What's new
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums

Welcome to Our Forums. Once you've registered and logged in, you're primed to talk football, among other topics, with the sharpest and most experienced fantasy players on the internet.

The Russia Investigation: Trump Pardons Flynn (14 Viewers)

Widbil83 said:
No, and we even learned now that the Crowdstrike guy who testified in Schiff’s secret hearings 3 years said there was no evidence Russia hacked the DNC server. All just a bunch of malarkey from the media and Democrats. 
Click to expand...
They weren’t Schiff’s hearings but committee hearings...also, thats not exactly what he testified.  Ive posted quite a few quotes on that this morning.  People can read his full testimony as well...and of you still think it wasn't Russia, id love an actual reasoning why or who it was.

 
Slapdash said:
Kaitlan Collins

@kaitlancollins  Judge Emmet Sullivan is asking why Michael Flynn should not be held in contempt of court for perjury, and has appointed a retired judge to look into it and argue against the DOJ's request to dismiss the Flynn case, per @kpolantz
Click to expand...
:lmao:

 
A federal judge is signaling that he may pursue perjury or contempt charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn over his effort to abandon an earlier guilty plea to a charge of lying to the FBI.

The Justice Department moved last week to drop the prosecution of Flynn launched by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan threw a major stumbling block in front of that effort by announcing that he is appointing a former federal judge to advise the court on how to respond to the government’s motion.

Sullivan said he’s also asking the retired judge, John Gleeson, to recommend whether Flynn should face a criminal contempt charge for perjury—apparently for declaring under oath at two different court proceedings that he was guilty of lying to the FBI, before he reversed course an January and claimed he had never lied.

 
Judge Gleeson recently co-wrote an op-ed on this very subject:

(WaPo op-ed)

The Justice Department’s move to dismiss the prosecution of former national security adviser Michael Flynn does not need to be the end of the case — and it shouldn’t be.

The Justice Department has made conflicting statements to the federal judge overseeing the case, Emmet G. Sullivan. He has the authority, the tools and the obligation to assess the credibility of the department’s stated reasons for abruptly reversing course.

The department’s motion to dismiss the Flynn case is actually just a request — one that requires “leave of the court” before it is effective. The executive branch has unreviewable authority to decide whether to prosecute a case. But once it secures an indictment, the proceedings necessarily involve the judicial branch. And the law provides that the court — not the executive branch — decides whether an indictment may be dismissed. The responsible exercise of that authority is particularly important here, where a defendant’s plea of guilty has already been accepted. Government motions to dismiss at this stage are virtually unheard of.

Prosecutors deserve a “presumption of regularity” — the benefit of the doubt that they are acting honestly and following the rules. But when the facts suggest they have abused their power, that presumption fades. If prosecutors attempt to dismiss a well-founded prosecution for impermissible or corrupt reasons, the people would be ill-served if a court blindly approved their dismissal request. The independence of the court protects us all when executive-branch decisions smack of impropriety; it also protects the judiciary itself from becoming a party to corruption.

There has been nothing regular about the department’s effort to dismiss the Flynn case. The record reeks of improper political influence. Hours after the career prosecutor abruptly withdrew, the department moved to dismiss the indictment in a filing signed only by an interim U.S. attorney, a former aide to Attorney General William P. Barr whom Barr had installed in the position months before.

The department now says it cannot prove its case. But Flynn had already admitted his guilt to lying to the FBI, and the court had accepted his plea. The purported reasons for the dismissal clash not only with the department’s previous arguments in Flynn’s case — where it assured the court of an important federal interest in punishing Flynn’s dishonesty, an interest it now dismisses as insubstantial — but also with arguments it has routinely made for years in similar cases not involving defendants close to the president. And all of this followed a similarly troubling reversal, also preceded by the withdrawal of career prosecutors, in the sentencing of Roger Stone.

 
Sinn Fein said:
A federal judge is signaling that he may pursue perjury or contempt charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn over his effort to abandon an earlier guilty plea to a charge of lying to the FBI.

