The Alfa Bank Hoax Is Looking A Lot Like Crossfire Hurricane

[Geee]

The Federalist

lawyer for former Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann revealed last week that federal agents never asked Sussmann the origin of the data he provided the FBI related to the Alfa Bank hoax. Beyond highlighting the hackery of the Crossfire Hurricane team, this revelation raises broader concerns about the cozy relationship between the government and private cybersecurity experts.

On Thursday, Sussmann’s Latham and Watkins attorney Michael Bosworth pushed for the dismissal of the special counsel’s criminal case. That case charged Sussmann with lying to former FBI General Counsel James Baker when he provided Baker “white papers” and data ostensibly showing a secret communications channel between the Trump organization and the Russia-connected Alfa Bank. According to the indictment, Sussmann falsely claimed during his meeting with Baker that he was not acting on behalf of a client, when in fact he was working for both the Clinton campaign and tech executive Rodney Joffe.

During last week’s oral argument on Sussmann’s motion to dismiss, Bosworth posited that Sussmann’s allegedly false statement was not “material” to the FBI—and thus not a crime—by arguing that because the FBI never questioned Sussmann on the source of the Alfa Bank information, it was irrelevant to the investigation.

Not once will the evidence show, Bosworth argued, that “anyone at the FBI ever asked Mr. Sussmann, ‘Hey, by the way, where did this information come from?’ No one asked. Not once. Ever.” Sussmann’s attorney continued: “Regardless of who his clients were, if the source of his information was so critical to the government’s investigation, if it mattered so much, you’d think at some point someone would have said, ‘Hey, buddy, you provide this tip to the government. Where did this stuff come from? Who gave it to you? Where did—how did they get it?”