Mark Zaid, JFK and Trump

[Jeff Carter]

5 hours ago, Bob Ness said:

Neither you or I know the exact content of the calls. If Flynn lied about them then Russia would certainly be able to leverage Flynn for that reason alone. The transcripts alarmed several ppl so I don't think they were as benign as you assume. If it were you or I nobody would care. If it's a General acting as an NSA to the president with a TS/SCI that is a different kettle of fish. Sullivan reviewed this issue at least once and put it aside. No dice.

Flynn’s entreaties to Kisylak consisted of requesting that the Russian Federation not escalate its response to Obama’s punitive and unprecedented expulsion of 35 Russian diplomatic personnel,  a provocative action based on uncertain and unproven allegations of Russian coordination with Wikileaks. The terms of discussion, as featured in FBI 302, were “not to escalate the situation”, keep “response reciprocal”, and not engage in “tit-for-tat”.  It matters not who may have first broached the issue, as it was the singular major new event in relations between the two countries and was unavoidably a topic of conversation,  At the time of the phone call Flynn was apparently entirely unaware of the scope of the punitive action, as he had been effectively off-the-grid in the Dominican Republic. The FBI’s 302 on the interview confirms this, and establishes that Flynn was entirely equivocal on the issues which he later was subject to legal jeopardy. If you want to split hairs, which the prosecution of Flynn evidently did,  discussion of “sanctions” does not specifically occur, as the discussion as described is limited to the expulsion of diplomats.

As the exhibits attached to the Motion To Dismiss show, interested persons from the Obama administration expressed a heightened interest in monitoring the reaction of both Russia and the Trump transition team to the sanctions / expulsions and had in fact not only anticipated a harsh escalatory reaction but desired such reaction. Considering that the allegations of election interference still remain contested more than three years later, this only highlights the irresponsibility of the Obama administration’s reckless attempt to increase international friction for domestic political reasons.

[Jeff Carter]

8 hours ago, Bob Ness said:

The FBI is not limited to what they can investigate as long as it's within their authority and germane to their investigation. Considering the transcript apparently includes conversations with Kislyak saying Flynn specifically brought up changes to the Obama administration enacted sanctions as a response to Russia's interference (whether you think that's true or not) and was unknown prior to the PDB it strengthens their case that it should have remained open. It is well within their authority under several different statutes. After the discussions became public he was immediately fired for lying to Pence et al and this was confirmed by Trump. The motion to dismiss is a sham and the only signature on it is Shea's, no other prosecutor would get near this tripe.

Your argument relies entirely on a portrayal of the FBI as good faith actors, but this position is undermined and contradicted by the timeline of events in January 2017:

January 4 - FBI Washington Field Office Crossfire Razor (Flynn) team announces closure of 4 1/2 month investigation due to lack of “derogatory information”. Within 20 minutes, Strzok responds with request to keep file open based on redacted predicate, probably Logan Act, based on Flynn-Kisylak intercepts. Notably, the Crossfire Razor team is from this point not involved with the counter-intelligence investigation, and Comey/McCabe/Strzok assume control.

January 5 - Comey meets with Obama and DOJ’s Yates to discuss Flynn. Comey refers to Logan Act.

January 12 - Flynn-Kisylak conversations leaked to Washington Post. Possible sources are limited to Obama, Yates of DOJ or her deputy, or Comey or his deputy McCabe of FBI. References in article to Logan Act indicates the source was FBI. This leak is directly responsible for media questions to VP Pence and presidential spokesperson Spence which are said to initiate renewed concern within DOJ and FBI over Flynn’s presumed compromised position.

Jan 13-23 - A debate ensues between the DOJ and FBI over procedure with informing the incoming Trump administration of  inconsistencies in the Flynn record. The FBI refuses to accede to established protocol, insisting on keeping Flynn in dark that he is subject to C/I investigation. The C/I investigation is at this point predicated on the Logan Act.

January 24 - The FBI openly defy the DOJ  and send agents to an interview arranged by McCabe, following his active discouragement of Flynn accessing counsel. Long established protocol held that the Flynn interview should have been arranged through White House Counsel. The interviewing agents engage a perjury trap as discussed and anticipated in FBI records from the two days previous.

