Four of a
Kind — Three are Losers
(You
figure it out: Hint is Not Mueller)
This
update is from the Chicago Tribune and it mirrors many other main stream reports on former NSA
Director Michael Flynn.
This story is all over the news as Trump and his right-wing
supporters and loyalists rally for Flynn and against the FBI handling of the case
which is like a spider web.
It also shows now that Trump is more serious about
a pardon for Flynn.
Deep background on this very detailed and serious issue follows
this update.
President
Trump on Thursday (April 30) tweeted his support for Flynn, and raising
speculation that a pardon may be coming after Flynn’s lawyers released internal
FBI documents that they claim show the
FBI was trying to entrap him.
I note: Trying based in the evidence is weak
– see more below – and it appears to be simple routine staffing Q&A among
FBI officials handling the case – from what I read, I see nothing nefarious –
but that decision is up to a judge which should be forthcoming and I think
pretty quick.
Trump has
long said he is considering pardoning Flynn, who pleaded guilty to
lying to the FBI in early 2017 about his conversations with the Russian
ambassador to the United States *more on this below, too.
Trump spent Wednesday night and Thursday morning retweeting supportive
statements and a video Flynn tweeted of an American flag flapping in the wind.
Trump’s tweet: “What
happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to
happen to a citizen of the United States again!” (His Thursday morning
(April 30) tweet.
This was at the time
that his W/H counselor Kellyanne Conway was on Fox News Channel (naturally)
also responding to the case. She said: “It is up to the
president to make any announcement, but Flynn's treatment a disgrace.”
Conway concluded: “The president has made very clear
that he feels people around him (Flynn) are treated very unfairly, and in this
case worse.”
GOP Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) also called into Fox (or course) to
react to the release of the FBI documents, saying: “If true, it is extremely
troubling,” and concluded: “If all this proves to be true, you will have,
certainly, a major, major error on the part of top leadership at the FBI, which
could well warrant additional charges against them.”
I note: Note the use of the word “if” – that
is a ploy Trump loyalists. If it turns out to be true, the cling to a weak
conspiracy by the FBI, which Trump hates and is a matter of record, to keep the
story alive – ignoring the truth. My view is there is no there, there.
Heart of this story follows: And, as I said appears to
be normal and SOP FBI routine investigative tactics, but is now blown out of
context – again my view but based on my many years of experience as an interrogator
myself.
Lawyers for
Flynn released internal FBI emails and handwritten notes on Wednesday
documenting internal correspondence among FBI officials before Flynn's
interview with the bureau. They contend the documents bolster their allegations
that Flynn was set up to lie when he was questioned at the White House three
years ago. The notes show the officials grappling with how best to approach Flynn,
how much information to provide him during an interview and what to do if he
made a false statement.
Flynn, who
was among the first of the president’s aides charged in special counsel Robert
Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. He is
now seeking to withdraw his guilty plea while making assertions of
law enforcement misconduct.
However, U.S.
District Judge Emmet Sullivan rejected many of the defense arguments but has
yet to rule on whether Flynn can take back his guilty plea.
“What happened to General Michael Flynn,
a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States
again!”
Meanwhile, a
federal prosecutor from MO is reviewing DOJ handling of the case at the
direction of AG Barr as the department says the notes were provided to the
defense as part of the ongoing review.
It remains
unclear what bearing the documents will have on the case or how significant the
judge will determine them to be. But Flynn has emerged as something of a cause celebre in recent months for
supporters of the president, who have rallied around him and seized on the
findings of a harshly critical watchdog report on the Russia investigation to
try to cast doubt on the entire probe. Meanwhile, prosecutors haven’t filed
anything in response to action by Flynn’s lawyers. But Trump has made clear he
is considering a pardon.
The issue at hand: In FBI emails dated Jan. 23, 2017,
the day before agents interviewed Flynn at the White House, officials pondered
at what point in the conversation Flynn should be reminded that it is against
the law to lie to the FBI — at the outset of the conversation or after he makes
a suspected false statement.
Flynn’s
attorneys have said he was never given such a warning.
Also
released was a page of handwritten FBI notes, dated the following day, in which
an official appears to recap an internal debate inside the bureau about the
interview.
