In Durham probe, grand jury indicts attorney with ties to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign

A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., has handed up an indictment of attorney Michael Sussmann for making a false statement to the FBI, as the bureau investigated the existence of an alleged secret communication channel between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank. 

The indictment says that Sussmann, who is based in Washington, D.C., requested a meeting with the FBI general counsel at FBI headquarters in September 2016, in order to provide information that allegedly showed covert communications between the Trump Organization and the Russia-based bank. 

But the U.S. alleges Sussmann was lying to the FBI general counsel in claiming that he was not bringing forward the information on behalf of a client. The FBI was led to think he was acting as a concerned citizen when in fact, according to the Justice Department, Sussmann had assembled the information on behalf of clients: Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and a tech executive. Sussmann had also previously represented the Democratic National Committee, too, in connection with an earlier cyber hack.