You can dismiss any old croc telling you that U.S. Special Counsel John Durham isn’t serious about getting to the bottom of a murky swamp that involves alleged “joint venture” collaboration among highly-connected Clinton, Democrat National Committee (DNC), and former Obama-Biden administration swamp critters.

The current case, one that is certain to follow with other indictments, charges Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann with lying to the FBI regarding peddling false Trumped-up Trump-Russia collusion charges, which Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign manager, Robby Mook, has since testified she personally authorized taking to the media.

Sussmann is accused of misleading then-FBI general counsel James Baker into believing he was merely acting as a “good citizen” because he knew that if the bureau knew he was working for Clinton’s campaign, it “might not meet with him right away, let alone open an investigation.”

The Sussmann trial couldn’t have been staged under a more Democrat-loaded venue in a district where more than 90% of the electorate voted for Hillary in a courtroom presided over by an Obama-appointed judge, Christopher (“Casey”) Cooper, who also served on his transition team.

In an early order of business, U.S. District Judge Cooper denied a prosecution request to remove a juror whose daughter is on the same high school rowing crew team as defendant Sussmann’s daughter.

The juror said she was unaware of the connection at the time she filled out the court questionnaire, and that there was at least a three-year age gap between the two daughters who were not friends.

In addition, Judge Cooper’s wife, attorney Amy Jeffress, is representing key “Russiagate” figure Lisa Page in her lawsuit against the FBI.

You may recall that Page, also a former FBI lawyer, played a central role in the investigation of former President Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia . . .  the same 2016 Hillary campaign hoax spread to the media by several Hillary campaign and DNC operatives, including Michael Sussmann.

This was occurring at the same time the FBI, meanwhile, was engaging in an alleged “media leak strategy” of its own.

Jeffress also served as a top aide to former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, and Biden’s current Attorney General Merrick Garland presided over the 1999 wedding of Cooper and Jeffress.

Judge Cooper has additionally confirmed that he and defendant Sussmann had been “professional acquaintances” during the 1990s when they both worked as attorneys at the deputy attorney general’s office in the same building at the same time in the criminal division.

According to Judicial Watch‘s Tom Fitton, “If a spouse has a substantial interest in the outcome of a proceeding, then a judge should consider recusal. That is a question Judge Cooper will have to ask himself.”

Despite these admitted ties, Durham did not push for the judge’s recusal.

The prosecution’s first witnesses were both FBI agents, with one, Scott Hellman, noting that the official “chain of custody” for two thumb drives of fabricated Trump-Russia collusion data that Sussmann had given to FBI top attorney Baker showed they went to then-agent Peter Strzok, who initially led the “Crossfire Hurricane” Trump-Russia probe.

Strzok was later removed from the investigation after text messages surfaced showing that he and then-FBI lawyer Lisa Page bashed Trump while carrying on an affair.

Durham prosecutor Deborah Brittain Shaw said the prosecution would show that Sussmann’s Sept. 19, 2016, meeting with Baker at the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. was the culmination of a three-pronged plan involving him, the Clinton campaign, and Rodney Joffee, a tech executive and Sussmann client.

It was Joffee who purportedly cooked up misinformation about a cyber back channel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa-Bank.

“The first step was to have Joffe and other technology experts look for data that could smear Trump, then leak the findings to the press and for Sussmann to finally bring the information to the FBI,” Shaw said.

Sussmann’s trial is the first to result from Durham’s three-year probe of potential crimes committed in connection with the investigations by the FBI and former special counsel Robert Muller. Conviction of being found guilty of lying to the government carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Beyond Sussmann, Durham has another active case against Christopher Steele’s alleged main source, Igor Danchenko, charged with five counts of making false statements to the FBI about information he provided to the former MI6 agent for his discredited “dirty dossier” against Trump.

Danchenko faces trial in October.

The special counsel has already obtained one guilty plea from former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who admitted he falsified a document during the bureau’s efforts to renew FISA surveillance authority against Trump campaign associate Carter Page.

Based upon numerous coordinated court filings, it appears that lots of other key people, associated with the Clinton campaign — current Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan included — also have good reasons to be very concerned about where Durham’s trial trail will lead.

On the eve of the 2016 election, Sullivan claimed in a written campaign statement that independent “computer scientists” discovered that Trump and the Russians had set up a “secret hotline” through the Alfa Bank.

He also suggested to the media that “federal authorities” were investigating “this direct connection between Trump and Russia.”

Clinton then retweeted Sullivan’s statement with the comment: “Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.”

During the 2016 convention, Sullivan drove a golf cart from one TV-network news tent in the parking lot to another, pitching producers and anchors a story that Trump was conspiring with Putin to steal the election.

CNN, ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News, as well as Chris Wallace of Fox News, all gave him lots of welcome airtime.

Let’s hope they all stay tuned to disillusioning Durham swamp-draining updates.