Facts regarding the FBI
investigator’s note regarding their approach to getting Flynn to talk that the
Right-wing and Trump are clinging to say simply: “What’s
our goal? Truth, admission, or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or
get him fired? If we get him to admit to breaking the Logan Act, give facts to
DOJ, and have them decide.”
The note also says: “If we’re seen as playing games,
WH will be furious. Protect our institution by not playing games.”
The Logan Act part is a reference to a centuries-old,
esoteric law that makes it a crime for a private citizen to conduct foreign
policy with another government.
The handwritten notes bear the initials “EP,”
which is likely a reference to E.W. Priestap, the senior FBI official who in
the summer of 2016 approved the opening of an investigation into ties between
the Trump campaign and Russia.
Flynn
acknowledged lying to the FBI about having discussed sanctions against Russia during
the presidential transition period with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador
at the time. Flynn provided such extensive cooperation that prosecutors said he
was entitled to a sentence of probation instead of prison.
But his sentencing
hearing was abruptly cut short after Flynn, following a stern rebuke from
Sullivan, asked to be able to continue cooperating and earn credit toward a
more lenient sentence.
Since then,
Flynn has hired new attorneys — including Sidney Powell, a conservative
commentator and outspoken critic of Mueller’s investigation — who have taken a
more adversarial stance to the government.
The lawyers have accused prosecutors
of withholding documents and evidence they said was favorable to the case and
repeatedly noted that one of the two agents who interviewed Flynn was fired
from the FBI for having sent derogatory text messages about Trump during the
2016 presidential campaign.
Trump also
tweeted Thursday about his longtime political adviser Roger Stone, who was
convicted last year as part of the Russia investigation and is awaiting a date
to surrender to federal prison.
“Does
anybody really believe that Roger Stone, a man whose house was raided early in
the morning by 29 gun toting FBI Agents (with Fake News @CNN closely in toe), was
treated fairly,” he asked, adding: “Same scammers as General Flynn!”
This
summary comes from The Atlantic (December 6, 2017): Each new piece of evidence of Flynn’s
missteps and alleged corruption further calls the president’s judgment into
question. Example:
“I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the
Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame
because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to
hide!”
That’s a
remarkable claim, both because it is different from what the White House had
said for months and because it implies that Trump knew Flynn had lied to the
FBI when he fired him — meaning that when he asked Comey to drop the
investigation, he was aware that Flynn had committed a crime. That could strengthen
an obstruction of justice claim against the president. (White House lawyer
John Dowd has claimed he
drafted the above Trump tweet.)
In a narrow
sense, Rep. Cummings letter might provide Trump a lifeline. As he seeks to
distance himself from Flynn, belatedly, the president might argue that Flynn
was nefariously working to his own ends, without the president’s knowledge — the
latest evidence that, as Trump has repeatedly claimed of late, he has no
involvement in collusion with Russians.
Yet that
excuse has several weak points.
One: Flynn has said that a senior
transition official directed him to speak with Kisylak to try to defeat a UN
Security Council resolution before the inauguration. That means whatever Flynn
was doing was not contained only to himself.
Two: Flynn has yet to testify himself,
but is expected to do so as part of his deal, and his testimony could implicate
other transition-team members and maybe even the president.
Fact: For any other president, such a
parade of incriminating revelations about a top official would be catastrophic.
But Trump has so many political scandals that practically speaking he has no
political scandals — they all evaporate into a lingering, poisonous miasma that
floats permanently over the West Wing.
The Trump team has tried to downplay Trump’s
connections to Flynn, calling the retired general “a former Obama
administration official.” In fact, President Obama both fired Flynn from his
post at the Defense Intelligence Agency and reportedly warned Trump not to hire
him.
Yet Trump,
who has repeatedly bragged about his prowess in hiring the “best people,” chose
as his closest adviser on the most sensitive matters of national security and
defense a man who repeatedly avoided legally required disclosures, lied to FBI
agents, and mismanaged the DIA while leading it.
