Hillary Clinton approved leaking Trump-Russia link to media, court hears
- Robby Mook, a witness in the trial of a former campaign lawyer charged with lying to the FBI, said Clinton agreed with quietly pitching the theory to the media
- The purported server link between the Trump Organisation and Russia-based Alfa Bank was ultimately debunked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Robby Mook, a witness in the trial of a former Clinton campaign lawyer charged with lying to the FBI, on Friday testified that he and others at the campaign “weren’t totally confident” in the veracity of the server data, but they sent it to reporters anyway a few months before the election.
“All I remember is that she agreed with it,” Mook said of Clinton. “She thought we made the right decision.”
The purported server link between the Trump Organisation and Russia-based Alfa Bank was ultimately debunked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Former campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann is now on trial for allegedly lying to the FBI when he said he was not representing any client when he brought that claim to the agency’s attention in September 2016.
Mook testified that neither he nor anyone else at the campaign directed Sussmann to take the information to the FBI and that the main focus was tipping off the media.
That seemed justified because evidence of a suspected secret backchannel between Trump and Russia “was obviously incredibly alarming and concerning”, Mook said. If true, he said, then “that’s probably something the American people should know when they vote”. Mook said he believed reporters would take their own steps to verify the theory was true before publication.
