Special counsel John Durham scored a victory Thursday when a federal judge ordered the research firm behind the infamous “Steele dossier” to turn over nearly two dozen emails tied to its work with Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann.
Fusion GPS improperly withheld the 22 emails from Durham by claiming they were protected by attorney-client privilege and “work-product” privilege, Washington, DC, federal Judge Christopher Cooper ruled.
The move came at the request of Clinton’s 2016 campaign, according to the 11-page decision.
But the emails, which largely consist of internal communications between Fusion employees, aren’t protected from disclosure because they “appear not to have been written in anticipation of litigation but rather as part of ordinary media-relations work,” Cooper said.
“It is clear that Fusion employees also interacted with the press as part of an affirmative media relations effort by the Clinton Campaign,” he wrote.
“That effort included pitching certain stories, providing information on background, and answering reporters’ questions.”
Cooper ordered Fusion GPS — which hired ex-British spy Christopher Steele to compile reports that purportedly tied Trump to Russia, most of which have been discredited — to turn over the emails to Durham’s team on Monday, when jury selection for Sussmann’s trial is set to start.
Sussmann is charged with lying to the FBI on Sept. 19, 2016, when he claimed to not be “acting on behalf of any client” while turning over reports and data he said showed a secret back channel between a Trump Organization server and Russia’s Alfa Bank.
The information was later debunked by the FBI, which found “that the email server at issue…had been administered by a mass marketing email company that sent advertisements for Trump hotels and hundreds of other clients,” according to Sussmann’s indictment.
The emails that Fusion GPS has to turn over for possible use against Sussmann are among 38 that Cooper reviewed at Durham’s request, despite the objections of the company, Clinton’s campaign and tech executive Rodney Joffe, who gave Sussmann the Alfa Bank data.
They’re also among around 1,500 emails that Fusion GPS withheld after being slapped with a subpoena by Durham.
During a pretrial hearing last week, Cooper reportedly asked whether Durham would seek access to all of the records if the judge were to rule in his favor.
Prosecutor Jonathan Algor responded that Durham wouldn’t need the remaining records “for this trial” but said that Cooper’s decision “is important” for Durham’s ongoing probe into the government investigations of Trump’s campaign, the Washington Examiner said.