Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann has been found not guilty of lying to the FBI.
On Tuesday, Sussman was acquitted on charges of giving a false statement to the FBI.
The Washington, DC, federal jury deliberated for six hours over the course of two days before reaching the shocking verdict.
Sussmann’s case is the first trial of Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the anti-Trump Russia Hoax.
Durham claimed Sussmann lied during a 2016 meeting.
During the meeting with federal agents, Sussmann passed along false information about President Donald Trump.
The information was fabricated by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and was an attempt to smear and discredit Trump by falsely linking him to Russia.
Sussmann was charged with one felony count of making a false statement to the FBI.
The 12-member jury was made up of seven women and five men.
They deliberated for close to four hours Friday before leaving for the three-day weekend.
Not guilty verdict on the single false-statement count after only about six hours of deliberations over two days. https://t.co/gcLrU9a78P
— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) May 31, 2022
“It wasn’t about national security,” prosecutor Jonathan Algor told the jury.
“It was about promoting opposition research about the opposition candidate, Donald Trump.”
“The time for political conspiracy theories is over,” defense attorney Sean Berkowitz said during closing arguments.
“The time to talk about the evidence is now.”
“Any piece of evidence that doesn’t fit their tunnel-vision theory, they ignore,” Berkowitz said.
“Opposition research is not illegal,” Berkowitz said.
“If it were, the jails of Washington, DC, would be teeming over.”
NEW: The jury finds Michael Sussmann NOT guilty of making a false statement to the FBI…
— Henry Rodgers (@henryrodgersdc) May 31, 2022
