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“The defendant knew that he had to hide his clients if there was any chance of getting his allegations to the FBI,” prosecutor Jonathan Algor said during closing arguments Friday.

Mr. Algor told the jury on Friday that the effort was a conspiracy to engineer an “October surprise,” meaning a game-changing revelation late in a campaign, by getting the F.B.I. to open an investigation so reporters would write about it.

Mr. Algor and another prosecutor, Andrew DeFilippis, told the jury that the evidence left no doubt that Mr. Sussmann repeated to Mr. Baker’s face that he was not there on behalf of any client.

“It wasn’t about national security,” said one of the prosecutors, Jonathan Algor.

“The defendant knew he had to hide his clients if there was any chance of getting his allegations into the FBI — and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the defendant lied,” Algor said.