If the whistleblower’s account
to Chairman Cummings is to be believed, he may also have used government office
to enrich his business partners and himself. Later, Trump tried to run
interference for Flynn with the FBI director. The basic question on Flynn is
the same as it was in March: How
did this guy ever get hired as national-security adviser?
Latest on
Michael Flynn has Trump and most GOP Conservatives (conspiracy types)
up in arms here
from the NY Times with this report: After years of President Trump and
his allies claiming that the investigation into Russian interference in the
2016 election was a witch hunt and that federal law enforcement systematically
targeted Trump and those around him now delivers to them a “bombshell.”
New documents turned over by the Flynn show
an unnamed official preparing for the interview in which Flynn lied to the FBI
by musing about whether the goal was “to get him to lie, so we can prosecute
him or get him fired?”
Flynn’s
legal team labeled the documents a “smoking gun” that indicate this was a
perjury trap, and however likely Trump was to pardon Flynn, he appears even
likelier now. But just how truly damning are the new documents?
First, let’s
walk through what they show.
Basically, they indicate there was an internal
debate about whether to present Flynn with evidence against him in that Jan.
24, 2017, interview. Exactly what type of evidence is redacted, but it seems
logical to believe it was transcripts of Flynn’s December 2016 phone calls with
then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, which is what Flynn later pleaded
guilty to lying about.
On calls,
Flynn and Kislyak discussed sanctions that the Obama administration had just
imposed on Russia for its 2016 election interference. This risked running afoul
of the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from conducting
diplomacy on behalf of the United States. Flynn was due to be Trump’s national
security adviser, but this was during the transition period between Trump’s
election and inauguration, so he wasn’t yet a government official.
In the
handwritten notes from an unidentified official, that official indicates being
previously opposed to showing Flynn the evidence but rethinking that decision.
“I agreed
yesterday that we shouldn’t show Flynn [redacted] if he didn’t admit," the
official says. “I thought [about] it last night, [and] I believe we should
rethink this.”
The official
goes on: “What’s our argument? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can
prosecute him or get him fired?
That right
there is what Flynn’s defenders are labeling the long-suggested perjury trap —
i.e. the idea that the officials entrapped Flynn into lying.
But it’s
worth looking at the timeline here and what else the official said in those
handwritten notes.
The official
goes on to suggest that not showing Flynn the evidence would make the White
House “furious” because it would be viewed as “playing games.”
“We
regularly show subjects evidence, with the goal of getting them to admit their
wrongdoing,” the official says: “I don’t see how getting someone to admit
their wrongdoing is going easy on them.”
What the
documents make clear — which we’ve previously known — is that the FBI believed
it had strong evidence against Flynn going into the interview. This official
apparently believed the evidence to be so strong that either Flynn would admit
to his wrongdoing or be forced to lie about it. But either way, the case could
be referred to the Justice Department for prosecution.
The term
“perjury trap” has been thrown around a lot — often carelessly.
In this case,
though, it didn’t seem to be a matter of actually tricking
Flynn into
lying, but rather giving him a choice between admitting what the FBI already
believed it could prove and letting him lie about it. This official believed
not showing him the evidence and choosing the latter course would make the
Trump White House “furious.
And here’s
the important point: The official had very good reason to believe Flynn would
lie about this … because he already had.
On Jan. 12,
2017 — 12 days before the Flynn interview — The Washington Post’s David
Ignatius first reported the contact between Flynn and Kislyak and raised the
prospect of a Logan Act violation. The next day, January 13, incoming White House
press secretary Sean Spicer denied Flynn had discussed sanctions with Kislyak,
saying they had just discussed a meeting between Trump and Russian President
Vladimir Putin. “That was it, plain and simple," Spicer said.
Two days
later, on Januaery 15, Vice President-elect Mike Pence was even more explicit in
denying Flynn and Kislyak had discussed sanctions saying: “They did not discuss
anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or
impose censure against Russia.
After Trump
was inaugurated, Spicer in a January 23 White House briefing again denied it —
this time citing Flynn’s own denial to him. Spicer said he spoke to Flynn
“again last night” and that Flynn had told him the call focused on four
subjects, none of which was sanctions.
