(RightWing.org) – In April 2019, then-Attorney General William Barr appointed US Attorney John Durham to examine the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. In October 2020, Barr named Durham special counsel. So far, Durham has obtained indictments against two individuals: Igor Danchenko, a Russian analyst who allegedly lied to FBI agents about the now-infamous Steele Dossier, and Hillary Clinton’s former attorney Michael A. Sussman. A federal just recently issued a ruling allowing federal prosecutors to move Sussman’s case forward.
In February 2022, Sussman’s attorneys filed a motion for pretrial dismissal of the indictment, claiming it failed to state a proper offense. According to his lawyers, even if the allegations in the criminal indictment were true, his misrepresentation to the FBI was “immaterial” and inconsequential.
However, Sussman’s lawyers failed to convince US District Judge Christopher Cooper, and on Wednesday, April 13, he issued a six-page ruling denying the motion. As Judge Cooper explained, “The battle lines… are drawn” between Sussman and federal prosecutors, but material questions of fact remain that “must be answered by a jury.”
Cooper hammered his point home, writing juries rendered guilty verdicts in deciding all the cases Sussman’s lawyers cited in support of dismissal for lack of materiality.
In short, in the American legal system, judges decide questions of law, and juries determine questions surrounding the facts of a case.
What do you think? Did the judge make the right decision?
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