Opinion | The Sussmann Trial Is a Mueller Legacy

It must also function a reminder of the injury

Robert Mueller

did to the Federal Bureau of Investigation throughout his 12-year tenure as its director. Later, as particular counsel, Mr. Mueller was forged within the position of the principal protagonist pushing the collusion narrative, months after Mr. Sussmann’s fateful September 2016 dialog with FBI Common Counsel

James Baker

on the bureau’s headquarters.

Mr. Mueller turned FBI director per week earlier than the 9/11 assaults. Of their wake, he resolved to remodel the FBI’s “tradition” and make the bureau into an “intelligence pushed” group. That entailed quite a few modifications, a lot of which had unhealthy penalties. One was to interchange agent executives with “professionals” in key headquarters positions. Maybe this transfer enhanced short-term technical proficiency in these positions, however it got here at a value—a lack of long-term dedication and invaluable information of the establishment and its tradition.

Therefore, through the tenure of Mr. Mueller and his successor,

James Comey,

we noticed non-agents working public affairs and congressional affairs and serving as common counsel. These positions have been beforehand held by special-agent executives.

In response to the September 2021 indictment of Mr. Sussmann, the FBI’s then-Common Counsel Baker, a nonagent, accepted misdirection from one of many prime legal professionals at Perkins Coie, the regulation agency for Hillary Clinton’s marketing campaign. An agent would have recognized easy methods to interview Mr. Sussmann. However Mr. Baker, sitting alone with Mr. Sussmann in his workplace within the FBI’s J.

Edgar Hoover

Headquarters Constructing, didn’t even suppose to deliver an agent into the room. Mr. Sussmann is charged with mendacity to the FBI in that assembly.

In response to the indictment, Mr. Sussmann went to Mr. Baker’s workplace and spun the story that he was performing as a “good citizen,” not as a lawyer for

Donald Trump’s

election opponents, delivering data probably damaging to Mr. Trump. FBI particular brokers are educated to interview witnesses and suspects and spend most of their working careers doing so. An agent would have keyed in on Mr. Sussmann’s motivation and memorialized the interview on an FD-302 interview-report type, the right option to file what would possible change into proof.

What makes Mr. Baker’s lack of motion much more egregious is that he was instructed by Mr. Sussmann a day prematurely, by textual content, that he wished the go to so he may deliver delicate data to the FBI’s consideration. In response to an April 4, 2022, court docket submitting by Mr. Durham, Mr. Sussmann additionally particularly stated, in a Sept. 18, 2021 textual content to Mr. Baker, that he was “coming by myself—not on behalf of a consumer.” That is the essence of his alleged lie.

Mr. Sussmann has pleaded not responsible. What might be his protection? If it have been merely his phrase towards Mr. Baker’s, with solely the 2 of them within the room, Mr. Sussmann may merely deny the alleged lie. As soon as Mr. Durham’s investigation recovered Mr. Sussmann’s textual content, despatched the day earlier than the assembly, that avenue of protection was closed off.

However Mr. Durham’s activity would have been simpler—or altogether pointless—had Mr. Mueller not messed with the FBI’s “swear to inform the reality” law-enforcement tradition. Changing savvy particular brokers with an alone-in-the-room legal professional has proven its shortcomings.

Mr. Baker is a retired FBI particular agent and authorized attaché.