The Justice Department moved last week to drop the prosecution of Flynn launched by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan threw a major stumbling block in front of that effort by announcing that he is appointing a former federal judge to advise the court on how to respond to the government’s motion.

Sullivan said he’s also asking the retired judge, John Gleeson, to recommend whether Flynn should face a criminal contempt charge for perjury—apparently for declaring under oath at two different court proceedings that he was guilty of lying to the FBI, before he reversed course an January and claimed he had never lied.
Click to expand...
I wonder if this will be fought and eventually broaden Alford v. North Carolina. I frankly think should (even though it arguably creates an unjust outcome in this case). 

 
Slapdash said:
Kaitlan Collins

@kaitlancollins  Judge Emmet Sullivan is asking why Michael Flynn should not be held in contempt of court for perjury, and has appointed a retired judge to look into it and argue against the DOJ's request to dismiss the Flynn case, per @kpolantz
Click to expand...
Seems natural.

It's hard to fathom but Flynn/Powell in their little firecracker motion that blew up in their face yesterday basically instructed Sullivan that he cannot permit any third parties to intervene or review the behavior of Flynn in the case. This from the people have been pushing an extra-legal review by a handpicked US Attorney from 8 states away.

 
Sinn Fein said:
A federal judge is signaling that he may pursue perjury or contempt charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn over his effort to abandon an earlier guilty plea to a charge of lying to the FBI.

The Justice Department moved last week to drop the prosecution of Flynn launched by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan threw a major stumbling block in front of that effort by announcing that he is appointing a former federal judge to advise the court on how to respond to the government’s motion.

Sullivan said he’s also asking the retired judge, John Gleeson, to recommend whether Flynn should face a criminal contempt charge for perjury—apparently for declaring under oath at two different court proceedings that he was guilty of lying to the FBI, before he reversed course an January and claimed he had never lied.
Click to expand...
Yeah funny how that works. Judges, like the FBI, don’t particularly like being lied to.

 
WASHINGTON — A key former F.B.I. official cast doubt on the Justice Department’s case for dropping a criminal charge against President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn during an interview with investigators last week, according to people familiar with the investigation.

Department officials reviewing the Flynn case interviewed Bill Priestap, the former head of F.B.I. counterintelligence, two days before making their extraordinary request to drop the case to Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. They did not tell Judge Sullivan about Mr. Priestap’s interview. A Justice Department official said that they were in the process of writing up a report on the interview and that it would soon be filed with the court.

The department’s motion referred to notes that Mr. Priestap wrote around the bureau’s 2017 questioning of Mr. Flynn, who later pleaded guilty to lying to investigators during that interview. His lawyers said Mr. Priestap’s notes — recently uncovered during a review of the case — suggested that the F.B.I. was trying to entrap Mr. Flynn, and Attorney General William P. Barr said investigators were trying to “lay a perjury trap.”

That interpretation was wrong, Mr. Priestap told the prosecutors reviewing the case. He said that F.B.I. officials were trying to do the right thing in questioning Mr. Flynn and that he knew of no effort to set him up. Media reports about his notes misconstrued them, he said, according to the people familiar with the investigation.

The department’s decision to exclude mention of Mr. Priestap’s interview in the motion could trouble Judge Sullivan, who signaled late on Tuesday that he was skeptical of the department’s arguments.

 
Sinn Fein said:
A federal judge is signaling that he may pursue perjury or contempt charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn over his effort to abandon an earlier guilty plea to a charge of lying to the FBI.

The Justice Department moved last week to drop the prosecution of Flynn launched by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan threw a major stumbling block in front of that effort by announcing that he is appointing a former federal judge to advise the court on how to respond to the government’s motion.

Sullivan said he’s also asking the retired judge, John Gleeson, to recommend whether Flynn should face a criminal contempt charge for perjury—apparently for declaring under oath at two different court proceedings that he was guilty of lying to the FBI, before he reversed course an January and claimed he had never lied.
Click to expand...
"Are you lying now, or were you lying then?"

 
This is the second official involved in the Flynn investigation to state that Barr/Shea misrepresented their statements.

