Clinton campaign lawyer sought to ‘use’ FBI, prosecutor says

WASHINGTON — A lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign who is charged with lying to the FBI early in the Trump-Russia probe sought to “use and manipulate” federal law enforcement to create an “October surprise” in the final weeks of the presidential race, a prosecutor alleged Tuesday at the start of his trial. Michael Sussmann is accused of misleading the FBI during a September 2016 meeting by telling the bureau’s top lawyer that he wasn’t acting on behalf of a particular client when he presented computer data that he said might connect Russia to then-candidate Donald Trump. It should not be used as a political tool.” At issue is a 2016 meeting in which Sussmann gave Baker, the FBI’s then-general counsel, computer data gathered by another of his clients that purported to show furtive contact between computer servers of the Trump Organization and Russia-based Alfa Bank. Bosworth told jurors Sussmann took the computer data seriously because it appeared to show “weird contacts” between Trump’s business organization and Russia and because it was given to him by Rodney Joffe, a client who Bosworth said was such a respected technology executive that the FBI had asked him to be an informant.