The judge presiding over the case against Democratic lawyer Michael Sussmann said he was "professional acquaintances" at the Department of Justice with Sussmann in the 1990s, and the judge's wife represents former FBI lawyer Lisa Page — issues special counsel John Durham's team has not raised to push for recusal.

The grand jury indictment against Sussmann, a former DOJ veteran, centers on a September 2016 meeting between him and then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in which Sussmann passed along allegations claiming there was a secret backchannel between Russia's Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization. While Durham says that Sussmann told Baker he was not working for any specific client, the special counsel contends Sussmann was secretly doing the bidding of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign as well as working on behalf of a yet-unnamed technology company executive.