Disappointed, but not surprised. I have the feeling that Sussman took his chances with a jury trial in the DC swamp rather than take a deal by pleading guilty to a process crime unlike Clinesmith. I do not believe that Durham really thought that Sussman would arrogantly dig in his heels. Sussman had reason to go the route that he did. He knows the swamp because he is part of it and therefore knew his chances of acquittal were very good. DC Federal Judges and the DC jury pool are tainted and corrupt. They are all connected to each other in some way either professionally or personally. Therefore, I was never holding my breath on this case or any other cases that may potentially spin off this case. An acquittal on a process crime sends a huge message that the swamp is still in control of the courts in DC. I also wonder in some way if Sussman demanding to have a trial caused Durham to expose some information that he would have preferred to sit on a while longer. Moves and countermoves.

If larger cases targeted at big fish are going to have any chance of arriving at a fair verdict, then those cases are going to have to take place in jurisdictions outside of DC. And just as a side note - consider this. Durham has never taken down any DC swamp movers and shakers in any of his high profile cases. Prosecutions involved low and midlevel players - even in cases like Whitey Bulger's that could have gone much farther up the food chain thereby exposing government connections and corruption. In the waterboarding case, that took several years to investigate, no significant prosecutions or convictions occurred. The swamp was always protected. The history has a lot in common with Barr and Mueller and how they operated.

I really think people unfairly have expected far too much out of one man and have had unrealistic expectations given what Durham is up against and the reality of how vast and deep that swamp really is. Ask Trump.