Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) seeking records of meetings and phone conversations between any CIA personnel and former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, who has been charged in Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation with making a false statement to a federal agent (Judicial Watch v. Central Intelligence Agency (No. 1:22-cv-00412))
Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the CIA failed to reply to an October 26, 2021, FOIA request for:
All records regarding any meetings or telephonic conversations between any official or employee of the Central Intelligence Agency and Mr. Michael Sussmann (formerly an attorney with Perkins Coie) between January 1, 2015 and the present. This request includes, but is not limited to, all notes, transcripts, summaries, or other records created in preparation for, during, or pursuant to the meetings or conversations.
On February 11, Durham, who is investigating the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, filed a motion, which focused on potential conflicts of interest related to the representation of Sussmann, who has been charged with making a false statement to a federal agent. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty.
According to a February 15, 2022, Fox News report, a spokesperson for the individual labeled in Durham’s latest filing as “Tech Executive-1” has seemingly identified the CIA as the “second” federal government agency to which Sussmann provided an “updated set of allegations” to “establish ‘an inference’ and ‘narrative’ ” tying Donald Trump to Russia.
Durham writes in the latest filing:
[O]n February 9, 2017, [Sussman] provided an updated set of allegations – including the [Alfa Bank] data and additional allegations relating to Trump – to a second agency of the U.S. government (“Agency-2”). The Government’s evidence at trial will establish that these additional allegations relied, in part, on the purported DNS traffic that Tech Executive-1 and others had assembled pertaining to Trump Tower, Donald Trump’s New York City apartment building, the EOP, and the aforementioned healthcare provider. In his meeting with Agency-2, the defendant provided data which he claimed reflected purportedly suspicious DNS lookups by these entities of internet protocol (“IP”) addresses affiliated with a Russian mobile phone provider (“Russian Phone Provider-1”). The defendant further claimed that these lookups demonstrated that Trump and/or his associates were using supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the vicinity of the White House and other locations. The Special Counsel’s Office has identified no support for these allegations.
“The CIA is in cover-up mode about its communications with the lawyer implicated in a shady spy operation against President Trump,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “What is the CIA hiding about its role in this plot against President Trump?”