[W. Niederhut]

Didn't the judge in Michael Flynn's case directly reproach foreign agent Flynn for "selling out (his) country?"

As for Barr's absurd "case" for dropping the charges, Jeff's arguments get pancaked again... 🤥

The Justice Department’s Faulty Arguments in the Flynn Case

https://www.lawfareblog.com/justice-departments-faulty-arguments-flynn-case

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by W. Niederhut

[Jeff Carter]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

As for Barr's absurd "case" for dropping the charges, Jeff's arguments get pancaked again... 🤥

The Justice Department’s Faulty Arguments in the Flynn Case

https://www.lawfareblog.com/justice-departments-faulty-arguments-flynn-case

 

The Kisylak-Flynn conversations were monitored and reviewed shortly after they happened. It is possible if not likely that the Crossfire Razor (Flynn) Field Office team reviewed these transcripts before closing the file after “no derogatory information” could be found (it was part of their mandate). Either that or the Field Office team was kept deliberately out of the loop for some reason. It is known that Obama administration officials consulted with FBI shortly after the Kislyak-Flynn calls specifically querying if a quid pro quo had been discussed and they were told “there was no deal”. This is one reason why the Logan Act predicate was soon introduced.

Susan McCord, the Asisistant Attorney-General at the time, later told interviewers that the prospective use of the Logan Act originated in the office of DNI James Clapper, “specifically proposed by ODNI’s general counsel Bob Litt.” So Clapper, perhaps Litt, can be added to the very short list of persons in position to initiate the illegal leak of the Flynn-Kisylak conversations to WaPo Ignatius. (note that Niederhut has twice shared Ignatius’ outraged op-ed regarding the withdrawal of charges - Ignatius was a willing co-conspirator in effort to take Flynn out).

Now Niederhut shares yet another partisan opinion piece which he is certain “pancakes” the oppositional position. From the Brookings Institute’s Lawfare blog we learn about “The Justice Department’s Faulty Arguments in the Flynn Case”. This has to be the final word because the author, Robert Litt, was once the General Counsel to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Oh wait… Bob Litt was the guy who “specifically proposed” the use of the Logan Act while kicking around ideas on how to screw Flynn with James Clapper. That’s okay - surely he mentions that in a disclaimer… nope, no disclaimer.

Litt insists that the FBI at the time was “aware of extensive Russian interference in US politics”, but in fact all the FBI had at the time was the Steele Dossier. Flynn himself had been cleared after a 4 1/2 month thorough look-over. Litt’s own boss at the time, Clapper, would testify - also at that time - that he “never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with he Russians to meddle with the election.”  Yet Litt, at the time, was actively participating in an effort to disrupt the incoming administration in general and remove the incoming National Security Advisor in particular.

And yet, according to mainstream opinion, what all Americans should be very very angry about is that Flynn misremembered phone calls about a UN Security Council vote on Israel while speaking to FBI agents during an ambush interview in January 2017. Got it.

[W. Niederhut]

This just in...   Ouch, Jeff!   I hope your medical insurance covers gonadal injuries...   🤪

 

Bill Barr Twisted My Words in Dropping the Flynn Case. Here’s the Truth.

The F.B.I.’s interview of Mr. Flynn was constitutional, lawful and for a legitimate counterintelligence purpose.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/opinion/bill-barr-michael-flynn.html

by Mary B.McCord

May 10, 2020

At the direction of Attorney General Bill Barr, the Justice Department last week moved to dismiss a false-statements charge against Michael Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser. The reason stated was that the continued prosecution “would not serve the interests of justice.”

The motion was signed by Timothy Shea, a longtime trusted adviser of Mr. Barr and, since January, the acting U.S. attorney in Washington. In attempting to support its argument, the motion cites more than 25 times the F.B.I.’s report of an interview with me in July 2017, two months after I left a decades-long career at the department (under administrations of both parties) that culminated in my role as the acting assistant attorney general for national security.

