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Closing arguments will be made Friday in the trial of a Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer charged with lying to the FBI when he shared concerns about potential ties between The Trump Organization and a bank in Russia.

Prosecutors say Michael Sussmann lied during a September 2016 meeting with an FBI official when he said he was not working on behalf of any client, concealing that the Clinton campaign and a technology executive were actually behind the allegations. 

Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer, approached the FBI about what he believed was suspicious internet server activity between the Kremlin-linked Alfa Bank and The Trump Organization, the real estate company owned by Donald Trump, then Clinton’s opponent in the presidential election. The FBI investigated and quickly determined the claim was unsubstantiated.

The case is the first brought to trial by special counsel John Durham, whom Trump appointed in 2019 to investigate potential FBI wrongdoing in opening its probe into possible illegal ties between Trump and Russia. The Washington, D.C., trial began May 16.

While the scope of the Sussmann case is narrow, Trump has pointed to it as proof that the investigation into his campaign was a “deep state” conspiracy against him. 

That investigative report, by special counsel Robert Mueller, identified “numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign,” but stopped short of accusing Trump of any crimes. 

The defense maintains Sussmann was not working on behalf of a client when he met with the FBI but instead was merely raising concerns about a potential national security threat. Sussman’s lawyers say the Clinton campaign never directed him to take the matter to the FBI.

The defense, however, has acknowledged Sussmann was representing the Clinton campaign when he separately tipped off a New York Times reporter about his suspicions. 

Prosecutors have seized upon that inconsistency in making their case. They argue that Sussmann hoped an FBI investigation would make the newspaper more likely to publish an article that would be unflattering to the Trump campaign. 

Last week, James Baker, the former FBI official who met with Sussmann, testified he was “100% confident” Sussmann told him he was not representing a client. 

Baker told top FBI officials about the evidence Sussmann claimed to have. Had he known Sussmann was working for the Clinton campaign, he would have “made a different assessment” because it would have raised “very serious questions” about the “credibility of the source,” Baker testified.

Sussman’s lawyers also say his representation of Democratic interests was well-known to Baker before the meeting. 

The defense also argues Baker’s memory of the nearly 6-year-old meeting is “clear as mud.” During cross-examination, defense attorney Sean Berkowitz highlighted that Baker told the Justice Department’s inspector general in a 2019 interview he believed Sussmann was acting on behalf of “some number of people that were his clients.” 

And while the defense’s position is that Sussmann was not working for clients at the time of the meeting, it called as a witness a former Justice Department official, Tashina Gauhar, who testified Wednesday that she wrote in her notes from a briefing that the Trump Organization-Alfa Bank allegations were brought to the FBI by an attorney “on behalf of his client.”

Gauhar said she didn’t recall who made the comment, but if she had written that down, “that’s what I would have heard at the briefing.”

Sussmann told the judge Thursday he won’t testify.

If convicted, Sussmann would face up to five years in prison.