US Department of Justice Special Inspector John Durham on Thursday summoned a law firm close to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for the 2016 election.
According to the Xinhua website, the new round of summonses by Durham comes as the US inspector-general, Michael Sussmann, accused Clinton’s campaigner of lying to the FBI last month.
In a 2016 meeting with FBI officials, Sussman provided information and claimed links between the Trump administration and Russia’s Alfa Bank. This information eventually led to an extensive FBI investigation into possible Russian interference in the US presidential election, but the US agency could not find any evidence.
In addition to trying to obtain evidence of the company in which Sassman worked, staff at the Special Investigator’s Office have focused on the Democrats’ 2016 campaign and their efforts to link Trump to Russia, Xinhua wrote.
The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee in 2016 were among the clients of Sussman Law Firm. The company, on behalf of the Clinton campaign, commissioned a research firm to investigate the case of Christopher Steele, a former British spy. Steele claimed at the time that Trump was influenced by the Russians.
Christopher Steele, a former British Foreign Secretary (MI6) spy who first raised the issue of Russia’s influence over Trump in the 2016 election, claimed that his “final client” in the case was the Democratic National Committee and the campaign. “It was Hillary Clinton.”
“The man should be extradited, tried and jailed,” Trump tweeted in response to Steele’s remarks. “A sick liar who took money from swindler Hillary [Clinton] and the Democratic National Committee.”
Sussmann also represented a cybersecurity expert at the time, whose name was included in a case filed by Durham. In 2016, the expert worked on collecting online information about the Trump organization, which was eventually handed over to the AFBI.
The continuation of Durham’s appeals to the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.
Two years after Durham was appointed Special Inspector General for the investigation by Trump Attorney General William Barr, the investigation has not yielded significant results.
Durham has so far been charged with two counts of lying against two lesser-known individuals, including Sasman, who was acquitted last month.
While Trump and his supporters expected the investigation, former senior FBI officials and US intelligence officials were accused of spying on Trump and his campaign.
Moscow has repeatedly denied the allegations since Russia was accused of meddling in the US election. But Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said there were “many reasons” to launch a “barrage” of investigations into Russia’s role in Trump’s 2016 election victory.
