by Natalia Mittelstadt at Just the News
An FBI agent testifying Tuesday on the second day of the trial of 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann discredited evidence Sussmann gave the agency attempting to connect the Trump Organization with Russia’s Alfa Bank, a purported hotline to the Kremlin.
Describing a white paper analyzing internet data between the email server of the Trump Organization and the Russian Alfa Bank as “not objective” and “far-reaching,” FBI Special Agent Scott Hellman said the authors’ conclusion of a secret communications channel “didn’t ring true at all.”
Special Counsel John Durham last year charged Sussmann with lying to the FBI when he allegedly told then-FBI general counsel James Baker that he was not working on behalf of any client while providing him with since-debunked collusion allegations.
Sussmann is pleading not guilty to the charge. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.
Hellman, the prosecution’s second witness, examined the data on the thumb drives that Sussmann had given to Baker in their meeting weeks before the presidential election. One of the FBI agents whose signature was required for a chain of custody form for the drives was Peter Strzok.
Hellman also said that he was frustrated that he didn’t know the source of the data, and added during cross-examination that he would’ve included the source in his summary analysis.
Hellman said he disagreed with the white paper from the thumb drive that explained the Domain Name System data as being a secret communications channel between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank. He said that he felt that whoever wrote the white paper jumped to conclusions not supported by the technical data and that the methodology of their analysis was questionable.
The FBI agent also said the overall conclusion of the connection between…
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