Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann was acquitted of lying to the FBI on Tuesday, thanks to a federal jury in D.C. The decision was a ‘gut punch,’ Glenn says, but perhaps not an outright surprise. So is there a way forward for Durham’s investigation into Hillary’s 2016 witch-hunt against President Trump? Co-founder of The Federalist, Sean Davis, joins Glenn to discuss the lessons we’ve learned so far. Plus, Davis argues that if NO ONE goes to prison for this entire scandal, it means the rule of law against political actors in D.C. is OVER.
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Sean Davis from the Federalist. The CEO and cofounder is joining us now. Sean, I saw this. And I wasn't surprised by the acquittal just because of the jury.
But I don't really know exactly, what does that mean? I mean, it implicated Clinton, and the media. But are we done now?
SEAN: Well, I think we're probably done with running cases in the district of Columbia, where the jury clearly did nullification, which is basically, they don't even listen to the facts. They decided coming in, they didn't like the case. And that was going to be it.
So I think if you actually want conviction, that -- that case has to be the end of bringing it into DC. Because it's similar to what you see in elections in North Korea or Iraq. Where they get 99 percent of the vote.
GLENN: Yeah. And it was weird. You had one juror come out and say, so what, if they lied to the FBI. Everybody does it. There are bigger crimes.
Than lying to the FBI? Really? When you're talking about the future of our country? And corruption and trying to take out a seated president? Really?
I mean --
SEAN: Well, compare that to the Michael Flynn trial. Recall that Michael Flynn was completely set up. His name was leaked in order to destroy him the Trump administration early on in the administration. And when evidence came out, that he was completely set up, that he didn't lie. And that the DOJ and the prosecutors themselves, said there's no case here. A corrupt judge in the DC district court said, no. Actually I'm not going to let you pull these charges. So compare that to what just happened with this DNC lawyer. And it tells you everything you need to know about the so-called justice system, when it comes to political people in DC. It doesn't exist.
GLENN: I mean, I really didn't even think it would make it to court. I didn't even think of the court, being so screwed up.
I didn't think about the DC court. I mean, that was just a blow.
I knew it was coming. Because, you know, once I saw the jury selection.
There's no way, this is going to go anywhere. Now, tell me what it means, going forward.
Anything?
SEAN: I think going forward -- oh, absolutely.
I think we learned so much on how Durham prosecuted this.
We learned, for example, that Hillary greenlits that entire completely bogus alpha bank hoax against Trump during the 2016 election. We learned a lot of additional information in there.
And I think just reading the tea leaves. And, of course, I could be wrong. Durham is building a much, much bigger case. And I think the whole alpha based thing with Sussmann lying about it, showed just how completely corrupt the FBI and the media are. They were working together. They were sharing information. They were ceding things with each other to do this sort of circular confirmation thing. I think we're going to get a lot more about how the entire Russiagate investigation, launched by the FBI against Trump in 2016 was itself a hoax from the beginning.
GLENN: From the beginning.
SEAN: So I expect that Durham will unravel that. But we'll see.
GLENN: Okay. So my speculation was that he was hoping that Sussmann would turn. And he could get the things that he needed from him, as he would turn on, you know, the Clinton campaign. He didn't turn. But he did -- I mean, he gave all that information, in the end anyway. It all came out in the end.
So was this originally just a foundation laying case, and a search for the truth that Sussmann couldn't get out of people in his investigation?
JONATHAN: Well, it could be. Because we actually -- or not we. Durham was able to get access to a whole bunch of emails he didn't have previously. That the DNC and Hillary campaign and Fusion GPS were all pretending were privileged communications with their attorneys.
Durham was able to significantly pierce that during the trial. And to me, kind of the foundation goes back to when that inspector general report came out, from the Department of Justice IG. And in that report, the IG said, oh, there's no evidence that the Russia thing was political. And it was legally predicated. And on that day, Durham himself came out and issued a statement, that he, based on his review of the evidence, didn't think that was true. We haven't even heard anything about that since that day. I think at the end of 2019. And I believe that that's where we'll end up. We will find out what exactly started this bogus investigation.
GLENN: So -- so do you know yet, as Durham telegraphed at all, what comes next?