That report, commonly referred to as a “302,” is an interesting read. It vividly describes disagreements between leadership of the Justice Department and the F.B.I. about how to handle the information we had learned about Mr. Flynn’s calls with the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and, more specifically, Mr. Flynn’s apparent lies about those calls to incoming Vice President Mike Pence.

But the report of my interview is no support for Mr. Barr’s dismissal of the Flynn case. It does not suggest that the F.B.I. had no counterintelligence reason for investigating Mr. Flynn. It does not suggest that the F.B.I.’s interview of Mr. Flynn — which led to the false-statements charge — was unlawful or unjustified. It does not support that Mr. Flynn’s false statements were not material. And it does not support the Justice Department’s assertion that the continued prosecution of the case against Mr. Flynn, who pleaded guilty to knowingly making material false statements to the FBI, “would not serve the interests of justice.”

I can explain why, relying entirely on documents the government has filed in court or released publicly.

 

 

I can explain why, relying entirely on documents the government has filed in court or released publi

 

Notably, Mr. Barr’s motion to dismiss does not argue that the F.B.I. violated the Constitution or statutory law when agents interviewed Mr. Flynn about his calls with Mr. Kislyak. It doesn’t claim that they violated his Fifth Amendment rights by coercively questioning him when he wasn’t free to leave. Nor does the motion claim that the interview was the fruit of a search or seizure that violated the Fourth Amendment. Any of these might have justified moving to dismiss the case. But by the government’s own account, the interview with Mr. Flynn was voluntary, arranged in advance and took place in Mr. Flynn’s own office.

Without constitutional or statutory violations grounding its motion, the Barr-Shea motion makes a contorted argument that Mr. Flynn’s false statements and omissions to the F.B.I. were not “material” to any matter under investigation. Materiality is an essential element that the government must establish to prove a false-statements offense. If the falsehoods aren’t material, there’s no crime.  

The department concocts its materiality theory by arguing that the F.B.I. should not have been investigating Mr. Flynn at the time they interviewed him. The Justice Department notes that the F.B.I. had opened a counterintelligence investigation of Mr. Flynn in 2016 as part of a larger investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian efforts to interfere with the presidential election. And the department notes that the F.B.I. had intended to close the investigation of Mr. Flynn in early January 2017 until it learned of the conversations between Mr. Flynn and Mr. Kislyak around the same time.

Discounting the broader investigation and the possibility of Russian direction or control over Mr. Flynn, the department’s motion myopically homes in on the calls alone, and because it views those calls as “entirely appropriate,” it concludes the investigation should not have been extended and the interview should not have taken place.

The account of my interview in 2017 doesn’t help the department support this conclusion, and it is disingenuous for the department to twist my words to suggest that it does. What the account of my interview describes is a difference of opinion about what to do with the information that Mr. Flynn apparently had lied to the incoming vice president, Mr. Pence, and others in the incoming administration about whether he had discussed the Obama administration’s sanctions against Russia in his calls with Mr. Kislyak. Those apparent lies prompted Mr. Pence and others to convey inaccurate statements about the nature of the conversations in public news conferences and interviews.

Why was that so important? Because the Russians would have known what Mr. Flynn and Mr. Kislyak discussed. They would have known that, despite Mr. Pence’s and others’ denials, Mr. Flynn had in fact asked Russia not to escalate its response to the sanctions. Mr. Pence’s denial of this on national television, and his attribution of the denial to Mr. Flynn, put Mr. Flynn in a potentially compromised situation that the Russians could use against him.

 

The potential for blackmail of Mr. Flynn by the Russians is what the former Justice Department leadership, including me, thought needed to be conveyed to the incoming White House. After all, Mr. Flynn was set to become the national security adviser, and it was untenable that Russia — which the intelligence community had just assessed had sought to interfere in the U.S. presidential election — might have leverage over him.

This is where the F.B.I. disagreed with the Justice Department’s preferred approach. The F.B.I. wasn’t ready to reveal this information to the incoming administration right away, preferring to keep investigating, not only as part of its counterintelligence investigation but also possibly as a criminal investigation. Although several of us at Justice thought the likelihood of a criminal prosecution under the Logan Act was quite low (the act prohibits unauthorized communications with foreign governments to influence their conduct in relation to disputes with the United States), we certainly agreed that there was a counterintelligence threat.

