The single charge is that Sussman told Baker he wasn't working for any specific client. The problem is despite what he may have said yesterday about being 100% sure, that is not what he said in questioning by House subcommittee members. In fact he only started to express his current position after Durham began pressing him and apparently convinced him that he did in fact remember. To this point the Durham probe has lasted longer than the Mueller investigation...
The reality is that Baker likely doesn't remember and there is no reason to expect him to. It was a meeting with a friend and it didn't amount to anything. There is no reason for Baker to commit every facet to memory because he didn't consider it a big deal So when he found himself being grilled by the likes of Jim Jordan in a 2018 subcommittee session, he was reluctant to allow Jordan to bully him into making claims that he wasn't sure were true or not. Jordan is the epitome of obnoxious and annoying with his whiny sneer...From the Sept lawfare analysis I linked to previously...Regarding the subcommittee grilling...
"Baker makes clear there are a bunch of facts about the interaction that he doesn’t remember all that well—which is hardly surprising,
given that it was presumably not a meeting he expected to have to testify about years after the fact. He says, for example, that he doesn’t remember whether Sussmann told him in advance what he was coming over to talk about (p. 99) and that he wasn’t sure whether it was Bill Priestap or Pete Strzok to whom he referred the matter, though he thinks it was Priestap and knows he did it “within minutes” (pp. 99-100)."
Jordan (who put a lot more effort into defending Trump, than he did the wrestlers he coached at OSU) tried to bully Baker into acknowledging that on that specific day he knew that Sussmann worked for the Clinton campaign. But Baker doesn't remember if he knew that at the time of the meeting, or if he found out later and tells that to Jordan...
"At one point (pp. 122-123), Jordan asks specifically, “And was he representing a client when he brought this information to you? Or just out of the goodness of his heart, someone gave it to him and brought it to you?” This leads to the following exchange:
So what Baker said was that he didn't remember, and specifically that he didn't recall Sussmann specifically addressing whether he had a client or not. That's an honest answer about events two years earlier that you viewed as of little consequence at the time and never expected to have to recall minute details about. That is NOT Baker saying that Sussmann told him he didn't have a client...
Now it's 4 yrs after that, after extensive coaching from a Prosecutor desperate to make a case. Now he suddenly unequivocally remembers details which he already said on numerous occasions that he didn't remember?
That's why he had to amend it to 75%, and why his testimony is so weak. Why would you suddenly remember details that you took no note of initially? It doesn't make any sense, and imho it goes directly to the heart to the concept of reasonable doubt.
Ben Wittes who is editor of Lawfare and wrote the analysis is a friend of Baker's. He surmises that Durham is trying to pressure Sussmann into sacrificing others to save himself. But this is the definition of a weak case, and I'd be beyond shocked if 12 individuals all accepted the story that Durham wants them to believe regarding Baker's remarkable memory transformation...
The indictment of Michael Sussmann is far removed from the supposedly grave FBI misconduct Durham was supposed to reveal. It’s also a remarkably weak case.
www.lawfareblog.com