This is also the exact sort of behavior that Trump supporters have been howling about supposedly happening with the Page Fisa btw.

+++++++++++++++++

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

Prosecutors questioned a former F.B.I. official whose notes were used to buttress their motion to dismiss the charge against the president’s first national security adviser.

A key former F.B.I. official cast doubt on the Justice Department’s case for dropping a criminal charge against President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn during an interview with investigators last week, according to people familiar with the investigation.

Department officials reviewing the Flynn case interviewed Bill Priestap, the former head of F.B.I. counterintelligence, two days before making their extraordinary request to drop the case to Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. They did not tell Judge Sullivan about Mr. Priestap’s interview. A Justice Department official said that they were in the process of writing up a report on the interview and that it would soon be filed with the court.

The department’s motion referred to notes that Mr. Priestap wrote around the bureau’s 2017 questioning of Mr. Flynn, who later pleaded guilty to lying to investigators during that interview. His lawyers said Mr. Priestap’s notes — recently uncovered during a review of the case — suggested that the F.B.I. was trying to entrap Mr. Flynn, and Attorney General William P. Barr said investigators were trying to “lay a perjury trap.”

That interpretation was wrong, Mr. Priestap told the prosecutors reviewing the case. He said that F.B.I. officials were trying to do the right thing in questioning Mr. Flynn and that he knew of no effort to set him up. Media reports about his notes misconstrued them, he said, according to the people familiar with the investigation.

The department’s decision to exclude mention of Mr. Priestap’s interview in the motion could trouble Judge Sullivan, who signaled late on Tuesday that he was skeptical of the department’s arguments.

Mr. Priestap and the Justice Department declined to comment. Mr. Priestap told investigators that he did not remember the circumstances surrounding the notes that he took, and that he was giving them his interpretation of the notes as he read them now, according to a person familiar with his interview.

Former prosecutors and defense lawyers called the department’s position hypocritical and troubling.

“If it is accurate that the F.B.I. official provided context around those notes, which is materially different from what they suggest, this could be a game changer in terms of how the court views the motivations behind the request to dismiss the case,” said Edward Y. Kim, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan.

The department’s decision to drop the Flynn case was a stunning reversal, widely regarded as part of an effort by Mr. Barr to undermine the Russia investigation. The prosecutor who led the case, Brandon L. Van Grack, withdrew from it, and only the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, Timothy Shea, a longtime adviser to Mr. Barr, signed the motion.

Both Mr. Van Grack and Jocelyn Ballantine, another prosecutor on the case, were upset with Mr. Barr’s decision to drop the charge and his overall handling of the Flynn review, according to people familiar with their thinking.

Mr. Barr, who has long said that he had misgivings about the decision to prosecute Mr. Flynn, asked the top federal prosecutor in St. Louis, Jeff Jensen, earlier this year to scrub the case for any mistakes or improprieties.

Mr. Priestap’s notes were among the documents that Mr. Jensen found. The prosecutors already on the case, Mr. Jensen’s team and the F.B.I. disagreed about whether they were exculpatory and should be given to Mr. Flynn’s lawyer, Sidney Powell. Mr. Jensen prevailed and gave them to Ms. Powell, who declared that they would exonerate her client, people familiar with the events said.

Mr. Priestap played a central role in the F.B.I. investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election and was involved in high-level discussions about whether to question Mr. Flynn, whose phone calls to the Russian ambassador at the time, Sergey I. Kislyak, had aroused investigators’ suspicions.

Mr. Jensen and Ms. Ballantine, herself a veteran prosecutor, interviewed Mr. Priestap along with another prosecutor, Sayler Fleming, and an F.B.I. agent from St. Louis who was there to memorialize the encounter.

Justice Department investigators spoke with Mr. Priestap while they were embroiled in a debate that began last month about whether to drop the Flynn case.

Mr. Jensen and officials in Mr. Shea’s office pushed to give Mr. Flynn’s lawyers copies of the notes and other documents they had recently found. Mr. Van Grack and Dana Boente, the F.B.I. general counsel, argued against disclosing them.

