Former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann found not guilty of lying to FBI

A District of Columbia jury on Tuesday acquitted attorney Michael Sussmann on charges that he’d lied to FBI agents while tipping them off about allegations that a computer server in Donald Trump’s eponymous skyscraper was communicating with a computer belonging to a Russian bank at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign.

The jury rendered its’ not guilty verdict after three days of deliberations following a two-week trial, during which prosecutors working for Special Counsel John Durham sought to prove that Mr Sussmann, an ex-prosecutor who was a partner at the law firm Perkins Coie when he met with FBI officials about the alleged Trump-Russia computer connection.

The special counsel’s team had argued that the veteran attorney lied when he told the FBI he was not speaking on behalf of a client when he brought them the tip and alleged that he was there on an errand for two clients: former Secret of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign and a computer scientist called Rodney Joffe.

Mr Durham, who was appointed a special counsel by then-attorney general William Barr in 2020, had also sought to prove to jurors that Mr Sussmann’s tip to the FBI was part of a wide-ranging scheme to tar Mr Trump, then a candidate for president, with an “October surprise” to convince voters he was tainted by ties to the Russian government.