Sussman files preliminary objections —Durham’s hilariously weak objections to Sussman proposed Trial Exhibit
Less than ten days before Sussman’s trial begins. And yet here we are watching the parties lock horns on the evidence. Durham is the Lucy of Jurisprudence and apparently he has no evidence to support.
Dear Readers,
I swore I was going to take today off from writing -but technically (yes I’m preemptively arguing) it’s May 7th —or at least that’s when the article will publish. Today’s memorial service was three plus hours long of unrelenting gut punches, while having someone rip your heart out. At one point I had excused myself from the service. I walked to my car and then I called his office line. I thought to myself “if only I can hear your voice one more time” then as the voicemail greeting started to play —I realized, over 14 years ago I had recorded his voicemail greeting. So instead of hearing his voice, I heard my own. And for a brief moment I laughed and cried at the same time. The dichotomy of polar opposite emotions occurring simultaneously is not lost on me. However I think a few folks in the parking garage heard me literally screaming:
“you massive asshole -even in death you are trying to make me laugh”
Also so here’s your preemptive daily saltwater therapy. I don’t know when I’ll stop posting suicide prevention in my Instagram Post. It’s a process and I’m allowing myself to have a limited timetable of “processing” the impact of his suicide. The main motivation of sharing my raw pain and emotion is: as a society there’s such a stigma to talk about mental health and suicide. Yes I know it’s probably uncomfortable to some of my readers. And for that I sincerely apologize but I’m sick of society’s unwillingness to frankly and candidly talk about mental health and suicide… the invisible pain/wounds are the hardest to heal. Just because you can’t see the injury doesn’t mean there isn’t injury.
As previously noted, I started writing and editing this article late Friday night and because of insomnia here I am at 4AM finally publishing this article. Yeah insomnia has its benefits…
Your honor I strenuously object…
…federal rules of criminal procedure and evidence …something something
In case you missed yesterday’s article -I’ve embedded it below because I think this will help you better understand the context of today’s update. And it’s a pretty interesting update because Durham isn’t just doubling down, he’s trying to hit a line drive out of the ballpark. And the exhibit Sussman included is pretty detailed…
It is also important to remind you that originally Durham sought to have Sussman’s trial delayed until mid summer 2022 —however and as you know the Court set the trial date to Mid-May 2022. In the late evening of May 5, 2022 Defendant Sussman filed the following:
NOTICE of Defendant's Preliminary Objections to Special Counsel's Exhibit List by MICHAEL A. SUSSMANN (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit A) see DDC ECF link for Sussman’s preliminary objections and exhibit
I’d like to draw your attention to the highlights and (actual) red lines because it’s important and I would like to walk you through the basic and I mean basic Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. And as the saying goes “always know your local rules” because they can vary from various courts. Accordingly I’ve embedded the DDC Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, for your edification…
Local Rules of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (3/24/2022)
Changes to Local Rules 5.1(c)(1), 7(k), 40.7(f), 57.14(f) and 83.6(c) (3/23/2022)
More broadly you can access the DDC local rules, via their website but with respect to Defendant Sussman’s preliminary objections — you’ll note his filing that he’s raising objections. After scanning the 33 page exhibit (see DDC ECF) Defendant Sussman’s objections boil down to the following:
Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE): Rule 401:
“Evidence is relevant if:
(a) it has any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence; and
(b) the fact is of consequence in determining the action.”
FRE Rule 402 – General Admissibility of Relevant Evidence:
“Relevant evidence is admissible unless any of the following provides otherwise:
-the United States Constitution;
-a federal statute;
-these rules; or
-other rules prescribed by the Supreme Court.
Irrelevant evidence is not admissible”
FRE Rule 802 “Hearsay is not admissible unless any of the following provides otherwise:
a federal statute;
these rules; or
other rules prescribed by the Supreme Court.”
FRE Rule 803: “Exceptions to the Rule Against Hearsay–Regardless of Whether the Declarant Is:
“The exceptions are phrased in terms of nonapplication of the hearsay rule, rather than in positive terms of admissibility, in order to repel any implication that other possible grounds for exclusion are eliminated from consideration.”