That’s exactly why we wanted to alert the incoming administration. Ultimately, after our dispute over such notification continued through the inauguration and into the start of the Trump administration, the F.B.I. — without consulting the Justice Department — arranged to interview Mr. Flynn. By the time Justice Department leadership found out, agents were en route to the interview in Mr. Flynn’s office.

The account of my July 2017 interview describes my department’s frustration with the F.B.I.’s conduct, sometimes using colorful adjectives like “flabbergasted” to describe our reactions. We weren’t necessarily opposed to an interview — our focus had been on notification — but any such interview should have been coordinated with the Justice Department. There were protocols for engaging with White House officials and protocols for interviews, and this was, of course, a sensitive situation. We objected to the rogueness of the decision by the F.B.I. director, Jim Comey, made without notice or opportunity to weigh in.

The Barr-Shea motion to dismiss refers to my descriptions of the F.B.I.’s justification for not wanting to notify the new administration about the potential Flynn compromise as “vacillating from the potential compromise of a ‘counterintelligence’ investigation to the protection of a purported ‘criminal’ investigation.” But that “vacillation” has no bearing on whether the F.B.I. was justified in engaging in a voluntary interview with Mr. Flynn. It has no bearing on whether Mr. Flynn’s lies to the F.B.I. were material to its investigation into any links or coordination between Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election.

And perhaps more significant, it has no bearing on whether Mr. Flynn’s lies to the F.B.I. were material to the clear counterintelligence threat posed by the susceptible position Mr. Flynn put himself in when he told Mr. Pence and others in the new administration that he had not discussed the sanctions with Mr. Kislyak. The materiality is obvious.

In short, the report of my interview does not anywhere suggest that the F.B.I.’s interview of Mr. Flynn was unconstitutional, unlawful or not “tethered” to any legitimate counterintelligence purpose.

Mary B. McCord, the former acting assistant attorney general for national security at the Department of Justice, is legal director for Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection and a visiting law professor.

Edited May 10, 2020 by W. Niederhut

[Bob Ness]

18 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:

Flynn’s entreaties to Kisylak consisted of requesting that the Russian Federation not escalate its response to Obama’s punitive and unprecedented expulsion of 35 Russian diplomatic personnel,  a provocative action based on uncertain and unproven allegations of Russian coordination with Wikileaks.

This is your opinion not the policy of the administration which is the important thing. I'm not going to go through this anymore. It's BS.

[Bob Ness]

17 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:

Your argument relies entirely on a portrayal of the FBI as good faith actors, but this position is undermined and contradicted by the timeline of events in January 2017:

January 4 - FBI Washington Field Office Crossfire Razor (Flynn) team announces closure of 4 1/2 month investigation due to lack of “derogatory information”. Within 20 minutes, Strzok responds with request to keep file open based on redacted predicate, probably Logan Act, based on Flynn-Kisylak intercepts. Notably, the Crossfire Razor team is from this point not involved with the counter-intelligence investigation, and Comey/McCabe/Strzok assume control.

January 5 - Comey meets with Obama and DOJ’s Yates to discuss Flynn. Comey refers to Logan Act.

January 12 - Flynn-Kisylak conversations leaked to Washington Post. Possible sources are limited to Obama, Yates of DOJ or her deputy, or Comey or his deputy McCabe of FBI. References in article to Logan Act indicates the source was FBI. This leak is directly responsible for media questions to VP Pence and presidential spokesperson Spence which are said to initiate renewed concern within DOJ and FBI over Flynn’s presumed compromised position.

Jan 13-23 - A debate ensues between the DOJ and FBI over procedure with informing the incoming Trump administration of  inconsistencies in the Flynn record. The FBI refuses to accede to established protocol, insisting on keeping Flynn in dark that he is subject to C/I investigation. The C/I investigation is at this point predicated on the Logan Act.

January 24 - The FBI openly defy the DOJ  and send agents to an interview arranged by McCabe, following his active discouragement of Flynn accessing counsel. Long established protocol held that the Flynn interview should have been arranged through White House Counsel. The interviewing agents engage a perjury trap as discussed and anticipated in FBI records from the two days previous.

