The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[James DiEugenio]

Doug:

Here is the rather long WIki article on the looney Arizona sheriff. How you can compare Flynn to this guy is simply amazing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio

Can you show me where he went to jail after the pardon?  Because I can't find it.

In fact he is running for office again.

Also, Sullivan is clearly biased about this since his special master already wrote a NYT column criticizing the DOJ decision.  So the idea he will look at the case anew and revise his printed opinion is pretty much equal to zero.

Edited May 14, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Jeff Carter]

The Findlaw article that David Andrews linked previously does a good job in explaining how someone can end up in serious legal jeopardy while also holding opinion they did nothing wrong.

 

3 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

We should condemn the FISA process, the FBI interrogation protocols, the politicization of FBI investigations. But to claim there was no legitimate national security interest when a former top intelligence official takes money from foreign governments prior to ascending to the National Security Advisor post is naive in the extreme.

There’s a bit of confusion - the Motion To Dismiss is not seeking to dismiss or challenge the counter-intelligence operation the FBI ran against Flynn. It is dismissing the single count of “materially false statements and omissions” after finding the statements and omissions in question were not materially relevant to the predicate of the C/I operation, which is a key test for “material false statements” being indictable. This motion occurred in context of the release of important and relevant exculpatory information which had previously been denied to Flynn’s counsel.

Cliff’s endorsement of the original C/I operation is fair enough, but it is also true that “no derogatory information” to suggest that Flynn was compromised turned up after a four month investigation by an FBI Field Office team, and no such information was developed after his contacts with Kisylak - I.e. he had been entirely cleared of suspicion. The “materially false statements and omissions” had no bearing on the conclusions of the C/I team, and so were deemed materially irrelevant, meaning the charge against Flynn should not have been pursued in the first place.

[Cliff Varnell]

Federal judge mulls contempt charge against Michael Flynn
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/13/judge-appoints-retired-judge-to-represent-flynn-prosecution-256509

[Douglas Caddy]

37 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Doug:

Here is the rather long WIki article on the looney Arizona sheriff. How you can compare Flynn to this guy is simply amazing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio

Can you show me where he went to jail after the pardon?  Because I can't find it.

In fact he is running for office again.

Also, Sullivan is clearly biased about this since his special master already wrote a NYT column criticizing the DOJ decision.  So the idea he will look at the case anew and revise his printed opinion is pretty much equal to zero.

You misinterpret what I wrote. You mind is closed, so it is waste of my time to pursue this further. I suggest you just follow what Judge Sullivan's actions and rulings are.

[Cliff Varnell]

15 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:

.Cliff’s endorsement of the original C/I operation is fair enough, but it is also true that “no derogatory information” to suggest that Flynn was compromised turned up after a four month investigation by an FBI Field Office team, and no such information was developed after his contacts with Kisylak - I.e. he had been entirely cleared of suspicion.

“No derogatory information” isn’t the same as “exoneration.”

Flynn was still a private citizen when he conferred with Kislyak over lifting sanctions — how is that not innately suspicious?

15 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:

 

The “materially false statements and omissions” had no bearing on the conclusions of the C/I team, and so were deemed materially irrelevant, meaning the charge against Flynn should not have been pursued in the first place.

Deemed irrelevant by whom?

[James DiEugenio]

Doug:

The Arizona sheriff was in direct violation of a court order to cease and desist racial profiling.  His office had already been successfully sued in ciivl court.  And he disposed of evidence to hide what he had done.  He also arranged someone to stage a phony assassination plot against him.  That person was jailed.  When he got out he sued for false arrest and won his case for over a million dollars.

I don't know how anyone can compare that case with Flynn.  

But to be fair, its true that the judge was going to jail the sheriff for contempt but that is because he disobeyed the order.

In the Flynn case,  he simply changed his plea with a new layer and new discovery.  You are allowed to do that.

But now Sullivan has decided to  appoint a biased special  master, and he is actually thinking of holding Flynn in contempt. For what? Exercising his right to change his plea? Or to change lawyers?  This has now become a political football.  Largely caused by CNN, the NYT and the WP.  Sullivan has succumbed to that siren song.

[Ron Bulman]

On 4/30/2020 at 7:48 AM, Larry Hancock said:

Roger on that...

 

I'll second that motion.

[Ron Bulman]

On 4/30/2020 at 8:30 AM, Ron Ecker said:

Truth hurts.