Rule 804 – Exceptions to the Rule Against Hearsay. The following are not excluded by the rule against hearsay if the declarant is unavailable as a witness:
(1) Former Testimony. Testimony that:
(A) was given as a witness at a trial, hearing, or lawful deposition, whether given during the current proceeding or a different one; and
(B) is now offered against a party who had — or, in a civil case, whose predecessor in interest had — an opportunity and similar motive to develop it by direct, cross-, or redirect examination.
Additionally I do think you might actually be beneficial if you reread the previously release HPSCI Michael Sussman Deposition, see the various links embedded below…
https://www.dni.gov/index.php/features/2753-53-hpsci-transcripts or alternatively you can try and track down the deposition transcript from:
https://intelligence.house.gov ←but that link will take a bit of effort to try and locate the previously released deposition transcripts
or you can run a few queries via the House Doc Repository: https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Committees.aspx?Code=IG00
As you can see the links are directly from the Office of National Intelligence. And all of those transcripts where previously released by the HPSCI —I found the DNI link offer a centralized location of all previously released deposition transcripts. However I’ve taken the liberty of embedding the pertinent transcripts below
Defendant Sussman’s preliminary objections
As previous discussed on April 25, 2022 via Federal Judge ruled: “Some of the evidence the government discussed at the recent hearing does not fall into those permissible categories…” —and Sussman’s strenuous efforts to exclude (what appears to be) any and all evidence Durham collected concerning the “gathering of data” ←of which the Court has yet to issue a ruling on Sussman’s April 23, 2022 Motion In Limine and/or the purported attorney client and work product doctrine “privilege”
with respect to Exhibit A I’d like to walk you through some of the tiny details… none of Sussman’s preliminary objects should be a surprise. The parties have been in a protracted horn-lock for months. Much of the disagreement centers around Durham’s repeated goal shitting, I mean shifting…
Notwithstanding I’d like you to pay attention to the following cliff notes of Exhibit A (whispers I told you that I like to fixate on tiny details) and now you’re about to understand why it is important to read every page of a filing:
—Pages 2 thru 5 -Sussman’s preliminary objections: “FRE 401/402; FRE 403; see also Def.’s MIL to Preclude Evidence Regarding the Gathering of Data, ECF No. 60 “ again the Court has yet to rule on Sussman’s Motion In Limine
—On Page 7: Sussman’s preliminary objection: FRE 802; see also …”Def.’s MIL to Exclude Testimony or Evidence Pertaining to Former FBI Assistant Director Bill Priestap’s and Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson’s Notes…” I can tell you that the current jurisprudence water cooler talk: is how many witnesses Durham has removed from his witness list —and that’s typically a sign of slopping lawyering and one could reasonably conclude that perhaps Durham’s Case against Sussman isn’t as strong as the Blue-QANON and QANON-sense.
And then I’d like to remind you about Kash Patel —frankly speaking this February 2022 Article had a lot of fact nuggets and yes I even managed to locate a 2019 twitter thread archive
Now if you read the entire Exhibit A —you’ll intuitively see a pattern, perhaps a better definition should be: making a document bleed in a compartmentalization “silo” ←apologies that’s a bit of a jurisprudence insider joke. Because Sussman posits that Durham has capriciously asserted that Sussman’s claim of attorney client privilege is inappropriate and effectively ubiquitous…
And by my rough calculations (which was previously affirmed in late April) Sussman’s concern that Durham’s Motion for an in camera review of “38 items” wasn’t exactly intellectually honest. Assuming arguendo Durham didn’t intentionally downplay the breadth of his request. Whereas Sussman previously argued that the in camera review would expose both his former employer (Perkins Coie) Fusion GPS and more broadly the DNC to thousands of pages of irrelevant and highly confidential communications —in an obvious attempt by Durham to greatly expand the scope of his “ongoing investigation”…
🚨Spicy Sidebar🚨 when reviewing Exhibit A, you’ll note the bates number/identifier is pretty much sequential. For Example: Sussman’s preliminary objection concerning Perkins Coie SC-001062 thru SC-00109388.