All of this garbage has been addressed by the judge and to some extent me. It is the justification for picking apart an investigation post facto and is ridiculous. The Logan Act is on the books. Ask Congress to remove it.

The FBI were engaged in a serious and warranted investigation of a campaign which had requested assistance from Russia (Trump quote, Trump Tower meeting etc etc - remember those?) and were responding to an attack on our election system. Those facts are non-negotiable, we've seen them on TV and they're well reported and admitted to by the Trump Campaign, both Congressional Intel Committees and Mueller's report. Those are facts Jeff and your persistence at flying in the face of those facts is childish.

That's good faith and if the Logan Act is used to pursue those efforts I'm fine with that. End of story. Over and out.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Bob Ness

[Jeff Carter]

Whatever the reason the Obama team felt it imperative to prevent Flynn from serving as National Security Advisor, once Flynn was fired they had achieved their mission. For the Mueller prosecutors to later press a legal case via a “nickel and dime” process charge, was a move both arrogant and stupid. Flynn’s “lies” were clearly equivocal and largely irrelevant, and would not have occurred at all if he had counsel with him as was tradition and protocol. Surely Flynn exhibited poor judgment by letting the FBI in the door, but the FBI’s bad faith and scheming was obvious. For the prosecutors to later use crude and heavy-handed tactics to work a plea deal, while Flynn’s downfall was celebrated in the press, this was bound to create a backlash. And it did.

This was a big lose for the RussiaGate true believers, and a big lose for the D.C. people who thought it a good idea to use the federal legal apparatus to take out their political opponents. Now the momentum has swung and future revelations will be controlled by the Republicans in context of an election campaign. The Democrat’s base allowed themselves to be completely distracted for three years by an obviously phony story, and they are now stuck with a compromised leadership who can be tagged with promotion of a bogus “witch-hunt”. That can be described as an “own goal”, and it was entirely predictable as far back as the autumn of 2017 when the first rumblings of the FISA abuses were sounded.

[W. Niederhut]

    1,956 former DOJ prosecutors have now signed a letter calling for Bill Barr's resignation for his misconduct in the Michael Flynn case.

     The lead prosecutor in the Flynn case resigned shortly before Barr dismissed the charges against Flynn last week.

[Bob Ness]

11 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

The MSM and the Bob's of the Trump Derangement Crowd tend to get "hoist by their own petard" in matters like this, and I can't help but hope that the DOJ actually charges someone with a Logan Act violation.

The theory behind the Logan Act does not seem all that unreasonable, though presumably it has always been impracticable and made irrelevant by better communication and redundant by other laws. The original idea was probably to prevent hucksters and con-men from acquiring some guano filled Island in the South Pacific by signing a fake treaty in the name of the United States, with natives that had no written language.  (The story of William Walker and his attempted takeover of Nicaragua might be partially relevant, and it is certainly entertaining.)

Even if the Logan Act was used semi-regularly, and General Flynn actually violated the law as written, one would think that the DOJ/FBI even misapplied the "spirit of the law." I can't imagine the intent of the law was to prevent diplomats from establishing lines of communication during transition periods. 

The Trump Derangement Sufferers astronomical level of hyperbole are probably, in some corners, inviting a Logan Act charge to effectively, once again, destroy their hypocritical narrative.  If Trump's DOJ charges John Kerry with a violation of the Logan Act,  for meeting the Iranians as a private citizen, to revive the Obama weapons transfer deal, it will be fun to read the cognitive contortions here.

 

All of this garbage has been addressed by the judge and to some extent me. It is the justification for picking apart an investigation post facto and is ridiculous. The Logan Act is on the books. Ask Congress to remove it.

The FBI were engaged in a serious and warranted investigation of a campaign which had requested assistance from Russia (Trump quote, Trump Tower meeting etc etc - remember those?) and were responding to an attack on our election system. Those facts are non-negotiable, we've seen them on TV and they're well reported and admitted to by the Trump Campaign, both Congressional Intel Committees and Mueller's report. Those are facts Robert and your persistence at flying in the face of those facts is childish.