Eventually the F.B.I. agreed to release the documents because they contained no classified or sensitive material, even though they believed they were not required to share them with the defense, according to an email from lawyers in Mr. Boente’s office on April 23.

By the beginning of May, Mr. Jensen recommended to Mr. Barr that the charge be dropped, and the team began to draft the motion to dismiss it.

Mr. Van Grack and Ms. Ballantine, the prosecutors on the case, acknowledged the facts but vociferously disagreed with Mr. Jensen’s legal argument that Mr. Flynn’s lies were immaterial to the larger investigation into Russian election interference, according to department lawyers familiar with their conversations.

As the lawyers digested the interview with Mr. Priestap, some prosecutors expressed concern that they were moving too fast. But other officials pointed out that in less than a week the department was due to respond to Mr. Flynn’s motion to dismiss the case, and argued against proceeding in that matter if they were about to drop the entire case.

Mr. Jensen agreed, as did Mr. Barr, and they filed their request. Even though they knew it was coming, some prosecutors on the case expressed shock, associates said.

Mr. Flynn’s case grew out of phone calls he made to Mr. Kislyak in the final days of 2016, asking that Moscow refrain from retaliating after the Obama administration imposed sanctions on Russia as punishment for interfering in the election. The conversations were captured on routine wiretaps of Mr. Kislyak and prompted concern among the F.B.I. agents investigating Mr. Flynn once they learned of them.

Then the incoming vice president, Mike Pence, publicly denied that Mr. Flynn had asked Russia to hold off on sanctions. Agents began to suspect that Mr. Flynn was lying to other Trump officials about the phone calls and were concerned that he was a blackmail risk because Russia knew the truth of the calls.

Mr. Priestap’s notes, taken hours before agents questioned Mr. Flynn on Jan. 24, 2017, showed that F.B.I. officials were debating how to proceed and trying to determine the objective of questioning Mr. Flynn.

Mr. Priestap wrote: “What’s our goal? Truth/admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?” Mr. Priestap also mentioned the risks of an interview, adding, “Protect our institution by not playing games” and “If we’re seen playing games, WH will be furious.”

Those notes reflected Mr. Priestap’s own thoughts before meeting with F.B.I. leadership to discuss how to question Mr. Flynn, the people said. A footnote in Mr. Shea’s motion included a reference to Mr. Priestap’s ruminations. The motion described them as “talking points.”

The notes also showed that the F.B.I. softened its interview strategy with Mr. Flynn. Officials decided that agents would be allowed to read back portions of the highly classified phone call transcripts to refresh Mr. Flynn’s memory. F.B.I. investigators felt at the time it was important to figure out whether Mr. Flynn would tell the truth in an interview.

Though Mr. Flynn was told ahead of time about the interview, the F.B.I. director at the time, James B. Comey, unilaterally decided to go forward with it, angering Justice Department officials who said the bureau should have coordinated closely with them and notified the White House Counsel’s Office.

Two agents went to the White House to question Mr. Flynn. He lied repeatedly, and prosecutors have said that agents gave him “multiple opportunities to correct his false statements by revisiting key questions.”

Mr. Flynn later agreed to plead guilty, entering a plea twice before he later reversed himself, hiring new lawyers and asking Judge Sullivan to allow him to withdraw it.

After the notes and other documents were made public, Ms. Powell seized on them to declare that they cast doubt on the F.B.I.’s decision to question Mr. Flynn and to charge him with lying. She accused the bureau of framing her client.

Mr. Shea also argued that the F.B.I. had no legitimate reason to interview Mr. Flynn. He said that the bureau’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn had essentially ended and agents had insufficient reason to keep it open and were trying to entrap him.

The interview with Mr. Flynn “seems to have been undertaken only to elicit those very false statements and thereby criminalize Mr. Flynn,” Mr. Shea wrote.

Mr. Barr has called Mr. Flynn’s conversations with Mr. Kislyak “laudable” and said that his lies were immaterial to the Russia investigation, rejecting the view of the prosecutors who had said that Mr. Flynn hurt the inquiry by misleading the F.B.I. agents. Judge Sullivan has also said the lies were material.
 
