John Durham relied on witnesses with 'very crappy memories' -- and it cost him: CNN legal correspondent
Trump-backed special prosecutor John Durham flopped hard in his first big court case after former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann was acquitted of lying to the FBI -- but CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Pérez doesn't think the verdict should have come as a surprise.
While talking with host Brianna Keilar on Wednesday, Pérez outlined why Durham's case against Sussmann was unusually weak.
"It doesn't bode well for John Durham," he said. "This is a false statements charge and he relied on witnesses who had very crappy memories, frankly, of what happened back in 2016 during this meeting and thereafter. In some cases, some of these witnesses only landed on the prosecutor's theory, endorsed that theory, after essentially being threatened with prosecution themselves."
The result, Pérez, was a jury deciding "very quickly" in the span of about six-and-a-half hours to acquit Sussmann.
He then argued that Durham's investigation has much less to show so far than former special counsel Robert Mueller's probe despite having lasted far longer.
"Durham has lasted over three years already, Mueller was under two years, a year and ten months," he said. "But here is the deal: We've had three cases so far, one is a guilty plea, this one was acquitted, and he has one more trial in October of, you know, a Russian researcher who helped do some of the research behind the Steele dossier. In the case of Mueller, you have convictions of Paul Manafort, the chairman of the campaign, Rick Gates, you had a number of very high-profile successful cases."
Watch the video below.
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