FBI agent mocked Trump-Russia tale pushed by Clinton camp as ’51-50ish’
WASHINGTON — A research paper that Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann told the FBI would show ties between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russia was so weak that an agent joked it must have been written by a nutjob.
On cross-examination Tuesday at Sussmann’s trial for allegedly lying to the feds, FBI supervisory agent Scott Hellman was confronted with an electronic message he sent a colleague the same day he received the paper and two thumb drives of data that Sussmann also gave then-FBI general counsel James Baker.
“It feels a little 51-50ish,” Hellman wrote.
Defense lawyer Sean Berkowitz then asked Hellman what the message meant.
“I thought perhaps the person who drafted this document was suffering from a mental disability,” Hellman answered.
Section 5150 of California’s Welfare and Institutions Code allows authorities to involuntarily hospitalize mentally ill people for up to 72 hours and has been widely adopted as slang to refer to someone who’s crazy.
In 1986, it was notably used as the title for Van Halen’s first album to feature “I Can’t Drive 55” singer Sammy Hagar, who’s said he thinks he was abducted by aliens.
Hellman was the second witness called by special counsel John Durham’s team following opening statements Tuesday at Sussmann’s trial for allegedly lying to the FBI by denying he was “acting on behalf of any client” when he met with Baker on Sept. 19, 2016.
During direct examination by prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis, Hellman said the since-debunked material Sussmann gave Baker — which purportedly showed a secret back channel between a Trump Organization computer server and Russia’s Alfa Bank — was marked by numerous red flags.
The most obvious was the Internet domain name assigned to the server, which Hellman described as a dead giveaway that nothing nefarious was going on.
“The name ‘Trump’ was in the name. It did not suggest secret communications,” he testified.
“We believe Russia would have a much more technical capability to hide organizations. It wouldn’t be so overt and direct.”
Hellman also said he “did not agree with the conclusion in the paper” he reviewed.
“I felt that whoever had written that paper had jumped to some conclusions that were not supported by the technical data,” he said.
“I did not feel they were objective in the conclusions they came to. The assumption is so far-reaching it just didn’t make any sense.”
Hellman speculated that whoever authored the report simply searched for “Trump” on a dataset of email servers to make the since-debunked connection.
Hellman also recalled being stymied when he tried to determine the source of the data.
“I do remember I was frustrated at not being able to ID who had provided these thumb drives to Mr. Baker. He was not willing to tell me,” Hellman told prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis.
Hellman said he tried to establish the official “chain of custody” for the thumb drives when he received them in September 2016.
Hellman said the incomplete record shows that Baker passed the drives to then-agent Peter Strzok, who initially led the “Crossfire Hurricane” Trump-Russia probe.
Strzok was later removed from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation after text messages surfaced showing that Strzok and then-FBI lawyer Lisa Page bashed Trump while carrying on an affair.
Hellman said that Strzok gave Sussmann’s material to another agent, who gave it to him.
After Hellman reviewed the material with FBI unit chief Nate Batty, they wrote a report on their findings and sent the material to the bureau’s Chicago field office, Hellman testified.
