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The Revolting Inquisition of K.T. McFarland
In her brief but agonizing stint as Deputy National Security Advisor under General Michael Flynn, K.T. McFarland played a key role in helping the new Trump team get organized following the 2016 election. I wrote a post a few weeks ago about the efforts of the FBI to destroy Gen. Michael Flynn and McFarland, who had never participated in these types of interviews, and I was horrified at the methods of the FBI. Besides the fact that they really had no legitimate reason to investigate Gen. Flynn, they had even less reason to entrap McFarland. While many of us have generally discussed the inappropriate and radical methods of the FBI in their investigations, I had no way of knowing specifically just how insidious and unprofessional they were.
In her new book, McFarland takes us back to the interviews that the FBI conducted with her. Their actions were shocking and, as I said in my original post, could have destroyed her life. Since literally any American could be subject to their methodologies, unless key FBI leaders are discredited and punished, anyone could be victimized in the same way at any time, for any reason. I felt her specific story should be more widely told as a cautionary tale regarding the abuse of power in general, and the unethical and immoral actions of a government agency unchecked.
McFarland describes her first unexpected encounter with FBI agents:
When they arrived, I was at home alone since my husband had left to run some errands right after I walked in the door. (It as only later that I realized the FBI agents had probably already been waiting outside our house, parked out of sight, and only phoned when they saw me drive in and my husband drive out.)
I asked the agents if I needed to have a lawyer present, or have someone with me to take notes. They said while they couldn’t tell me not to have a lawyer present, the only thing they wanted from me was to get a sense of what happened during the transition and at Trump Tower. I naively took them at their word. Nevertheless, I called my husband and asked that he come home . . .
The FBI ended up scheduling three more interviews with her over several hours. Each time when she asked about her status, they insisted she was only a fact witness. She realized fairly early in the process they were setting her up for a perjury trap. Here’s her description of the methodology:
As with the three previous FBI interviews, I found the challenge was in following their format. They would ask rapid fire questions, switching back and forth from one topic to another, and one time period to another, and then circle back to the same questions again, but worded slightly differently. I forced myself to remain on high alert for hours on end, knowing that one slip-up might prove fatal.
After these general topics they zeroed in on what I had done hour by hour, sometimes minute by minute, during four specific days—the day before Obama imposed sanctions, the day the White House officially sanctioned Russia, the day Putin announced the Russian response, and the day afterward when Flynn called me after I returned home to Long Island to say the Russian Ambassador told him their call had made a difference in Russia’s response. Who did I talk to at Mar-a-Lago? On the Transition team? On the outside? What did we discuss? Why did I call them?
Since she had volunteered to cooperate, the actions of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence “took the cake”:
They subpoenaed me to appear before their staffers in February 2019, the week my husband was scheduled for surgery for aggressive prostate cancer in New York. Only after my lawyers provided them with signed letters from doctors and surgeons did they agree to a three-week delay. When my husband’s post-surgical recovery developed complications, Giuffra [her attorney] asked if we could delay the interview again. They refused. Giuffra asked if we could conduct the interview in New York, which they had originally offered to do. They refused. We offered to have the interview conducted via video conference, or with written questions—all under oath—so I could remain in New York with my husband during this period. They again refused.
McFarland had to fly to Washington with her attorneys to comply. Prior to that interview, the FBI confirmed that she was no longer just a fact witness and recommended she get legal counsel. Once they charged Gen. Flynn, they lost interest in her. She was never accused of anything.
* * * *
Keep in mind that McFarland was no novice to the workings of government; she had served in four administrations. Also, there was no crime involved with either Flynn or McFarland. For the FBI to use its investigatory tools against political enemies, without “serious or verified grounds” was unconscionable. There were many more manipulative and deceptive actions taken by the FBI that McFarland describes in her book.