I think what happened is someone bought into the theory that Sullivan would have to dismiss and do so immediately - like Friday or Monday - once DOJ moved to dismiss. Seems like a really costly assumption.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
SaintsInDome2006 said:
I think what happened is someone bought inbto the theory that Sullivan would have to dismiss and do so immediately - like Friday or Monday - once DOJ moved to dismiss. Seems like a really costs assumption.
Click to expand...
There was no downside here for Barr and by extension, Trump. If this effort fails, this gives them some fuel for a pardon.

All it really does is further sully the reputation of Barr and his lackeys as well as give future administrations a road map to undercut the rule of law and separation of powers.

 
It is amusing to watch the law enforcement/judicial bureaucracies suck their own #####.  Anything to vindicate the behavior of the FBI/CIA/DOJ launching a bogus conspiracy theory that dominated American politics for 2 years. 

It seems the only actual crime Flynn was guilty of- prior to his communications being illegally leaked by intelligence officials in service to a false conspiracy theory about Trump & Russia, then getting blindsided by the FBI- was not properly registering as a foreign agent in his work for Turkey.  But Flynn is their prized TrumpRussia scalp, so we're going to get a lot more handwringing.

 
The Z Machine said:
There was no downside here for Barr and by extension, Trump. If this effort fails, this gives them some fuel for a pardon.

All it really does is further sully the reputation of Barr and his lackeys as well as give future administrations a road map to undercut the rule of law and separation of powers.
Click to expand...
Trump may have to pardon Flynn to save not just himself and Flynn, but Barr.

 
ren hoek said:
It is amusing to watch the law enforcement/judicial bureaucracies suck their own #####.  Anything to vindicate the behavior of the FBI/CIA/DOJ launching a bogus conspiracy theory that dominated American politics for 2 years. 

It seems the only actual crime Flynn was guilty of- prior to his communications being illegally leaked by intelligence officials in service to a false conspiracy theory about Trump & Russia, then getting blindsided by the FBI- was not properly registering as a foreign agent in his work for Turkey.  But Flynn is their prized TrumpRussia scalp, so we're going to get a lot more handwringing.
Click to expand...
Or the actual legal and intel agencies  were justified in their actions and the Trump campaign acted inappropriately and are being punished for it.

Looking clear the DOJ is the one screwing up in this...you’d think yiud have a problem with that.

 
THE CURIOUS CASE OF MICHAEL FLYNN | OPINION

The charges against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn never made sense and neither did his guilty plea. The whole mess started with a bang—the leak of classified information about intercepts of Flynn's calls with the Russian ambassador. After years of twists, turns and delays, it ended with a whimper. "Never mind," says the Justice Department (DOJ) in a 20-page motion to dismiss its own case.

DOJ is not admitting prosecutorial misconduct—at least not yet. Rather, the motion argues, based on new information, that Flynn's statements to the FBI were not material to any legitimate investigation. In other words, it simply doesn't matter what Flynn said to the FBI, at least not legally. In addition, the government now believes it would be unable to prove that Flynn's statements were intentionally false.

From the beginning, my former boss, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), wanted to see the underlying evidence for himself. If Flynn engaged in nefarious business with the Russians, why would he do it on a phone call he knew was likely being monitored? Why would he think he could get away with lying about it?

We wanted to compare the transcript of the intercepted call to the agent's contemporaneous notes of the interview to understand exactly how Flynn allegedly deceived the FBI.

To this day, however, DOJ's oversight committees in Congress, Flynn's lawyers and the public have still never seen a transcript of the call. In Congress, we asked for it on a bipartisan basis in February 2017. Flynn's lawyers have been asking. Still, all the public knows is mostly from selective leaks to the press and spin about what Flynn allegedly said.

Two years ago, Grassley urged the Justice Department to prove that what it did to Flynn could withstand independent scrutiny. Turns out, it couldn't.

Under previous leadership, DOJ fiercely resisted transparency—and now we know why. Exasperated with our oversight letters, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein came to Senator Grassley's office to push back. He questioned whether I was working with Flynn's defense counsel. I wasn't. He insisted that Flynn's guilty plea should end all questions.