And lastly because the Court has a few outstanding matters: 3rd party interveners, attorney client and work product privilege, various Motion In Limine(s), etc —I would submit that’s partially the reason for his objections and frankly that’s almost entirely on the Judge. When you couple the “delayed” pretrial Rulings on multiple motions —along with Durham’s well documented history of shitting, damnit I mean shifting the goal post. What exactly does that mean? Well it means Defendant Sussman might later argue for a mistrial. This is especially important if the Judge rules in favor for Sussman on the two (technically it’s three) Motions two of which seek to exclude certain expert witnesses testimony , various evidence and that pesky privilege matter(s)…
And I also realized it’s been a long time since I’ve provided you with a multimedia presentment of facts…I mean I totally understand some readers not spending their Friday night reading every page of numerous legal filings. Also I double dog dare you, run a word search of Exhibit A using; Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Hillary for America (HFC)
Also I double dog dare you, run a word search of Exhibit A using; Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Hillary for America (HFC) —you’ll get exactly one hit..
Latest filing by Special Counsel Durham…
On May 5, 2022 —Special Counsel Durham filed the following: “NOTICE Objections to Defendant's Proposed Trial Exhibits by USA as to MICHAEL A. SUSSMANN” (see DDC-ECF or you can download a highlighted and annotated copy via Scribd)) and trust me on this —you want to read Durham’s lates filing. To me it’s absolutely clear that Durham is grasping at straws.
He has tried (repeatedly) to move a conspiracy theory that he created (likely at the behest of Barr and by proxy Trump) into a federal criminal courthouse. His May 5th filing certainly indicates that he doesn’t have a single iota of lawfully obtained evidence to support his conspiracy theory.
In Sussman’s Indictment (technically it was a speaking indictment) one of the pillars of the argument was
Did you pick up on the tiniest of tiny details? Here’s a hit, it’s on page 2. And let me tell you, if I was on the defense team or a paralegal on this case —I would use the door Durham opened and pivot to Sussman’s state of mind, like leaning all the way into mens rea. You might be slightly befuddled by the previous sentence. Allow me to further elucidated my rationale to support that assertion…
No seriously, hear me out, because I could make a rock solid argument that Sussman’s state of mind (mens rea) and his actions (actus reus) when viewed in the proper context convey that Sussman was motivated by stopping Russia’s malign cyber attacks. Here’s a brief trip down memory lane and that’s how I’m going to rest my why argument:
2015 —Russia’s Cyber Attacks on Government institutions
2015/2016 —Russia hacking both the DNC and RNC
2016 —Russia’s spearfishing hack of Hillary for America, John Podesta and other senior ranking officials of both DNC and HFA.
2016 —unsolicited communications with FBI Agents
Sussman was employed by the DNC (and HFA) and likely acted as a technical legal adviser to & for both entities.
Meaning that in the correct context of Sussman’s purported “joint venture” which Durham purposefully interchanges with “conspiracy to…” it doesn’t appear to be unreasonable that Russia’s persistent cyber attacks against our Country are somehow irrelevant. Because that’s how much Durham has to contort himself into attempting to connect his conspiracy addled and incongruent dots/theories.
There I said it and the world didn’t end. No really Durham’s 2 (technically it’s 3 cases, but the other one took a plea deal) criminal cases are not a slam dunk, as the (foolish) Trump-Republican MAGA disinformation propaganda machine portend it to be.