McFarland is appearing on TV once again. She is offering commentary about the events of the day. Her comments are always professional, direct, and insightful. She appears to have found her bearings, and is still very supportive of Trump and his populist approach to governance (although like many, she wishes he would be less extreme in his actions and rhetoric). But she knows that we, as a people, must persist. One concluding statement she made:
If anything, I am now more convinced than ever that what we are experiencing now is not just a group of Democrats, Never-Trumpers, and the liberal media who have made common cause in their efforts to get rid of Trump. It is an entrenched self-perpetuating Washington Establishment locked into a battle with the American people over who is sovereign. Is it the American electorate who voted for populism and nationalism with Donald Trump as their flagbearer? Or does the ultimate power rest in the hands of the entrenched Administrative State and the governing class who are using the system to get rid of Trump and everything he stands for?
It is time, against at all levels of government, for us to take back our country!
Published in Politics
She spoke about that. She had friends there, too, whom she would see. She mentions that the time there was restorative, giving her time to think over her relationship to the populism, the U.S. and its citizens.
So true. The design of the institution is corrupt. The 302 is a cesspool of corruption.It should be eliminated tomorrow. The only reason it isn’t is because it allows for corruption. This is the Digital Age for Pete’s sake. Every word should be recorded by both sides of an interview with audio and video. I have my copy the FBI has theirs, they damm well better match.
I’m glad to see her speaking out.
I understand the outrage, even share it. But for all practical purposes, should everyone be fired? Do you really believe everyone is corrupt? And if everyone is fired, who “minds the store”? Do we shut down the FBI while we find people to staff it?
If people want to rant, that’s fine. But I’m also interested in practical solutions.
Andrew McCarthy has yet another lucid article containing this phrase, or something meaning the same thing:
Substitute DOJ, Attorney General, or other person or agency for “FBI” as needed.
I take strong exception to McCarthy’s characterizing Russiagate/Spygate and the impeachment drama as a “farce.”
It’s on balance a good article, but, sadly, must be read with a grain of salt handy.
My comment above needs some clarification. It turns out that Covington & Burling did continue to maintain Flynn’s innocence… until, with no new evidence before them, they didn’t.
Matt Vespa at Townhall wrote about how the Special Counsel’s Office went about witholding the FBI’s 302s from Flynn’s lawyers. Vespa, draws on Undercover Huber’s ongoing stellar work on the coup (here’s a link to the Huber thread.)
Here’s Huber:
I guess the good thing about hiring a well-connected Washington law firm is its influential connections. Maybe that’s also the bad thing about hiring a well-connected Washington law firm.
That is outside my area of expertise. Some jurisdictions rely on written testimony rather than recordings despite the ubiquity of equipment.
Excellent information, OTLC. I just want to tear my hair out when I read it, but you make the point that it’s nearly impossible to tell who to trust. It looks like something or someone changed Covington’s mind. I wonder if someone had something to hold over their heads. . .
Weren’t they on the hook for some of the sign-off on Flynn and his son’s dealings with foreign operatives and whether they needed to register as agents of a foreign government or not? So they had conflicts.
From Vespa/Huber I gathered that they were standing behind their FARA work for Flynn. Had they botched it accidentally (or accidentally on purpose?) I don’t know, and didn’t see anything in the twitter thread, but I’m not up to speed on Huber long term the way Dan Bongino is.
The timeline makes you think that somebody put the squeeze on Covington. What that squeeze might have been, what happened over that weekend. I don’t know.
A person might have only needed to insinuate there could be a problem, and that was enough to scare them off. No guts.
As Schumer gloated to Rachel Maddow, “Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” Flynn was about to be in a position to take them on. If threats were made, we don’t know how bad they were. Flynn has guts, and he folded when faced with financial ruin and his son’s imprisonment.
Think of Winston and the rats in 1984.
I think that’s true, but let’s keep in mind that not every questionable order is patently illegal. There’s a tough call to make when one’s subjective views on “legality” interfere with one’s duty. See Sally Yates.
What’s happened with Gen Flynn in particular, KT McFarland included apparently, is a very visible result of the Obama administration’s underlying influence on the inner workings of our government.