It didn't. And Senator Grassley had good reasons to be suspicious.

The FBI agent who interrogated Flynn has since had to answer for his own issues, but we knew that even Peter Strzok didn't think that Flynn had lied. Former FBI Director James Comey had told us that directly, indicating at a briefing in the Senate's secure facility in March 2017 that Flynn was unlikely to be prosecuted.

But that was before Comey was fired weeks later, on May 9.

Afterward, it was suddenly in Comey's interest to hype the Flynn case as a serious inquiry being obstructed by the president who had just fired him. The disgruntled former FBI director promptly leaked a memo of a conversation about Flynn with the president. On May 16, 2017, The New York Times quoted the president talking to Comey about Flynn: "He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

The leak worked. Enter Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who resurrected the case and charged Flynn as part of a larger obstruction inquiry aimed at the White House.

Forget that Comey had told Congress the Flynn case was going nowhere and that he failed to raise any concern with his oversight committee about White House interference. Never mind, as FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe would later put it, that "the two people who interviewed [Flynn] didn't think he was lying, [which] was not [a] great beginning of a false statement case."

The government managed to threaten and intimidate Flynn anyway, resulting in a formal plea deal and an undisclosed "side deal" to protect his son.

Flynn later hired new attorneys who demanded to see the evidence, and Attorney General William Barr eventually asked former FBI agent and career DOJ prosecutor Jeffrey Jensen to review the files. Now, DOJ admits that nothing "said on the calls themselves indicate an inappropriate relationship between Mr. Flynn and a foreign power."

The FBI knew this at the time because, as the filing confirms, "the FBI had in its possession word-for-word transcripts of the actual communications." Yet the transcripts are still being withheld from Congress. They have also been withheld from Flynn for more than three years.

Thanks to Mr. Jensen, we now know that a senior FBI official apparently worried that the plan to quiz Flynn while playing "hide the ball" with the transcript would look bad. According to notes by the FBI's counterintelligence chief, Bill Priestap, he wrote: "What is our goal?... I believe we should rethink this [and] protect our institution by not playing games."

Comey should have listened to that advice. Instead, he sent agents to the White House without following normal protocols, even though he had recently authorized the closing of the FBI's counterintelligence investigation of Flynn. Comey later admitted it was a gambit he "probably wouldn't have done or gotten away with" in another administration.

With the dismissal of Flynn's case, absent some possible civil litigation, it will be up to Congress and the public to demand the rest of the story and any accountability for the obvious misconduct that occurred. Without sunlight and consequences, those in law enforcement tempted to play political games will continue to think they can get away with it.
Click to expand...

 
sho nuff said:
Or the actual legal and intel agencies  were justified in their actions and the Trump campaign acted inappropriately and are being punished for it.

Looking clear the DOJ is the one screwing up in this...you’d think yiud have a problem with that.
Click to expand...
I'm more concerned with administrations being held accountable for their mass killings and crimes against humanity.  Remember when James Clapper committed perjury about mass surveillance programs in the United States, and literally nothing happened to him?  The Iraq war.  The drone killings.  Stuff that actually matters.  Wish people spent energy on that like they do on a Trump guy telling an inconsequential "lie" to feds.  

 
Mr. Ham said:
You know this won’t age well. It didn’t end with a whimper. 
Click to expand...
George Papadopolous, the supposed genesis of the entire conspiracy- 2 weeks in jail.

The Concord Management / Internet Research Agency meme trial- dropped.

Flynn case- dropped.

"Trump colluded with Russia"- complete fabrication.  

 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
I think what happened is someone bought into the theory that Sullivan would have to dismiss and do so immediately - like Friday or Monday - once DOJ moved to dismiss. Seems like a really costly assumption.
Click to expand...
Who could possibly be misled?  Rule 48 unambiguously requires leave of court.  

 
Mr. Ham said:
You’re out of your depth. Please don’t pivot to some other erroneous nonsense without acknowledging you are flat out wrong here. (You are.)
Click to expand...
You are simply flat out wrong.

the defense asked for something and the prosecution didn’t provide it.

it’s quite simple to understand.