 

 

And this one Too.

[Paul Brancato]

3 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

 

Apparently it wasn’t accidental.

The accidental leak of the name of a Saudi consular official reminds me of the post 9/11 Commission withholding of some 30 pages related to Saudi Arabia. One committee member, Senator Bob Graham, muzzled by the Commission, later published a fictionalized book, which I’ve not read btw, in an effort to tell what he knew. Anyone realize that the Senator is the brother of WAPO’s Phil Graham? 

[Ron Ecker]

5 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

The accidental leak of the name of a Saudi consular official reminds me of the post 9/11 Commission withholding of some 30 pages related to Saudi Arabia. One committee member, Senator Bob Graham, muzzled by the Commission, later published a fictionalized book, which I’ve not read btw, in an effort to tell what he knew. Anyone realize that the Senator is the brother of WAPO’s Phil Graham? 

Why do you say Graham's book is "fictionalized"? It's a straightforward indictment of our government. Interestingly (or sickeningly), the first review praising it on the Amazon website is by Gerald Posner. He calls it a work of "great patriotism" and "a must read" for anyone concerned about "the future of America." Yes, Posner is one to be so concerned.

https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Matters-Arabia-Failure-Americas-ebook/dp/B000FC288U/ref=sr_1_15?dchild=1&keywords=bob+graham&qid=1589458843&s=books&sr=1-15

 

 

Edited May 14, 2020 by Ron Ecker

[W. Niederhut]

Trump White House Rewrites History, This Time About Flynn

Three years ago, President Trump swiftly fired his first national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, for lying to the F.B.I.    Trump and his allies are now telling a very different story.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/us/politics/trump-michael-flynn.html

 

May 14, 2020

 

WASHINGTON — After announcing that the Justice Department was dropping the criminal case against Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, Attorney General William P. Barr was presented with a crucial question: Was Mr. Flynn guilty of lying to the F.B.I. about the nature of phone calls he had with the Russian ambassador to the United States?

After all, Mr. Flynn had twice pleaded guilty to lying about them.

“Well, you know, people sometimes plead to things that turn out not to be crimes,” Mr. Barr said in an interview with CBS News. Then he went even further and described the infamous calls during the Trump presidential transition as “laudable.”

Mr. Trump and his allies now accuse the F.B.I. of framing Mr. Flynn, which is part of the president’s broader campaign to tarnish the Russia investigation and settle scores against perceived enemies ahead of the November election.

Their revisionist narrative is in stark contrast to the view held three years ago not only by top F.B.I. management but also by senior White House officials. Mr. Flynn, the officials said then, had lied to Vice President Mike Pence and other aides about the nature of his calls to the ambassador, had lied repeatedly to F.B.I. agents about the calls, and might have made himself vulnerable to Russian blackmail.

Revisiting the chaotic weeks surrounding Mr. Flynn’s ouster — based on recently disclosed government documents, public statements, court records and interviews — show how much the original Trump administration concerns about him have been buried under the president’s cause of portraying the Russia investigation as a “witch hunt.”

Mr. Barr, for example, has recently argued that the F.B.I. interview of Mr. Flynn was not justified because agents who had been investigating him had not found any wrongdoing and were on the verge of closing the case. When agents found out about the call with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, they concocted a reason to keep the case open for “the express purpose of trying to catch, lay a perjury trap for General Flynn,” Mr. Barr said in the CBS interview.

A broad array of legal experts disagree. “This case reeks of political influence,” said Marshall L. Miller, a former top prosecutor in Brooklyn and the principal deputy of the Justice Department’s criminal division. “Mr. Flynn admitted twice under oath that he lied to the F.B.I. Political appointees at D.O.J. are now trying to rewrite the law to erase the crime.”

Mr. Flynn’s troubles began with a phone call.

 

It was Dec. 29, 2016, the day the outgoing Obama administration announced sanctions against Russia for the country’s widespread effort to disrupt the 2016 presidential election. Mr. Flynn, who was Mr. Trump’s incoming national security adviser, urged Mr. Kislyak in a phone call not to escalate tensions with a retaliatory move against the United States — perhaps by kicking American diplomats and spies out of Russia.

Given the circumstances, the call was remarkable. The United States government had just determined that its longtime adversary had launched a concerted effort to sabotage a presidential election, and the incoming national security adviser was having a back-channel discussion with a top Russian official that might lead to the new Trump administration gutting the sanctions its predecessor put in place to punish the Russians.

