WASHINGTON, DC – The trial against Michael Sussmann, who is accused of lying to an FBI agent in September of 2016 when handing off now-debunked allegations regarding Trump and Russia, has brought about more interesting testimony from an FBI agent.

According to a report from Just the News, an FBI agent on May 24th testified that “fired up” leadership within the FBI insisted on moving forward with the investigation into Trump despite there being lacking evidence to pursue such an endeavor.

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Red Voice Media previously covered testimony from the Sussmann trial that took place on May 17th where an FBI agent, Special Agent Scott Hellman, confirmed that he and his supervisor had determined within 24 hours that the Trump/Alfa Bank allegations brought to the FBI in September of 2016 were unsubstantiated.

The aforementioned testimony rendered by Special Agent Hellman didn’t pull any proverbial punches with respect to how farfetched he thought the allegations were, saying, “I did not feel that they were objective in the conclusions that they came to. The assumption that you would have to make was so far-reaching that it just didn’t make any sense.”

Flash forward to May 24th, FBI Agent Curtis Heide testified that leadership were “fired up” about investigating this purported secret communication channel between Trump and Alfa Bank.

Agent Heide claimed from the stand that by September 26th of 2016, he was certain that these allegations about a secret communication channel between Trump and Alfa Bank were unfounded.

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This conclusion by Agent Heide was reached by not only his own analysis, but that of a review from the FBI’s cyber team, an independent assessment by cybersecurity outfit Mandiant, and talks with Spectrum Health about a Tor exit node.

Nonetheless, on October 3rd, 2016, Agent Heide requested an opportunity to interview the source of these allegations, that source being Sussmann, who Agent Heide did not yet know the identity of. However, FBI Agent Ryan Gaynor responded in the email thread informing Agent Heide that any potential interviews with the source of the allegations was being actively discussed at FBI headquarters.

On May 23rd, one day prior to Agent Heide’s testimony, Agent Gaynor confirmed from the stand that FBI leadership were remaining tightlipped about Sussmann’s identity and agents reviewing the allegations brought forth by Sussmann at the time weren’t informed of the source’s identity.

Despite having never been afforded an opportunity to interview Sussmann, Agent Heide was asked to draft an investigative summary pertaining to his findings on October 19th, 2016. Overall, within a period of two weeks of obtaining the Trump/Alfa Bank allegations, Agent Heide asserted in his furnished report that the alleged secret communication channel was unsubstantiated.

Nevertheless, the investigation was ordered to continue forward by the FBI’s upper echelons.

This piece was written by Gregory Hoyt on May 25, 2022. It originally appeared in RedVoiceMedia.com and is used by permission.

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