By this
point, intelligence officials had already become aware of
the contents of the Flynn-Kislyak call, meaning they knew the denials were false. On January 19, top
intelligence and law enforcement officials debated whether to disclose the
evidence to the incoming White House. Then-acting attorney general Sally Yates
would later tell the White House that Flynn had misled it and that this opened
him up to potential blackmail by the Russians, since they would have known the
actual contents of the calls.
In other
words, the FBI had a pretty good idea that Flynn would lie about this, because
he had apparently already been lying about it.
Even Trump later
acknowledged that Flynn had lied to Pence. It was then a matter of seeing if he
would double down to FBI agents or come clean — either way, giving the agents
something they believed to be a crime.
History and Background from
20017-2019: This source
shows blatant attempts at obstruction of justice by Trump’s campaign with
related story here and a key legal point here regarding Trump’s former NSA Director, Michael Flynn.
Flynn
provided Mueller information about possible Trump camp efforts to interfere and
or obstruct his Russian investigation, according to documents cited above and
with blatant example here from
Fact Check.
In a filing attached to
Flynn’s sentencing memorandum, Federal prosecutors said: “Flynn
informed the government of multiple instances, both before and after his guilty
plea, where either he or his attorneys received communications from persons
connected to the Administration or Congress that could have affected both his
willingness to cooperate and the completeness of that cooperation.”
Major Event: An audio recording from Trump’s
lawyer, John Dowd, to Flynn’s lawyer has been released. Dowd reminds Flynn’s
lawyer of the president’s “feelings toward
Flynn” and concludes: “That still
remains.”
Ergo: “Give
us a heads-up and tell Michael how the President feels about him.”
Translation: “Tell him to zip it and get a pardon
if needed” (sic).
Flynn not
only told investigators about all communications but he also provided the
special counsel’s office with that voicemail recording (from Bloomberg News).
The official 302 form summarizing the FBI's original
interview with Flynn on January 24, 2017, is full of intriguing
redactions. But as intelligence analyst Malcolm Nance pointed out,
one thing comes through loud and clear:
The nature of the questioning from FBI agents should
have tipped off Flynn that the agency had listened to his calls with Russian
Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. And yet, Flynn lied to them anyway.
Former FBI Assistant Director Frank
Figliuzzi said Flynn as the former Director of DIA would have known the FBI was
surveilling his calls and added: “I'm just thinking
about the equation that had to go through his head. He's a DIA director — he
knows what they're listening to, and yet he decides it's worth getting caught
lying to the FBI as long as I cover up my relationship with Russia. [...] So
what's going on?”
In other
words, what could possibly be so damning that, in the moment, Flynn
calculated the lesser of two evils was to lie to the FBI full well knowing that
he would ultimately be caught?
Figliuzzi
speculated there a may be a flow of money that the public doesn't know about
yet that compromised him and potentially Trump.
The indicators all point to something
big: (1) an
aggravated judge, (2) a tamed Trump, (3) two baffled intelligence
professionals, and (4) a former intelligence chief who sold himself out to the
FBI.
Former Clinton Solicitor General
Walter Dellinger told MSNBC:
“We have to ask ourselves, why Mike Flynn was
willing to take the risk of lying. What is behind this Russian involvement?
It's always possible that there's less here than we think; and it's also
possible this is the greatest crime in the history of America if Americans were
working with Russians to determine the outcome of a presidential election.”
My 2 cents: I realize this post is long, but it
is a necessary piece of this nasty saga that now (again) Trump wants to keep
alive … the question is why? Obviously I think, Flynn was acting for Trump with
his dealings with the Russians – not for 2016 election interference, but more
likely for monetary gain for Trump and Flynn vis-à-vis to get the sanctions
lifted on Russia and Putin…
We shall see how this all unfolds, but as so many
other things like this, complex, yet carefully orchestrated by Trump – the
truth will prevail – it may take a lot of time – but the truth will come out –
it always does.
Finally: This related in depth and deep
comprehensive background on the whole Trump-Russia-Mueller-Flynn (and all
others involved) from this great link Channel
4 News – a great rundown – check it out, and stay tuned.
Thanks for stopping by … hope this was not too boring.
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