What a dumb thing to say. That's not how retainers usually work. And submitting billable hours but not charging the client for any of them? That arrangement is most often in a contingent fee case where you need documentation to be awarded fees and costs if the case is successful in court.Quote:
According to Durham, Baker told investigators that Sussmann said he was not raising suspicions about the Trump campaign on behalf of any client. However, during a deposition before Congress in 2017, Sussmann said that he "sought the meeting on behalf of an unnamed client who was a cybersecurity expert and had helped analyze the data."
Furthermore, billing records that Durham obtained from Perkins Coie allegedly show that when Sussman "logged certain hours as working on the Alfa Bank matter," he billed the time to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. At the time, Marc Elias, another partner at Perkins Coie, was serving as general counsel for the Clinton campaign.
Sussmann's lawyers have claimed that their client was not working on behalf of the Clinton campaign, insisting that he was "representing the cybersecurity expert he mentioned to Congress."
"They are also said to have argued that the billing records are misleading because Mr. Sussmann was not charging his client for work on the Alfa Bank matter, but needed to show internally that he was working on something," noted the Times. "He was discussing the matter with Mr. Elias and the campaign paid a flat monthly retainer to the firm, so Mr. Sussmann's hours did not result in any additional charges."
Sussman's direct involvement with hiring CrowdStrike for the DNC "hacking" allegations puts him squarely in line with being an attorney working, at a minimum, the DNC.
