Judging Freedom - Why Was Trump Put Through Hell?

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

John Durham Investigation updateSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, April 18, the day after Easter 2022. It's about 325 in the afternoon. My heartfelt thanks for all of you. About two months ago, I said that our goal was to break 12,000 subscribers by Easter. This weekend, we broke 13,000. So you guys are liking and subscribing. I can't thank you enough and you're probably, you must be telling your friends and colleagues and family members because the numbers are coming in at a faster pace. Like and subscribe, you help us spread our word. As a reminder, tomorrow, Tuesday, April 19, 1245 in the afternoon Eastern Time, the Thomas Jefferson of our era, Ron Paul, live here with me on Judging Freedom. Friday afternoon, good Friday,

John Durham, who's the special prosecutor appointed by former Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate the FBI's investigation of President Donald Trump, you can follow all that, filed some documents in federal district court showing that the CIA examined documents that the FBI was using as the basis for its investigation, and the CIA concluded that the documents were phony, that they were in fact generated by the person who gave it to the FBI, who is this lawyer, Michael Sussman, who's on trial. Let me unpack all of that. Michael Sussman was a lawyer, a partner in a large, prestigious Washington, D.C. law firm. The firm was hired by Mrs. Clinton and by the Democratic National Committee to be general

counsel to the campaign and to the committee. Michael Sussman approached his friend Jim Baker, who was then the general counsel of the FBI, and said, I have some important information here to share with you. Now it gets a little iffy. The government says, Baker said, are you representing a client? Baker says, the defendant, Sussman said, no, I'm not. Turns out that Sussman was representing Mrs. Clinton. So this was probably a material lie to the FBI. I have a problem with that statute. The FBI can lie to you.

You can't lie to them. Should be bilateral. It should be the same way, but it's not. So by saying he was not representing a client when he handed these documents and this computer information over to the general counsel of the FBI, the government now alleges that Mr. Sussman lied to the FBI in order to seduce it into commencing its investigation of Mrs. Clinton. The theory is that if the FBI knew that this information came from the Clinton camp, they might not have used it. Now, the prosecutor, John Durham, the one appointed by former Attorney General Bill Barr back when Bill Barr was the AG and Donald Trump was the president, says that he has a text demonstrating the truthfulness of the allegation that Michael Sussman lied to the general counsel, the FBI.

All right, so all of that has been laid out. What's new is what came out on Good Friday afternoon, is a statement from Durham saying that the CIA's computer experts have looked at what Sussman gave to the FBI and found it was self-generated, meaning it was made up by Sussman or somebody in his behalf. It was not original documents showing a communications or a relationship, a communication or series of communications between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence. Now that's good and it's bad. Here's why. When did the CIA know these documents were false and why didn't it warn the FBI of them? Or did it warn the FBI and did the FBI look the other way?

Or why did the CIA's experts decide that these documents were false, but the FBI's experts did not? Or why was Donald Trump put through the two and a half years of hell that he went through in his first two and a half years of his administration, of his presidency, based on documents that some people in the government knew were phony? Did others in the government know they were phony as well? I don't know that these questions are going to be answered. If Michael Sussman goes to trial rather than pleads guilty to the simple lie, are you here on behalf of a client? Answer no, when in fact his client was either Mrs. Clinton or the Democratic National Committee. If Michael Sussman goes to trial, all this stuff might come out. If Michael Sussman accepts a guilty plea, none of this stuff will come out. To me, it's fascinating. You know,

there's an ancient, it goes back to 1947 when the CIA first came into existence, rivalry between the CIA and the FBI, each claiming they are better at their task than the other. But their tasks are different. The FBI is law enforcement. The CIA is foreign intelligence. Wouldn't know that anymore because the FBI gets involved in domestic and foreign intelligence, and the CIA gets involved in law enforcement. And for each of them to step on the other's toes is wrong. If the CIA knew the documents that Bob Mueller and his team were relying on were false or fraudulent and did nothing about it, that's a very serious ethics breach and it may in fact be a crime. And if the

CIA didn't know, but somebody else did know, who knew and when did they know it? I don't know that these questions will be answered because it's going to depend on what comes out at Michael Sussman's trial if there is a trial, but this is the latest from John Durham, and it's beginning to look like he's out to something. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.