FBI Agent Was ‘Troubled’ by Secrecy around Trump-Russia Collusion Evidence Provided by Sussmann

Washington, D.C. — A witness called by the prosecution in the false-statement trial of Michael Sussmann on Tuesday said the secrecy around the source of evidence supposedly connecting the Trump campaign and Russia’s Alfa Bank was “troubling,” and conceded that the quality of the analysis made him question whether the source had a “mental disability.”

FBI agent Scott Hellman, one of three witnesses called by the prosecution during Tuesday’s proceedings, reviewed the data and analysis handed over to FBI general counsel James Baker by Sussmann, who is on trial for allegedly misleading Baker about his motivation for coming forward with what he said was evidence of illicit communication between the Trump organization and Alfa Bank in the form of internet server activity.

According to text messages obtained by Special Counsel John Durham, Sussmann told his former FBI colleague Baker that he was coming forward as a concerned citizen and not on behalf of any client, while prosecutors allege — and time logs from Sussmann’s law firm, Perkins Coie, suggest — Sussmann was actually working for the Clinton campaign when he turned over the information weeks before the 2016 election.

FBI agent David Martin was called by the prosecution as an expert in cybersecurity and was asked to describe Domain Name System (DNS) data. He analogized it to “the way phone directories map names to phone numbers,” and explained that DNS data does not by itself constitute evidence of communication between two devices.

It was DNS data — found and passed along to Sussmann by Rodney Joffe, then the chief technology officer at internet services firm Neustar — that Sussmann presented, alongside a summary or “white paper” of the data, to the FBI as evidence of a secret communication channel between then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russia’s Alpha Bank.

Hellman, who reviewed the data along with his supervisor Nathan Batty, said that the DNS evidence presented did not comport with the narrative advanced by the white paper that accompanied it. According to Hellman, “there was not enough data” to say there was any communication between two parties, much less between Trump and Russia.

Hellman’s report on the data and white papers concluded that there were “questionable investigative steps taken and conclusions drawn,” by whoever had collected and summarized the data.

“I did not feel they were objective in the conclusions they came to,” he added.

Hellman was not informed by Baker or any other superior that Sussmann — who, according to the prosecution, was then-representing the Clinton campaign — was the source of the DNS data. He testified Tuesday that the motivation of a source is vital and could have implications for the kind of investigation that is opened up, and thus the investigative tools at their disposal.

“If someone has motives that are very questionable… I might want to collect more independent data,” noted Hellman.

The cross-examination of Hellman was conducted by defense attorney Sean Berkowitz, who pressed the agent on a number of issues, mostly relating to the materiality of whether Sussmann worked for the Clinton campaign.

Under questioning, Hellman acknowledged that as a member of the FBI’s cyber division, he was able to review the evidence handed over to Baker and determine it did not result from a hack — and therefore that the cyber team had no ownership over the case — “inside of a day.” He also noted that Baker would not reveal the source of the information to him while Eric Sporre, then-deputy assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division, said it had come from a “sensitive source.”

Hellman called it both “frustrating” and “troubling” that he didn’t know the provenance of the data and white papers. Records of Hellman’s private communications at the bureau presented by Berkowitz revealed that the disconnect between the data and the narrative put forward by the white paper made him question whether the white paper’s author was “a little 51-50ish.” In court, Hellman admitted that was a veiled reference to his belief that the white paper’s author might have a “mental disability.”

Also at issue was an instant message sent from Batty to Hellman referring to a “DNC report.” Hellman said he had no memory of having received the message and speculated that he might have thought it a typo. Berkowitz also extracted from Hellman that the “technical review” he undertook to evaluate the evidence would have been the same regardless of if he knew its provenance. Hellman insisted, however, that he would have “made sure to document” the source in his report, had he known it.

The prosecution pressed Hellman on this, getting him to acknowledge that, “I think it would have made [his analysis] more skeptical” of the evidence had he known that the source had a partisan interest in derailing the Trump campaign. Had he known Sussmann was the source, he said he might have dissuaded the bureau’s counterintelligence division from opening up an investigation into the connection, which it eventually did.

Neustar executive Steve De Jong said that at Joffe’s request, he ran “a query over our DNS data… mostly around the Trump campaign.” Under cross-examination, he agreed with the defense that Joffe is “very well-respected” and an expert on DNS.

After the jury was dismissed for the day, the defense asked that Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager and a witness for the defense, be allowed to testify on Friday, before the prosecution finishes with its witnesses.

Mook is requesting that he be allowed to testify then because he is supposed to leave for a vacation in Spain on Friday. Andrew DeFilipis of the prosecution objected, saying it would “make it more difficult” for the jury to follow the story. Judge Christopher Cooper has not yet ruled on the matter, but Mook is under subpoena and will have to show up in court even if he is not allowed to testify early.

The trial resumes on Wednesday morning.