criminal cases
On page one, here Durham once again seeks to pivot. Additionally he continues to move the goal post…but here’s the actual subtext of Durham’s filing:, he raised numerous objections. Specifically three “type” of evidence that Sussman wants to use at trial;
Sussman proposed over 3 hundreds of emails pertinent to his “job” of consulting the DNC and HFA campaign. The vast majority focus on the Russian Cyber Operations, hacking the DNC. #butheremails and
Durham appears to want the proposed handwritten notes to be excluded, especially if any note contains “client”.—and that’s just bizarre. Even for Durham
Durham strenuously objected to Sussman’s Defense —proffering various mainstream media reporting about Russia, Hacking the DNC
…until this filing I don’t think (I could be wrong) that we “officially” knew the name of the FBI Special Agent that contacted the DNC and HFA —but now we officially know the Agent’s name. In the spirit of fairness that Agent’s name was long known going as far back as late 2014…. (See NYTs Article) and widely reported…
…Defense Ex. 306 (Email dated September 14, 2016 from FBI Special Agent E. Adrian Hawkins to Michael Sussmann, et al., stating in part, “We just got notified by some industry personnel that some previously unreleased DNC documents were uploaded to Virus Total today. In the files there was a contact list that I attached here with lots of personal emails for people. Rumor is that these files are supposed to be the network share for a guy named [named redacted] who worked IT until April 2011.”)
Moreover in Journalist/Author Michael Isikoff’s book: Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump…
…One day in September 2015, FBI agent Adrian Hawkins placed a call to the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., and asked to speak to the person in charge of technology. He was routed to the DNC help desk, which transferred the call to Yared Tamene, a young IT specialist with The MIS Department, a consulting firm
As a reminder I have previously walked you through Yared Tamene’s peripheral interplay in this case. I even explained the important bits of their deposition…
And lastly on May 6, 2022 the Court issued the following minute order, which reads in part:
MINUTE ORDER: The Court will hold a sealed, classified hearing pursuant to CIPA Section 6(a) on Tuesday, May 10, 2022 at 12:30 PM in Courtroom 27A (In Person) before Judge Christopher R. Cooper.
Again you can pull down Documents via ECF or you can save a few bucks and pull down the filings down from Scribd. As I said I suppose insomnia has its perks because here I am at almost four in the morning putting the finishing edits on this painfully long and detailed article.
Happy (early) Mother’s Day…
It is unlikely that I’ll publish a new article over the weekend. Therefor please allow me to wish my readers the very happiest of Mother’s Day —My wish for you is that you are treated like the Queen(s) that you are. That your family expresses their gratitude for you being their mom.
To my readers who have had to deal with an unspeakable tragedy like burying your child, a very heartfelt “Mother’s Day” to you and yours. I know that just because your child is no longer on Earth, that still makes you their mom.
To my readers who are stepmoms, you’re a mom and you’re nurturing/mothering children. Because that’s what mothers do.
To my readers who are single fathers, which often requires you to be both a mother and a father to your children, a very Happy Mother’s Day, to you as well.
Be Well.
Filey
First and foremost, Happy Mother’s Day Filey. It is truly heartbreaking to hear how painful this is. Unfortunately, there has been too many suicides in my circle among friends whole lost children, the most recent one this last Christmas. I have hugged, cried & listened and not once have I ever been able to come up with anything coherent to offer. I can only say that there’s a line from Sleepless in Seattle I think about often. The movie came out at a time when I had lost the 3 most important people in my life. The minute I saw the particular scene of a grieving widower, it was forever etched in my brain.
This is exactly my process…I am so profoundly sad for you…..
When the radio psychologist asks what newly widowed Sam is going to do, he responds with the following:
“Sam Baldwin : Well, I'm gonna get out of bed every morning... breathe in and out all day long. Then, after a while I won't have to remind myself to get out of bed every morning and breathe in and out... and, then after a while, I won't have to think about how I had it great and perfect for a while.”
This is where I’m at today…much love to you….❤️
Thank you.
Please try not to put any timelines on your grief. When we lost a dear family friend to suicide, it was such a shock. I processed it by dragging my husband to counseling. My theory was if none of us, his core group of friends, or even his wife couldn’t recognize the depth of his depression/ despair etc. how would I or could I ever see this in my own spouse. It wasn’t helpful. My husband on the other hand took a year and created a music CD of the recordings he and the band had made with Don. And it was a beautiful tribute that he was able to share with Don’s wife, family, friends and students.
Everyone processes these horrible life events however they can.
I wish you peace.