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Hillary Clinton personally approved plan to share Trump-Russia allegation with the press in 2016, campaign manager says
Robby Mook mentioned he attended a gathering with different senior marketing campaign officers the place they realized about unusual cyberactivity that steered a relationship between the Trump Group and Alfa Financial institution, which relies in Moscow. The group determined to share the data with a reporter, and Mook subsequently ran that call by Clinton herself.
“We mentioned it with Hillary,” Mook mentioned, later including that “she agreed with the choice.”
The testimony got here within the prison trial of Clinton marketing campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, who’s being prosecuted by the Trump-era particular counsel John Durham. Durham is investigating potential misconduct tied to the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe. The trial has make clear the darkish arts of political opposition analysis — and the way campaigns dig up dust and plant tales within the press.
Federal investigators in the end concluded there weren’t any improper Trump-Alfa cyber hyperlinks.
Clinton officers say they did not authorize FBI assembly
Sussmann handed alongside the identical details about Trump and Alfa Financial institution to an FBI official in September 2016. Prosecutors charged him with mendacity to the FBI and allege that he falsely instructed the FBI official that he wasn’t there for a consumer, regardless that he was there on Clinton’s behalf.
He has pleaded not responsible and maintains that he went “to assist the FBI” as a involved citizen, and that the Clinton marketing campaign would not have wished him to satisfy with the FBI within the first place.
Mook and one other prime Clinton marketing campaign official, normal counsel Marc Elias, bolstered that assertion this week on the witness stand. They each testified they did not authorize or direct Sussmann to go to the FBI with the explosive Trump tip. Mook mentioned Friday that he did not even know who Sussmann was through the 2016 marketing campaign, and would’ve opposed an FBI assembly.
“Going to the FBI doesn’t appear to be an efficient strategy to get data out to the general public,” Mook mentioned. “You do this via the media, which is why the data was shared with the media.”
Earlier within the week, Elias instructed the jury that he did not authorize Sussmann’s assembly with the FBI, which occurred on September 19, 2016. Elias mentioned he hadn’t realized in regards to the fateful assembly between Sussmann and then-FBI Basic Counsel James Baker till Sussmann was indicted.
Along with going to the FBI, Sussmann offered the technical web information to a reporter from The New York Instances, who was engaged on a narrative that the FBI spiked after studying about it from Sussmann. A staffer from Fusion GPS, an opposition analysis agency employed by the Clinton marketing campaign, testified that she met with a Slate reporter to debate the Trump-Alfa allegations.
Testimony from witnesses steered the media outreach wasn’t carefully coordinated, although the scenario is not absolutely clear. Mook mentioned he did not find out about Perkins Coie, the regulation agency the place Sussmann and Elias labored, “enjoying a job with us sharing the data with the media.”
CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this report.