# Michael Sussmann **Michael Sussmann** is a cybersecurity lawyer who was the first defendant tried by Special Counsel [[John Durham]], and the first acquitted. His case is a load-bearing piece of the right's Russia counter-narrative: the claim that the Trump–Russia investigation was manufactured by the Clinton campaign and its lawyers. That claim is now the premise of the [[Grand Conspiracy Probe]]. ## The meeting Sussmann, a former Justice Department computer-crimes prosecutor, was a partner in [[Perkins Coie]]'s privacy and cybersecurity practice. After the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee, he represented the DNC in dealing with the FBI. On **Sept 19, 2016**, he met FBI General Counsel James Baker at FBI headquarters. He handed over white papers and data, compiled by a group of cyber researchers, that purportedly showed a covert communications channel between a Trump Organization server and Russia's **[[Alfa Bank]]**. The FBI investigated and found **insufficient evidence** of any such channel. ## The prosecution Durham's theory was a single lie. Sussmann allegedly told Baker he was not bringing the tip on behalf of any client. Durham said he was in fact acting for the Clinton campaign, through Perkins Coie (where [[Marc Elias]] was the campaign's general counsel), and for tech executive Rodney Joffe. - **Indictment:** **Sept 16, 2021**, one count of making a false statement to the FBI. - **Verdict:** a D.C. jury acquitted him on **May 31, 2022**, after only a few hours of deliberation. It was Durham's first trial. - **The other trial:** Durham's only other trial, of [[Igor Danchenko]], also ended in acquittal, in October 2022. - **The final report:** Durham's report (May 2023) criticized the FBI's handling of the Russia inquiry but produced no further convictions of anyone outside the FBI. Sussmann left Perkins Coie in 2021, around the time of the indictment. In **April 2023** he joined **Fenwick & West** as a partner, and he now chairs its privacy and cybersecurity practice. ## Afterlife The acquittal did not settle the story on the right. It got folded into it. In counter-narrative accounts, Sussmann's meeting is the moment a campaign-funded opposition-research operation entered the FBI, joining the [[Steele Dossier]] and [[Fusion GPS]] in the same frame. That frame is the premise of the 2025–26 [[Grand Conspiracy Probe]] run out of the Southern District of Florida. **No public reporting names Sussmann as a subject of that probe** as of Oct 1, 2026. In September 2026, both senior prosecutors brought in to lead it, [[Joe diGenova]] and Kurt Olsen, resigned. Prosecutions built on this story have now lost two jury trials, and the successor probe has lost its two lead prosecutors. ## See also - [[John Durham]] · [[Igor Danchenko]] · [[Steele Dossier]] · [[Fusion GPS]] · [[Alfa Bank]] - [[Perkins Coie]] · [[Marc Elias]] · [[Grand Conspiracy Probe]] · [[Joe diGenova]]