Perversion of justice in D.C.

By Reginald Johnson 

Commentary

As everyone knows, unless you’ve been on the moon, politics have become extremely polarized in this country.

The most polarized I’ve ever seen, even more than during the Vietnam War days, which was pretty bad.

People are stuck in their positions, and by golly, they’re not gonna move. This is particularly true when it comes to the issue of one Donald Trump and all things Trump. Supporters adore him, and listen to his speeches as if in rapture. They’re not about to question anything The Donald might say, no matter how stupid it might be.

The haters, meanwhile, are hysterical and filled with rage. Trump is a demon and nothing will persuade them otherwise.

Their hate is so strong, it seems, that they’re willing to look the other way at, ahem, illegal tactics used by the Democrats to undermine Trump.

 How else do you explain the completely non-sensical “Not Guilty” verdict rendered by a Washington, D.C. jury to a lawyer who was charged with lying to the FBI when he fed false information to the bureau about Trump?

 Attorney Michael Sussman was charged with misrepresenting himself when he met with FBI Counsel James Baker in September of 2016, when Republican presidential nominee Trump was locked a tight election battle against Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton.

Sussman told Baker he wanted to meet with him to provide evidence of Trump links to Vladimir Putin and a Russian bank. He assured Baker he was not representing any client ---- he was just acting as a good citizen who had some important information.

Well, that was a bald-faced lie. Sussman was working for the Hillary Clinton campaign, and investigators found a check made out to him by the campaign.

Federal law makes it very clear --- you can’t lie to the FBI about who you are and who you’re working for.  It’s a felony.

Sussman also turned over bogus “information” about supposed  connections between a Trump Tower computer server and Russia’s Alfa Bank. It was all made up.

 As Gregg Jarrett, legal analyst for FOX News said, “The evidence of the defendant’s guilt was obvious and overwhelming. Special Counsel John Durham’s prosecutors presented incontrovertible evidence that Clinton’s campaign lawyer knowingly peddled phony Trump-Russia collusion Sussmann information to the FBI and lied about whom he was representing.”

 But no matter. The jurors, who were chosen from the overwhelmingly Democratic Party-leaning District of Columbia, came to the rescue. They quickly found the defendant not guilty.  Sussman, who should have been sent to jail and disbarred, walked free.

  Conflicts abounded on the jury. Several jurors were Clinton donors;  another has a daughter who plays on the same tennis team with Sussman’s daughter. The prosecution challenged the sitting of that juror due to the conflict, but their plea was rejected by the U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who issued a number of rulings unfavorable for Durham’s team.

 Cooper’s impartiality in the case was also questioned, since his wife, an attorney, represents Lisa Paige, the ex-FBI agent who is suing the Justice Department over the release of her phone texts with fellow agent Peter Strzok in the 2016 election year.  The texts showed both agents expressing a strong dislike for Trump. At one point, Strzok talked of having an “insurance policy” to stop him.

 But Cooper didn't recuse himself.

You can’t say for an absolute certainty that the jury rejected the government’s case simply due to bias against Trump and any efforts to exonerate him, but it sure looks  that way.

After the trial was over, the jury forewoman gave a strong indication of how the jury felt about the government’s case.

  “Personally, I don’t think it should have been prosecuted because I think we have better time or resources to use or spend to other things that affect the nation as a whole than the possible lie to the FBI. We could spend that time more wisely,” she told a reporter.

  This is astounding. Apparently this juror, and probably the others, thought this case was stupid and a waste of time. Really? Lying to a federal agent about an illegal scheme to undermine a presidential campaign is unimportant?

 It’s not the job of jurors to assess whether a government prosecution is worthwhile or not. Their task is simply to look at the facts presented and determine whether they support the charge. That’s all. It’s that simple.

 What appears to have happened here is what’s called “jury nullification.” This is when, as Jarrett explains, “The triers of fact perversely ignore the evidence and repudiate the rule of law to acquit a plainly guilty man.”

  Jarrett believes that from the start Sussman may have been banking on jury nullification as his best way to beat the charge.

 What happened in the Sussman case is very corrosive to the integrity of our judicial system. Politics cannot determine people’s guilt or innocence.

 Hopefully, Special Counsel Durham will get a fairer hearing in the coming months when he brings more indictments connected with the sordid “Trump-Russia Collusion” scandal.