Michael Sussmann, a former lawyer for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, is set to go on trial Monday for a single charge of lying to the FBI, as part of Special Counsel John Durham's three-year investigation of the Trump-Russia investigation. 

But the trial is shaping up to be about something much bigger than whether Sussmann lied about his clients while passing on a tip to the FBI alleging suspicious ties between former President Donald Trump and Russia. 

Durham's prosecution team, in court documents and pre-trial hearings, has pursued a strategy of casting Sussmann's actions as part of a dirty smear campaign to use political opposition research to spur an FBI investigation and to use the resulting press coverage against Trump and his campaign. 

The former President has long claimed the FBI probe into his 2016 campaign was the "crime of the century," and pointed the finger at Clinton and an assortment of "deep state" government officials for orchestrating it. Under Trump in 2019, then-Attorney General William Barr appointed Durham to examine what Barr characterized as an unfair investigation of Trump.