By The FirstAttorneys for Hillary Clinton’s former campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann filed a motion this week to toss the case against him brought by Special Counsel John Durham.
“Defendant Michael A. Sussmann, by and through undersigned counsel and pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(b)(3)(B), respectfully moves this Court to dismiss the Indictment because the single count therein “fail[s] to state an offense,’” the filing reads.
“It has long been a crime to make a false statement to the government. But the law criminalizes only false statements that are material—false statements that matter because they can actually affect a specific decision of the government,” his lawyers explained.
“Accordingly, where individuals have been prosecuted for providing tips to government investigators, they have historically been charged with making a false statement only where the tip itself was alleged to be false, because that is the only statement that could affect the specific decision to commence an investigation,” the lawyers wrote. “Indeed, the defense is aware of no case in which an individual has provided a tip to the government and has been charged with making any false statement other than providing a false tip. But that is exactly what has happened here.”
“He met with the FBI, in other words, to provide a tip,” Sussmann’s lawyers wrote. “There is no allegation in the indictment that the tip he provided was false. And there is no allegation that he believed the tip he provided was false. Rather, Mr. Sussmann has been charged with making a false statement about an entirely ancillary matter—about who his client may have been when he met with the FBI—which is a fact that even the Special Counsel’s own Indictment fails to allege had any effect on the FBI’s decision to open an investigation.”
Read the full report here.
