Justice Department special counsel John Durham is rejecting allegations that he has sought to politicize the high-profile prosecution of a Washington lawyer charged as part of his investigation into the FBI's Trump-Russia probe.
The pushback, which came in a court document late Thursday, is the latest in a series of back-and-forth legal filings that have generated headlines in recent days about Durham's investigation and what it has — and has not — found so far. It directly addressed accusations made by lawyers for Michael Sussmann in court documents earlier this week.
"Defense counsel has presumed the Government's bad faith and asserts that the Special Counsel's Office intentionally sought to politicize this case, inflame media coverage, and taint the jury pool," Durham's filing stated. "That is simply not true."
During the Trump administration then-Attorney General William Barr appointed Durham to investigate the origins of the FBI's Trump-Russia probe.
Sussmann, a Washington attorney who worked at a firm with longstanding ties to the Democratic Party, has pleaded not guilty to a single false statements charge stemming from Durham's investigation, for allegedly lying to the FBI in a conversation ahead of the 2016 election about possible ties between Donald Trump and Russia.
Last Friday Durham submitted a court filing about potential conflicts of interest in Sussmann's case, but included other information about a meeting Sussmann had in 2017 with the CIA to pass along...
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