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Dang.
Jim, thanks for the update and the links. The following is from the prosecution’s motion to dismiss, pages 6-7 (citations omitted).
A note about Yates. Prior to Jan. 20, 2017, she was Deputy Attorney General, the #2 position in the DOJ. She became Acting Attorney General on Jan. 20, 2017. So Comey’s disregard of her wishes is a big deal, possibly open insubordination.
There are other flabbergasting revelations in the motion.
Does an agent’s qualified immunity stand even where there is an absolute absence of plausibility or good faith in pursuing an investigation? While low level agents might not be exposed, what about the higher ups, the ones who knowingly planned and carried out this travesty with no actual basis? Might they not be subject to suit for conspiracy to deprive Flynn of his civil rights? They certainly were acting “under color of law.”
I am willing to bet that Powell can make civil suits stick long enough to punish and bankrupt these corrupt people. The process is the punishment. Just ask Mark Steyn.
I suspect Flynn has an excellent case to recover his legal fees from Convington, plus punitive for bad faith.
Was it a tactical error for Barr to intervene (if he did)? Would it have been better to make Van Grack go back in front of Sullivan and get reamed and have the judge dismiss? Did Van Grack ask to leave the case or was he pushed? ( Let’s not pretend this guy was motivated in the slightest by ethical consideration. Whatever his motives they were pure self-interest.)
Vox (like the rest of lefty media) is treating this as a “weird” outcome because why else would the noble Van Grack be pulled off the case. “Weird” because everybody knows Flynn is guilty. “Weird” because it is a belated attack on the noble Mueller Investigation. (It is astonishing how much has to be denied, ignored or twisted with this crowd.)
The dismissal is a blessing for these slimeballs because the court is less likely to pursue unethical attorney behavior in a matter that is now moot.
The Obama types went for the jugular with both Petreus and Flynn. I fear that Barr and Durham will be far more gentlemanly.
Sing it loud:
Again:
One more time:
More:
What’s that old saying…”If a fully corrupt administration falls in the woods and journalists are only there to take its dictations…”?
Sir, you have all the makings of an evil genius . . .
Even if they’re not, take them to court anyway. Remember, the process is the punishment . . .
Jerry, I’ve just finished a careful study of the Motion and “flabbergasting” may be the mildest word I could come up with to describe this nightmare of a persecution — of any citizen, much less a 33 year veteran of the US Army and a 3 star General with 2 of those years in harm’s way in combat situations. What the snakes of the FBI did to this man defy any normal idea of justice any citizen ever had and is proof positive, as if any more may have been needed, of the madness TDS has driven people to, in this case, endangering their own future liberty as I dearly hope they all get indicted and convicted. What is described in these pages is, and I say this cautiously as it is not a word to be thrown around with abandon, pure evil.
Thanks for the note,
Sincerely, Jim.
Have any of the Never Trump-leaning folks responded to any of this?
They have been begging to talk about something other than the coronavirus…
Why? What are your questions?
I do not know what lie was told to VP Pence. But it was enough for President Trump to fire him. Did Trump act prematurely? Was Flynn vacillating in his answers? I am not certain that Barr said Flynn answered everything correctly. Barr said there was no predicate for any questions to be asked to begin with.
OK, I wasn’t sure about this either. Here’s what appears to have happened.
On Dec. 29, 2016, President Obama sanctioned various Russian organizations and individuals for “the Russian government’s aggressive harassment of U.S. officials and cyber operations aimed at the U.S. election.” Press release here. Flynn, the incoming National Security Advisor, apparently talked to the Russian Ambassador that same day. The FBI had a transcript of that call, and apparently knew that they had discussed the sanctions.
Flynn apparently told VP Pence that he had not talked about the sanctions with the Russian Ambassador. This was not true. According to the recent motion, when interviewed by the FBI on this issue, Flynn was noncommittal and his memory didn’t seem very good on the point, saying things along the lines of “I don’t remember doing that.”