That's good faith and if the Logan Act is used to pursue those efforts I'm fine with that. End of story. Over and out.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Bob Ness

[Bob Ness]

3 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

He is in contempt of Judge Sullivan's standing Brady order.

Please source this I wasn't aware that Sullivan issued a contempt order. If that's not true you can say that also.

[Bob Ness]

3 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

What's the matter Bob? Feeling the heat?

That is just stupid.

Do I need a judges order to assert LHO is innocent of killing the President?

It either happened or it didn't.

Van Graak did not deliver all of the evidence to Flynn, as required, under Sullivan's standing Brady order.

I thought you we're quitting these arguments.

Why don't you?

 

Right. Your opinion.

[Jeff Carter]

5 hours ago, Bob Ness said:

All of this garbage has been addressed by the judge and to some extent me. It is the justification for picking apart an investigation post facto and is ridiculous. The Logan Act is on the books. Ask Congress to remove it.

Bob - you are addressing procedural issues which have been superseded. The reasoning that the Brady issues were settled in court last December has been entirely undermined by the release of highly relevant material over the past two weeks not only covered by Brady, but which served to entirely transform the understanding of what had occurred in January 2017.

Van Grack resigned several hours before the release of DOJ’s Motion To Dismiss. No contempt order.

The memo by the Washington Field Office team assigned to investigate Crossfire razor (Flynn) was Exhibit 1 of the Motion To Dismiss. I am almost certain this team handled the Kisylak-Flynn telephone transcripts on the day after the call, and served as liaisons to representatives of the Obama administration at that time.

“The Obama officials asked the F.B.I. if a quid pro quo had been discussed on the call, and the answer came back no… The topic of sanctions came up, they were told, but there was no deal.”   (NY Times, Feb 14, 2017)

5 hours ago, Bob Ness said:

The FBI were engaged in a serious and warranted investigation of a campaign which had requested assistance from Russia (Trump quote, Trump Tower meeting etc etc - remember those?) and were responding to an attack on our election system. Those facts are non-negotiable, we've seen them on TV and they're well reported and admitted to by the Trump Campaign, both Congressional Intel Committees and Mueller's report.

Strzok does not take over the file until a week later. The Crossfire Razor team ended its investigation after finding “no derogatory information”  including the phone calls in question. This undermines the theory later offered by McCabe, that “senior FBI officials” only found out about the calls in early January and felt they needed to be clarified - not least because the calls had already been clarified by the designated team, nothing untoward was uncovered, and the file was being closed. Senior FBI then intervened with a Logan Act predicate, but never opened a criminal case based on that. A crucial (and illegal) media leak, followed by defiant responses to DOJ’s request to follow protocol, and evidence of the meetings strategizing the eventual interview - all combine to establish that the interview was a rogue operation untethered to a functioning counter-intelligence investigation. That’s certainly the conclusion of the Motion, and the reason the charges were withdrawn.

NY Times - “Mr. Trump, while annoyed at Mr. Flynn, might not have pushed him out had the situation not attracted such attention from the news media.” The situation gained media attention solely through the deliberate use of leaks about the Flynn-Kisylak phone calls to Washington Post on Jan 9 (published Jan 12), January 23, and February 9.

 

No evidence of Russian election meddling other than supposition centred around Internet Research Agency. Mueller Report relied entirely on Crowdstrike for Russian hacking - turns out Crowdstrike doesn’t actually know. No evidence of collusion, as the report itself clearly states.

 

[Bob Ness]

1 hour ago, Jeff Carter said:

Bob - you are addressing procedural issues which have been superseded. The reasoning that the Brady issues were settled in court last December has been entirely undermined by the release of highly relevant material over the past two weeks not only covered by Brady, but which served to entirely transform the understanding of what had occurred in January 2017.

Van Grack resigned several hours before the release of DOJ’s Motion To Dismiss. No contempt order.

The memo by the Washington Field Office team assigned to investigate Crossfire razor (Flynn) was Exhibit 1 of the Motion To Dismiss. I am almost certain this team handled the Kisylak-Flynn telephone transcripts on the day after the call, and served as liaisons to representatives of the Obama administration at that time.