Looking at prosecutors like Andrew Weissman and Kathryn Ruemmler (later Obama’s WH counsel and close friend) in their overzealous, unscrupulous prosecution of various Enron-related defendants (including Arthur Andersen), it’s obvious that things have been headed in the wrong direction for some time. In fact, faces associated with Enron — like Lisa Monaco, Andrew Weissmann, James Comey, Christopher Wray and Robert Mueller — also popped up during Hillary’s MidYear Exam investigation and DOJ investigations/prosecutions surrounding the Trump administration.
Back to Obama’s inside job: a couple things Obama did ensured the ‘hope and change’ agenda was widespread. First, wherever and whenever possible at the federal level, they replaced experienced operations leaders with more junior-level ideologues on board with the Obama way of governing (bypassing or manipulating rules to achieve political ends, weaponizing govt to crush political opponents, etc.) in positions of authority, including the military. And, as we now know, what they couldn’t get via their sweeping changes to the way intelligence was shared and gathered in the U.S. and abroad with its allies, they achieved through breaking established protocols and procedures.
This month I learned from some podcast interviews with people formerly in law enforcement (LE) and intelligence community (IC) at station chief levels for example that Crossfire is probably not the aberration we hoped. Procedures in place to mitigate selection for advancement based on political persuasion/ideology are skirted by the fact that advancement also requires having performed a certain number/level of tasks and assignments which are not assigned to those unwilling to play the political bias/target your enemies game. Increasingly, people interested in solid investigation and intelligence gathering are leaving when they are repeatedly sidelined this way.
This would leave LE and IC — govt in general — littered with people in authority who operate based on political motivations rather than the more solid, impartial methods of the past. Case in point, it was glaringly obvious during testimony given before the House that State Dept employees felt the current POTUS had overstepped his authority in imposing policies that ran counter to their own ideas what US policy should be and how it should be implemented.
It’s not just personnel, but methods. Brennan’s long association with intelligence and eventual long-term intelligence head appointment gave him opportunity to make some significant changes. Example: US now relies heavily on intelligence from other nations gained through their operatives rather than having our own assets in the field. Nations whose agendas might differ from and supersede US interests.
I wish Mike Flynn had remained NSA and with KT McFarland’s help, cleaned out a bit of this hornet’s nest.
Please name them.
Congrats on the Instapundit link, Susan!
That requires me to go through the book page by page. You’re on your own.
Sorry. Didn’t mean to be so snappy. In the early interviews, she only refers to the lead investigator and the junior investigator. It is odd. But eventually, one of the lead prosecutors, Brandon van Grack from the Office of Special Counsel, told her that her status was no longer as a fact witness and recommended she get legal counsel. After that change, she attended a meeting with her lawyers; at that meeting was James Quarles, attorney. The lawyer in charge was Andrew Goldstein. And Van Grack was also there with two other special agents.
I’m going to guess that there might have been a liability issue for her if she included the other names.
Does any one else have any thoughts on this fact?
I might’ve mentioned this in another thread, and, no, I’m not Ms. McFarland’s agent, but only 10 bucks for Kindle seems pretty good.
Must be a lot of pages and lots of agents. What a burden it must be.
I added the names she included in my first response. What is your issue? Do you have a problem with McFarland or me?
Sorry, I didn’t see your first response, which seems to be your second response. You yourself said it was snappy.
In light of what I think was your second response, I think my issue is really with K T. If she can’t provide names, I think it would be incumbent on her to say why. I think it’s very important, though not Nuremburg level important (by a long stretch). Perhaps she has explained that, but I’ve not seen it.
I appreciate your effort in responding more fully, and in putting in the effort to post in the first place! No hard feelings.