On Jan. 15, 2017, VP-elect Pence went on Face the Nation and said: “They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia.” This was not true. Pence apparently got incorrect information from Flynn.
Apparently the FBI, but not the incoming administration, had a transcript of the call. This is referenced in my prior comment, and is part of what makes it so outrageous that Comey didn’t tell the Trump White House about this, but instead decided to send agents to interview Flynn to try to get the same denial, in order to be able to charge him with lying to a federal officer. Acting AG Yates and the CIA director (Brennan — no friend of Trump) both thought that the White House should have been told the truth.
[Cont’d]
I very much doubt that Gen. Flynn consciously lied. He probably had a great many discussions, and when asked about the content of a particular discussion, probably a week or two after the fact, didn’t remember all of the details.
I thought that it was pretty outrageous for the Obama Administration to slap major sanctions on Russia for alleged election interference, on Dec. 29, barely 3 weeks before inauguration day. This would tend to poison relations with Russia. The media — and perhaps Comey — wanted to run with story that President Trump was some sort of Russian stooge, so they played up the Flynn story.
Then it turns out — as further detailed in the motion to dismiss, in parts that I didn’t copy — the FBI had already decided to close the investigation on Gen. Flynn before this call with the Russian Ambassador was even discovered, but it wasn’t technically closed. Then Peter Strzok and Lisa Page came on the scene again — remember that they were the adulterous lovers in the FBI who were high up in the whole Carter Page/Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Strzok kept the investigation open, apparently in order to entrap Flynn in giving incorrect information about the substance of the call with the Russian Ambassador.
Perhaps Flynn lied, perhaps he forgot.
The sin was that Pence was made to look bad for restating Flynn’s denial. The new admin was trying to get past the stupid collusion charges and this was a PR problem in the moment. I don’t think the Trump people grasped the depth and breadth of the MSM/Deep State/Shallow State/Dem sustained attack, naively thinking that post-election everybody would still be biased but still capable of civil, professional behavior.
I think you’re right, @oldbathos. I would never have guessed that it would have intensified and escalated as it did. It is still unbelievable to me.
My reading is that Pence caught him wrong footed and he wasn’t sure what he could share with him. Relationships were just starting to form and the information was very sensitive. If Trump had had experience in the handling of classified information, he might have responded to Flynn’s situation very differently.
The pity is that it was Flynn who was subjected to this treatment while Comey and Brennan are laughing at him and the orange man.
The hits just keep coming:
and:
This almost-self-writing material should be a feature of related news and commentary for the foreseeable future…
I think this is a pretty close summation of what happened. It’s really not particularly new information. It’s just that everything we had been told actually now has a paper trail documentation. It doesn’t particularly put Flynn in some sort of saintly position either. He is a pro at this intelligence stuff. Surely he had to know that he had every right in the world to speak with Kislyak–even about the just imposed sanctions from Obama. Why hide the fact, especially to Pence? It was a mistake that should have been no big deal, made worse by denying it later, and turned into a horrifying nightmare by a vengeful Obama administration bent on punishing Flynn to the max.
One last time:
I would like to learn exactly what was in the Flynn-Pence conversation. Did Pence ask if Flynn discussed removing those sanctions ? He didn’t. He just asked the Russians to not “escalate.” This was another area of confusion. I do agree that Trump had no idea of the maneuverings that were going on in the Obama administration. They were unprecedented in American history. There were assassinations threats against Lincoln but I have never read about anything like this by Buchanan.
I won’t even pretend to be a scholar on the Buchanan administration (or a scholar of any type, for that matter) but I did highlight this passage in The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass when I read it nearly a decade ago:
He even left pallets of cash on a runway down in Atlanta. So many similarities between the two…
I agree that Buchanan was a weasel. Still, he had been Secretary of State and was well qualified. The problem was that the federal government was divided and Civil War was coming. With Trump, no one expected Civil War and the election was carried on in a straightforward manner. This was all done secretly and concealed for years. At least the Democrat Party was open about its plans and its convention was open about secession.