Bill Barr-appointed special prosecutor indicts Clinton campaign lawyer for making false statements to FBI

Attorney Michael Sussmann was indicted by a federal grand jury working with special counsel John Durham, The Washington Postreported Thursday.

"Sussmann, the indictment charges, 'lied about the capacity in which he was providing ... allegations to the FBI" of potential cyber links between a Russian bank and a company owned by former president Donald Trump,' the newspaper reported.

Sussmann is an attorney at the firm Perkins Coie.

"Charging him marks a strange twist in the special counsel's probe championed by Trump and his Republican allies, and which to date has resulted in a single conviction of a low-level FBI lawyer. Durham was tasked with finding crimes that may have been committed at the FBI and elsewhere in the federal government, but in charging Sussmann, the special counsel is in essence arguing that the FBI was the victim of a crime," the newspaper explained.

Attorneys Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth, who are representing Sussmann, had issued a joint statement prior to the indictment.

"Michael Sussmann is a highly respected national security and cyber security lawyer, who served the U.S. Department of Justice during Democratic and Republican administrations alike," the statement read. "Any prosecution here would be baseless, unprecedented, and an unwarranted deviation from the apolitical and principled way in which the Department of Justice is supposed to do its work. We are confident that if Mr. Sussmann is charged, he will prevail at trial and vindicate his good name."