SEAN: Well, we have -- he hasn't telegraphed it. We have another indictment sitting out, of Igor Danchenko, who is the so-called primary subsource for all of the nonsensical lives peddled by Christopher Steele and his dossier against Trump.
This guy is a Russian national living in the US, used to work at Brookings, shocker, who had peddled all sorts of nonsense. Including that intimates videotape that didn't exist of Trump in a hotel in Moscow. So that trial is still upcoming. And that trial is in Virginia. So that will play out differently than the DC case against Sussmann.
GLENN: Yeah. Have you been watching what's happening in the northern Virginia school district? I'm not sure it's that different. Maybe this time it will be different.
Thank you so much, I appreciate you watching this. If you had to pull one thing that everybody should get out of this, it is...
JONATHAN: It's that people at the FBI, don't go to prison for this. Then the rule of law in this country is dead.
GLENN: I hate to say, I agree with you.
Thank you so much, Sean, I appreciate it. You bet, of the Federalist. I mean, that was -- that was the gut punch yesterday.
I expected it to happen. But that was the real gut punch.
And then it was followed by the juror who said, you know, what's the big deal, lying to the FBI? What's the big deal?
I mean, first in the '90s, it was, you know, so he lied about sex. He's married. It's no big deal.
Okay. Well, you don't lie to the FBI. And you don't lie under oath. But it was just about sex. It was nothing important.
This is about taking down the president of the United States. This is about using the full force and image of the Justice Department and everything else. To stand against and mount a campaign against a sitting president. That's not just about having sex. But now, the same group of people, with the Clintons involved again, eh. Lying doesn't really matter.
STU: It doesn't. It doesn't seem to matter. Other than that, what's gone on here?
It doesn't seem that big of a deal when you explain it that way. It's just about taking down a president. And, look, we all know there's all sorts of awful things that happened in the background of campaigns. Right?
We all know that people leak information. They do opposition research. This is reality.
GLENN: Nixon left office because someone tried to hack in at the time it was physical. Because you couldn't hack in. Tried to get information. From the Democratic, you know, office in Washington, DC.
There was nothing of value there.
STU: Yeah.
GLENN: And then they didn't continue to spy and, you know, any of that stuff. He left office.
Because he was going to be impeached for doing that. You can't even get a low-level attorney.
STU: Yeah. Right.
GLENN: In trouble for lying to the FBI, about a bogus thing. That just didn't happen. Just before the election. It ran during his -- his -- his presidency.
They didn't stop.
STU: The Nixon thing was another time. And one -- I think you told the story many times of your dad, right? Around the Nixon time. Saying, it changed everything. And maybe it was part of the thing that got the ball rolling on this. In the wrong direction.
GLENN: Well, in the wrong direction, it did. Because that's why everyone went to journalism school. All the people ahead now. They all went to journalism school. Because they saw that two reporters, could topple a president. And they learned the wrong lesson. They now think that they can topple any president. Because they don't like it.
STU: As I was saying, we all know, terrible people were involved in this campaign, all the time. There are people that are -- that some of them are fine. A lot of them are terrible. It's just -- it's a terrible industry. It's created with people who -- who want to just destroy others. Like literally, their job is to destroy the lives of other people. As you go through these campaigns. And many of the strategists are on this. That's part of the reason, why, I'm less -- I don't know. Activated, interested, riveted, by what happens to the Clintons themselves. As I am, to what the media did with all this information. And how they handled it. I mean, they took this information with them. They told us, it was true. They -- they also tried to destroy a president and many, many people lives. Including low-level underlings of Trump. We've talked to several of them. And there has never been a moment where they said, holy crap, we got that one wrong. Hey, wow. We thought Donald Trump was really bad. Therefore, we jumped the gun on this. We believed all the bad stuff and that's our fault. And here's what we'll do in our future to correct it.
GLENN: No. They don't think they made a mistake.
STU: It's not one family, or one group of shady campaign operatives --
GLENN: And I never thought -- the Clintons will die rich and unhappy, and that's -- that's enough for me.
They are -- they're never going to go to jail. Anybody who thinks they are. They're sadly mistaken. They'll never going to jail. I didn't expect that.
But the fact that the FBI gets away with it. And the media gets away with it. In collusion with the Clintons. Is insane. What have you taught, attorneys, what have you taught campaigns?
As long as you're on the right side of the FBI, they'll help you. That's not good. Not good.