The memo is deliberative and in no way effects whether Flynn was guilty or not. It is not a Brady issue which has an extremely high bar although I'm sure they'd like the Judge to see it that way. There will be Covington materials out also because he's voided his own AC privilege by accusing them of incompetent counsel. If they so care to they will filet him with his own deliberations with his attorneys if Sullivan demands their attendance, which is possible.

Van Grack could of just as easily resigned because he was tired of Barr's interference and he didn't want to put his name on the motion. We don't know and anything else is speculation.

To my knowledge nobody has seen unredacted versions of the transcripts but if they had that means Barr has had them for months prior to this point.

The "no derogatory information" was pre-Kislyak/Flynn transcripts or notifications to the FBI and doesn't take into account that the Russians knew very well Flynn had lied and could leverage him with at least that and possibly other issues. That's a BIG problem with a person as high up in the food chain as Flynn was. Again:

"And perhaps more significant, it has no bearing on whether Mr. Flynn’s lies to the F.B.I. were material to the clear counterintelligence threat posed by the susceptible position Mr. Flynn put himself in when he told Mr. Pence and others in the new administration that he had not discussed the sanctions with Mr. Kislyak. The materiality is obvious.

In short, the report of my interview does not anywhere suggest that the F.B.I.’s interview of Mr. Flynn was unconstitutional, unlawful or not “tethered” to any legitimate counterintelligence purpose. - Mary McCord  AAG/DoJ

No evidence of Russian election meddling other than supposition centred around Internet Research Agency. Mueller Report relied entirely on Crowdstrike for Russian hacking - turns out Crowdstrike doesn’t actually know. No evidence of collusion, as the report itself clearly states.

There are something like 28 other sources for this other than CrowdStrike including videos from Danish Intel, Roger Stone's attorney, Senate Intel, House Intel, the Five Eyes on and on and on and on. And those are the sources made public. There are more I'm sure but are not likely to be made public.

 

[Jeff Carter]

9 hours ago, Bob Ness said:

The "no derogatory information" was pre-Kislyak/Flynn transcripts or notifications to the FBI and doesn't take into account that the Russians knew very well Flynn had lied and could leverage him with at least that and possibly other issues. That's a BIG problem with a person as high up in the food chain as Flynn was. 

The Flynn-Kislak phone calls were dealt with by the Crossfire Razor FBI team within a day of their occurrence (i.e Dec 30), and this team briefed representatives from the Obama administration at that time. They were able to confirm that no quid pro quo was discussed and no deal was struck re: sanctions. The CR team then finished their report on Flynn and started to close the file. Their finding that there was “no derogatory information” was post Flynn-Kisylak convos. The revisionist line that FBI only aware of convos on or after January 4 is simply not true - this was a CYA ploy introduced by McCabe well after the fact.

The only controversy about these calls is Flynn’s alleged “lies”, and the matter is entirely equivocal and semantic. As reported at the time, Flynn’s position to other members of the administration was he discussed the “expulsions” not the sanctions (separate in his mind), while to the media, and apparently members of DOJ (McCord) the term “sanctions” referred to both the economic measures and expulsions. Trump people made a rookie mistake in not really clarifying this distinction amongst themselves before addressing the media, but the only reason Pence and Spicer even had to respond in the first place is because someone from either senior levels of FBI or from Clapper’s DNI illegally and deliberately leaked that Flynn spoke to Russian Ambassador about “sanctions” without clarifying that “no derogatory information” resulted from these calls.

And the leak helped reinforce a growing atmosphere of hysteria because the ICA had been released and the Steele dossier was public. These were all dirty tricks by senior intelligence/FBI officials, coordinated with their media allies, designed to upend the incoming democratically-elected administration. All of this context is being disregarded by the people at Lawfare/emptywheel, which is why their arguments and talking points are merely a version of a prosecutor’s brief. Their concepts fall apart under examination.

The idea that there are some “unredacted” transcripts of the Flynn-Kisylak convos hidden somewhere is just a completely made-up controversy. Clearly the FBI combed through these transcripts in late December, and the transcripts were with people in DOJ in early January. Nothing illegal or inappropriate ever occurred during these conversations.