Theory. Just as a retail store might offer some product, such as a jug of milk, at below cost –- a “loss leader” –- to get customers into the store and buy more, so Special Counsel John Durham prosecuted a small case he knew he would lose in the DC courts, to introduce evidence suggestive of far greater misdeeds.
This appears to have been done with Michael Sussmann, even as he walked out of court free and clear on his charge of lying to the FBI. Emails included as part of his trial raise questions as to his role in something else involving the FBI; namely, shaping the narrative of the so-called “Russian hack” of the DNC and the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee). You know, the “hack” for which there is no evidence –- at least that the public has seen –- of it being a Russian hack, or even a hack at all.
THE EPOCH TIMES has obtained trial documents and, in a premium story, reports that “Sussmann proposed alterations to an FBI statement on the hacking of the [DCCC] to avoid undermining the narrative for his clients.” And the FBI bent to his will.
In July 2016, Jim Trainor, assistant director for the FBI Cyber Division, wrote Sussmann, who was representing the DNC and DCCC, to get his “thoughts” on the FBI’s draft response to all the phone calls they were getting on the “Russia hack” story. Sussmann read the draft and wrote back:
“The draft you sent says only that the FBI is aware of media reports; it does not say that the FBI is aware of the INTRUSION [emphasis ours] that the DCCC reported. Indeed, it refers only to a “possible” cyber intrusion and in that way undermines what the DCCC said in its statement (or at least calls into question what the DCCC said).”
Trainer went right along with Sussmann’s proposed changes. Instead of saying the FBI is aware of reporting on “a possible cyber intrusion involving the DCCC,” it would say the Bureau “is aware of the cyber intrusion involving the DCCC that has been reported in the media and the FBI has been working to determine the nature and scope of the matter.”
To provide some context, one day before this email exchange between Sussmann and Trainor, then-CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama that Russia was aware of a plan by Hillary to “vilify” her rival, Trump, by “stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.” Days later, the CIA told the FBI they had intelligence showing Clinton’s plan was meant to distract the public from her own scandal, the use of a private email server for classified government business.
Recall that the DNC and DCCC hired the private cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike to investigate the so-called “intrusions.” The FBI opened their own investigation, but they were relying on server images and reports produced by CrowdStrike and partially redacted. The Bureau requested the unredacted documents but never received them. According to another email produced at trial, Sussmann was the point person between the FBI and the DNC/DCCC.
Other emails between Sussmann and Trainor show Sussmann upset that the FBI had announced it was investigating. He requested the Bureau consult him before making public statements about it. A compliant Trainor apologized and agreed. He said the FBI and the “victims” (the alleged hack-ees) would be “equally cooperative partners as we navigate this matter.”
Note that in changing the words of Trainer’s draft, Sussmann was firming up his preferred narrative that this breach DID HAPPEN, not just that it possibly did. He wanted to have no question of this, even though the FBI had not concluded it on their own and would always simply take CrowdStrike’s word. Trainer’s original draft was really more accurate.
So we’ve established that Sussmann was the point man and storyteller for something that still remains a mystery, an event that appears to have set up the whole Russia Hoax. It seems to us that the truth about it might be one of those big-ticket items in the store; Sussmann’s doomed trial on one count of lying was just the jug of cheap milk that got us in there.
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