Some three dozen documents that the Hillary Clinton campaign and others are seeking to keep from special counsel John Durham’s team would help prove the case against an ex-Clinton campaign lawyer, Durham’s team said in court on May 4.
The documents fit into two categories. Thirty are emails sent to or from Fusion GPS operatives. Eight were exchanged between Rodney Joffe, a technology executive represented by the lawyer, and Fusion tech expert Laura Seago.
The emails and their attachments would provide “important context” about Fusion’s role in the white paper that Michael Sussman, the ex-Clinton lawyer, took to the FBI on behalf of his clients—the campaign and Joffe, prosecutor Jonathan Algor told the court during a hearing in Washington.
Inside the paper were allegations that then-candidate Donald Trump’s business and a Russian bank had a secret backchannel, claims that the CIA later determined was technically implausible.
Fusion performed opposition research on Trump, including helping compile a dossier filled with unsubstantiated allegations.
Sussman is set to go on trial on May 16 for allegedly lying to the FBI when he said he was not bringing the information on behalf of a client.
The emails would also shed light on Fusion’s role in promoting the sketchy allegations to the media, which recently released documents show was a major portion of their work, Algor said.
Documents attached to some of emails appeared to be draft or final versions of the white paper, he added.
Prosecutors hope to utilize the documents if Seago ends up testifying.
“We have identified Ms. Seago as a core witness that can talk to the relationships between Fusion, between Mr. Joffe, [the Clinton campaign], and Mr. Sussmann,” Algor said, describing the emails as “key evidence” regarding relationships between the parties, such as how Fusion and the campaign were “intertwined.”
Fusion was paid by the campaign and the Democratic National Committee through Perkins Coie, a law firm that not only employed Sussmann but Marc Elias, who also worked for the campaign.