 
Mr. Ham said:
@Sam Quentin

Flat wrong. But won’t admit it. Will give you credit, you’ve learned gaslighting from the best. It’s a conundrum. Ordinarily, it would be ill advised to repeat a falsehood again and again in hopes that will make it true, but there are tens of millions of Americans for whom that con works like a charm. Rupert Murdoch built an empire on it. Fortunately, there are some here for whom it doesn’t. 
Click to expand...
No you are flat wrong

the original 302 is not available to submit into evidence.  Period.  Full stop.  A 302 altered by an FBI lawyer after the fact?  “Oh it’s basically the same...scout’s honor”. “Can we see?” “Nope”

The FFA has some of the ####iest lawyers I have ever encountered. Full stop.

 
Sam Quentin said:
No you are flat wrong

the original 302 is not available to submit into evidence.  Period.  Full stop.  A 302 altered by an FBI lawyer after the fact?  “Oh it’s basically the same...scout’s honor”. “Can we see?” “Nope”

The FFA has some of the ####iest lawyers I have ever encountered. Full stop.
Click to expand...
You are making claims that the judge isn't even making.  Like it or not..there was a valid 302...there was evidence of his guilt...he plead in court and affirmed it a second time.

And the judge is not all too happy apparently with Flynn or the DOJ.

 
I haven't been paying close attention to political stuff recently. I just got sick of it.

But I remember the Flynn stuff from when it occurred. I haven't read Barr's motion to drop the charges, but my understanding is that he's arguing that Flynn's lies weren't material since there was no valid reason to question him in the first place.

That seems like an implausible argument based on my understanding of the relevant events. Can somebody who's been paying better attention fill in what I'm missing? Here's the version I have in my head:

1. Throughout 2016, the Russians illegally interfered in the U.S. presidential election to benefit candidate Trump.

2. In November 2016, Trump won the election.

3. In December 2016, the Obama administration announced sanctions on Russia in retaliation for their illegal interference.

4. A day or two after that, a US Person spoke with Russian Ambassador Kislyak about the sanctions -- saying, in essence, not to worry about them because they'll be taken care of by the incoming administration. The call was monitored by US intelligence because all calls involving Kislyak are. The identity of the US Person was masked.

5. Depending on the identity of the US Person, that call could have been highly illegal or just a technical infraction not worth prosecuting. If it had been a private citizen, maybe a captain of industry, it would have been really illegal for him to try to negotiate foreign policy with the Russian Ambassador. If it was a member of the incoming administration, it would maybe be a technical violation, but probably not worth prosecuting.

6. How does the FBI learn the identity of the US Person in order to figure out the seriousness of any crime? That's where the request for unmasking comes in.

7. So they unmask the US Person and it turns out to be Mike Flynn. Okay, he jumped the gun, but probably not worth prosecuting under the Logan Act.

8. But there are questions. Obvious questions. The FBI is already investigating the illegal Russian interference in the election. If the Russians helped Trump get elected and now Trump is promising to grant relief from the resulting sanctions ... what might that look like? Maybe, possibly, a quid pro quo? Maybe not, but isn't it worth asking about?

9. So they ask Flynn about the call. What was its purpose? Who instructed him to make the call? Was it part of an illegal conspiracy against the US? We're just asking, because, if so, it'd be really important to know, seeing as it would have significant national security implications.

10. But in response to these questions, Flynn lies his butt off and denies that the subject of sanctions even came up.

11. Maybe he was just covering for himself (and his technical violation of the Logan Act). Or maybe he was covering for Trump (and a possible quid pro quo)? Either way, he's compromised, and either way, his lie is material to the investigation.

12. The investigation continued and ultimately Mueller was unable to find solid evidence of a conspiracy or a quid pro quo. But back in January of 2017 when Flynn lied, that outcome was not determined. The investigation was ongoing, and it was very important, and Flynn's lies hindered it. Those lies were material, and were exactly the sorts of lies that would always be prosecuted under those circumstances.