I see it differently; not a lawyer, just my evaluating information past and present. In light of what has been made public in the FBI’s own words, Van Grack’s issues as prosecution (see the Defense’s various filings and multiple news reports the past month or so), felony leaking of classified intelligence (Flynn’s call), DOJ’s circumventing of normal investigatory procedures to build — to entrap — a US citizen and member of White House staff, etc. the issue is really with the Dept of Justice. Their basis for surveilling Flynn is the number of communications between he and Kislyak and a 2015 public dinner in Russia? The alleged FARA crimes went up in smoke as well when his business partner’s DC-area conviction was overturned on acquittal, the higher court stating “The evidence was insufficient as a matter of law for the jury to convict [him] on either count.”
Why should there be any issue with K.T.? Her assertions are in line with multiple others associated with Trump who were questioned by DOJ…in marked contrast to the obsequious deference Hillary Clinton and her crew received during the Mid-Year Exam investigation I should add. The default is liberty, not guilt. She was being questioned, forced to fund no doubt extensive legal fees from the sounds of it, when there was no evidence of any crime by either Michael Flynn or his boss. I read Special Counsel’s original and more recently released revised scope memos — no crime predicate for a massive intrusion into those Americans’ civil liberties.
I haven’t read her book, but I’d guess she’s a darn sight more forthcoming than the DOJ was when in every instance I’ve seen so far their insistence for their documents over-classification has been to protect their own hides and not some national security concern.
I tend to agree with you, @mim526. I suspect that if an investigator, such as John Durham, asked her for the names of the agents, she would provide them. Although I can understand @functionary‘s curiosity, I didn’t miss having the information as I read the book. It wasn’t key to what was happening. And I did find her very credible, especially when she described in great detail the questions she was being asked.
I also find K.T. very credible. That’s why I think we need to know the names of her interrogators. I have not read her book, but have seen her interviewed and read some commentary. The real bad actors in her case, and in the Russia nonsense generally, are the very senior Obama administration officials who pushed this witch hunt. We will know who they are. We probably will not learn about the identities of the FBI agents who carried out their illegal orders. But in visualizing what it must have been like for K.T. (and others) to endure this, I find it difficult to imagine what degraded persons they must have been. Who does this kind of stuff? No one that I want in a position of authority!
This is not anything like the holocaust, but these people remind me of concentration camp Kapos. While they did not torture and kill anyone, these FBI agents terrorized many. They knew better. Moreover, they had options the Nazi guards did not. Just how much courage and integrity did it take for these agents to do the right thing in 2017 when these events mostly took place?
This is all of a piece with the scandalous decline and corruption of our legal system in my (long) lifetime. “Any competent prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich” is an evil joke that has been accepted far, far too long. I keep reading about how the rank and file FBI agents all hated this stuff, and it was only a few bad apples at the top. I hope that’s true, but I would like to know.
I think it was Paul Sperry (Real Clear Investigations?) who did some good reporting on some of the DOJ Special Counsel’s targets who would speak on the record. KT’s account as you posted is definitely in line with theirs. I recall the account of one veteran journalist who experienced serious health issues following his interaction(s) with DOJ particularly stuck out to and bothered me.
While there are two sides to every story, there is no basis that I see for assuming any untruthfulness or even exaggeration in what you’ve posted from KT McFarland. It is entirely in line with not only other targets of this investigation, but, as I posted elsewhere today, with the type of behavior some of these same prosecutors or others they’ve worked with have been cited for in previous cases — particularly Enron-related trials.
If that comment is directed to me (indirectly), Mim, I wasn’t clear enough. I think K.T. should have named names (I would have), or explained why she didn’t. I did not assume or allege in any way that she was untruthful or exaggerating anything.
I seem to recall there were 30 or 40, maybe more, FBI agents detailed to the Mueller Investigation. I also think that although they were under the direction of Mueller’s team leaders they were required to follow FBI policies and procedures. Did they? Remember we saw CNN’s video of two dozen gun wielding agents at Roger Stone’s house before dawn.
The book is now in my Kindle queue. Thx.
All no doubt executives from FBI headquarters, not the regular field agents
who were just following ordersOrange jumpsuits isn’t going to happen unless it is more Trump supporters going to jail.