Mr. Flynn chose not to document the calls with the ambassador, a decision that records from the investigation of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, show was based on his concern that he might be interfering with the Obama administration’s foreign policy weeks before Mr. Trump took office. His concerns were well founded. When President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia did not retaliate after the Obama administration’s sanctions, President Barack Obama was perplexed and asked spy agencies to figure out why.

The F.B.I. unearthed the discussions between Mr. Flynn and Mr. Kislyak when reviewing transcripts of the ambassador’s intercepted calls. F.B.I. officials discussed interviewing Mr. Flynn, whom agents had been investigating as part of the bureau’s inquiry into whether any Trump campaign associates had conspired with Russia during the presidential election.

The matter took on greater urgency when Mr. Flynn’s discussions with Mr. Kislyak were revealed publicly by David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist.

Top Trump transition officials — including Mr. Pence as well as Reince Priebus, who was to be White House chief of staff, and Sean Spicer, the incoming White House press secretary — questioned Mr. Flynn about the Washington Post column. Mr. Flynn denied that he spoke about sanctions with Mr. Kislyak, and Mr. Spicer repeated those claims to members of the news media.

 

Days later, on Jan. 15, 2017, Mr. Pence was asked about the column during an interview on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.” The incoming vice president said that he had talked with Mr. Flynn about his calls with Mr. Kislyak, and he said that Mr. Flynn was unequivocal. “They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia,” the vice president said.

 

Mr. Pence’s interview set off alarms at the F.B.I. and the Justice Department. If Mr. Flynn had lied to the vice president, the Russians knew that and could use it as leverage over Mr. Flynn. Newly disclosed documents made public in Mr. Flynn’s criminal case show officials were also concerned that Mr. Pence might have been lying, as well.

 

“The implications of that were that the Russians believed one of two things — either that the vice president was in on it with Flynn, or that Flynn was clearly willing to lie to the vice president,” Mary B. McCord, a former top national security at the time, said in an interview with the special counsel’s office.

 

The F.B.I. decided to try to find out who was lying to whom. James B. Comey, the bureau’s director at the time, sent a pair of agents to the White House to speak with Mr. Flynn, who by then was only a few days into his job as national security adviser. But Mr. Comey made the unusual decision to not notify senior Justice Department officials about the interview until the agents were already on their way to the White House — blindsiding and infuriating the officials who oversee the F.B.I. about a highly sensitive session.

During the interview, Mr. Flynn was asked about sanctions and other topics. He denied talking about Russian sanctions, according to documents, even as agents used his own words from the highly classified transcripts to refresh his memory. Mr. Flynn seemed relaxed, agents would note, and did not betray any signs of deception.

 

Days later, on Jan. 15, 2017, Mr. Pence was asked about the column during an interview on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.” The incoming vice president said that he had talked with Mr. Flynn about his calls with Mr. Kislyak, and he said that Mr. Flynn was unequivocal. “They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia,” the vice preside

 

But the F.B.I. reports from the interview did not square with the transcripts of the phone calls, and soon Trump administration lawyers were discussing whether Mr. Flynn might have committed a felony by making false statements during the interrogation.

Mr. Priebus later recounted to Mr. Mueller’s investigators a meeting with Mr. Trump in which he told the president about the concerns that Mr. Flynn had lied during his F.B.I. interview. Mr. Trump was angry, Mr. Priebus recalled, and said, “Not again, this guy, this stuff.”

Within days, White House lawyers — including the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II — had concluded, after reviewing the transcripts of the calls, that Mr. Flynn had repeatedly lied about his discussions with Mr. Kislyak. According to the findings by the special counsel, “McGahn and Priebus concluded that Flynn could not have forgotten the details of the discussions of sanctions and had instead been lying about what he discussed with Kislyak.”

Mr. McGahn and Mr. Priebus decided that Mr. Flynn needed to go and made that recommendation to Mr. Trump.

On Feb. 13, after Mr. Priebus told Mr. Flynn that he must resign, he brought him into the Oval Office. There, Mr. Flynn and the president hugged, and Mr. Trump said he would give Mr. Flynn a good recommendation. “You’re a good guy,” the president said, according to the account Mr. Priebus gave to the Mueller team. “We’ll take care of you.”

Ten months later, after Mr. Flynn had pleaded guilty for lying to the F.B.I. agents and agreed to cooperate with the Mueller investigation, Mr. Pence said that removing him from the White House was the right move.

