Judging Freedom - FBI wrongly told agents Trump-Russia collusion claims had come from DOJ

Episode Date: May 24, 2022

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Good morning, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, May 24, 2022. It's about 1130 in the morning here on the east coast of the United States. So there's this trial going on in Washington, D.C. The defendant's name is Michael Sussman. Prosecutors are federal prosecutors. Mr. Sussman, a prominent Washington, D.C. lawyer, had been the lawyer for Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016 and for the Democratic National Committee at or about the same time. As part of an effort to smear Donald Trump, Mr. Sussman brought evidence to his friend Jim Baker, not the Jim Baker who was the Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of State in the Reagan and Bush years, but a man, a different

man with the same name who was then the General Counsel, the chief lawyer for the FBI. So Sussman brings to Baker this evidence, supposed evidence, about a relationship between the Trump campaign and a bank called Alpha Bank in Moscow, which has close ties to President Putin. And if that were true and it weren't reported, then there'd be federal criminal issues. So the FBI begins investigating. During the course of the conversation between Baker and Sussman, as I said, friends with each other, Baker claims he asked Sussman, by the way, Mike, are you representing anybody? No, I'm here on my own, according to Baker. According to Sussman, the question never came up. Now, what's the significance? Well, Sussman has now been indicted and is on trial for lying to the FBI by denying falsely

that he was representing anyone, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. The government's theory is that if the FBI knew that those were his clients, they wouldn't have taken seriously what he said. It gets much more complicated and absurd than this. My own view is it should not be a crime to lie to the FBI as long as the FBI is allowed to lie to us. And they are. Well, FBI lying is really out of control because an FBI agent on the stand yesterday,

put on the stand by the government in Mr. Sussman's trial acknowledged that FBI agents lie to each other. You can't make this up. So this agent was part of the team investigating the tip that Sussman gave to Baker. And when he asked his bosses, where did this tip come from? The bosses said it came from the DOJ, the Department of Justice. Well, it didn't come from the Department of Justice. It came from the Hillary Clinton campaign. This is very damaging to the government's case. You have somebody on the stand for lying to the FBI, and now you have an FBI agent admitting that FBI management lies to agents in the field. I don't know where this is going to go. I've just told you my opinion of these statutes that

prosecute people for telling lies. I remember once in the Reagan administration, the FBI in Brooklyn was on the tail of an international drug dealer. And they sort of caught him in a phone booth. Remember phone booths? And he finished his phone call, got out of the phone booth, they arrested him. They said, what's your name? He said, Nancy Reagan. Obviously it wasn't Nancy Reagan, but he was indicted. He was arrested and indicted for lying to the FBI. It was just their way to get him in jail and hopefully get him talking and get more evidence about him and his comrades. So the FBI and the Department of Justice like to use this statute, this very low-level crime. I don't know how it could be a crime, but it is. We'll see where it goes. Can you prosecute people for lying when the team that's doing the prosecutors lie to each other?

Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.