“What I can tell you is that I knew that he lied to me,” the vice president told CBS News, “and I know the president made the right decision with regard to him.”

Mr. Pence no longer holds that view, and his change over time reflects the far more combative position among Trump administration officials toward the various investigations into Mr. Trump and his advisers.

As this shift was occurring, Mr. Flynn jettisoned the legal team that had advised him to cut a deal with the Mueller prosecutors and hired a new lawyer, Sidney Powell, who launched a frontal attack on the forces that she believed led her client into wrongfully admitting to a felony offense.

In a letter to Mr. Barr last June, days before officially becoming Mr. Flynn’s lawyer, Ms. Powell wrote that “it is increasingly apparent that General Flynn was targeted and taken out of the Trump administration for concocted and political purposes.” The letter was disclosed last year by federal prosecutors in the Flynn case.

After Mr. Barr announced his decision last week to drop criminal charges in the Flynn case, top Trump administration officials — including those who three years ago believed most vehemently that he should be fired — said that he would be welcomed back at the White House.

“I think General Michael Flynn is an American patriot; he served this country with great distinction,” Mr. Pence said last week in an interview with Axios. “And for my part, I’d be happy to see Michael Flynn again.”

[W. Niederhut]

Breaking:  And now former FBI official, Bill Priestap, has debunked Bill Barr's false narrative about the FBI's January 2017 Flynn interviews.

 

Ex-F.B.I. Official Is Said to Undercut Justice Dept. Effort to Drop Flynn Case

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/us/politics/bill-priestap-michael-flynn.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Edited May 14, 2020 by W. Niederhut

[Douglas Caddy]

 

Judge in Roger Stone case orders Trump administration to turn over Ukraine emails

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/judge-in-roger-stone-case-orders-trump-administration-to-turn-over-ukraine-emails/ar-BB144H6G?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=UE07DHP

[James DiEugenio]

William:

This is good illustration of what I was just talking about.

The Democrats have learned to play the game as well as the neanderthal Republicans.  And there you go posting the NYT--the New York Times!-- agitprop which is now corrupting the judiciary and egging on these bizarre actions by the judge--another lesson the Dems have learned from the GOP.

The problem with Priestap's cover story is just that, its a cover story.  Why do i say that?  Because the two agents who talked to Flynn, did  what Priestap wanted them to do.  And I have a hard time  thinking you do not understand that.

Further, what Flynn said will never be really known.  Because the FBI deliberately covered up its tracks.  I have shown this approximately three times previously, and again, I have a hard time thinking you do not get this. 

1.They did not alert him to the 1001 rule

2. They discouraged him from calling a lawyer

3. They misrepresented the purpose of the interview

4. Neither one took notes--or if they did, they deep sixed them.

5. They took more than three weeks to write the 302, and about five people, three of whom were not at the interview, revised it.

6. They then buried the original ,which we still do not have. 

To leave all of that pertinent information out of that first column you posted, that surgical excision reduces that article to pure bombast.

This is odd to me.  At this forum we look askance as using the NY Times, or the Post, on controversial issues of history--the JFK case, 9-11--but somehow, in this case, they are supposed to be authoritative. And we do not just post the link, we post the actual article, like somehow that gives it some kind of imposing expertise?

It does not.  Propaganda is propaganda. And that is what this is. Anything to get Trump.  And I mean anything.

[Jeff Carter]

16 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

“No derogatory information” isn’t the same as “exoneration.”

To be “exonerated” means being absolved from blame or wrongdoing. The C/I investigation was unable to uncover anything that could lead to blame or wrongdoing, and so there was nothing to "absolve". You are flipping US legal standards on their head. The full weight of US investigatory and surveillance capabilities are not supposed to be directed at US citizens based solely on innuendo and rumour. The continued FBI surveillance and disruption tactics directed at MLK are case in point, and were (once long ago) roundly condemned.

In this case, the astonishing fact that fully five individuals connected to the Trump campaign - including the campaign manager and prospective National Security Advisor - were subject to active Counter-Intelligence investigations during the presidential campaign and following into the transition and administration periods, is completely unprecedented in US history. The predicates for these investigations have not risen much above rumour and innuendo, but an IG investigation has confirmed this low bar is entirely acceptable. Under these circumstances, I can’t see how any political challenge to the establishment status quo can ever be successful.