William Barr obviously disagrees with my conclusion, but which part would he say I got wrong?

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Maurile Tremblay said:
William Barr obviously disagrees with my conclusion, but which part would he say I got wrong?
Click to expand...
I think the crux is your points #6 and #7.  Was the unmasking done for legitimate criminal investigation or intelligence reasons or done for political purposed to dig up dirt on the incoming administration?  Once it was known to be Flynn, was there again a legitimate reason (criminal or intelligence) for the FBI to interview him and was it done with all the proper and typical procedures, or was it a politically motivated scheme to entrap Flynn and sully the incoming administration?

 
My question is this: How often do other criminals charged in federal court get to examine the internal FBI decision making process about whether to investigate or interview people? Also, if the decision to continue to investigate was questionable or not done with the correct procedures, but turned up criminal activities nonetheless, can a conviction, even one stemming from a guilty plea be thrown out?

 
JbizzleMan said:
Why wait until AFTER Trump was elected to start digging up dirt on Trump people? Weren't these unmaskings done in December?
Click to expand...
Cuz the FBI / deep state was all in on getting Hillary elected, and thus didn't see the need to try and get dirt on people in the Trump universe.

Of course dirt prior to the election world be much more useful to getting Hillary elected than afterward. But perhaps the real goal of the deep state is to cripple any administration that would act counter to their desire to acquire more power.  By Trump declaring that he was draining the swamp, he telegraphed his desire to dismantle the deep state.

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
I haven't been paying close attention to political stuff recently. I just got sick of it.

But I remember the Flynn stuff from when it occurred. I haven't read Barr's motion to drop the charges, but my understanding is that he's arguing that Flynn's lies weren't material since there was no valid reason to question him in the first place.

That seems like an implausible argument based on my understanding of the relevant events. Can somebody who's been paying better attention fill in what I'm missing? Here's the version I have in my head:

1. Throughout 2016, the Russians illegally interfered in the U.S. presidential election to benefit candidate Trump.
Click to expand...
It has not been shown that the Russians did anything illegal.  Crowdstrike can not conclude that Russia hacked the DNC servers. The “conspiracy” case (Indicting “Russians” for using aliases on FaceBook) that Mueller tried to make against Concord seems to be falling apart.

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
4. A day or two after that, a US Person spoke with Russian Ambassador Kislyak about the sanctions -- saying, in essence, not to worry about them because they'll be taken care of by the incoming administration. The call was monitored by US intelligence because all calls involving Kislyak are. The identity of the US Person was masked.
Click to expand...
It is unknown by the public what was actually said because we have not seen a transcript.  Some reports have suggested that he told Russia to chill over the sanctions.  (Russia punishing the US or escalating tensions in Easter Europe would be a bad thing for the US and the world).  The Logan Act has never been successfully prosecuted since enacted in 1799, so to try to make a case over an incoming administration telling a nuclear superpower to take an action that is in the best interests of the United States and possibly not even inconsistent with current policy would make a defense attorney drool.

IIRC Sally Yates told the FBI that a Logan Act case against Flynn was a no go, so Strzok used a previously concluded investigation that hadn’t been technically closed as the pretext for an interview.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sam Quentin said:
It has not been shown that the Russians did anything illegal.  Crowdstrike can not conclude that Russia hacked the DNC servers. The “conspiracy” case (Indicting “Russians” for using aliases on FaceBook) that Mueller tried to make against Concord seems to be falling apart.
Click to expand...
Thanks, but I was asking where William Barr would disagree with me, not where ren hoek would disagree with me. :)

I'm fairly certain that Barr acknowledges the illegal interference by Russia.

 
Sam Quentin said:
It is unknown by the public what was actually said because we have not seen a transcript.  Some reports have suggested that he told Russia to chill over the sanctions.  (Russia punishing the US or escalating tensions in Easter Europe would be a bad thing for the US and the world).  The Logan Act has never been successfully prosecuted since enacted in 1799, so to try to make a case over an incoming administration telling a nuclear superpower to take an action that is in the best interests of the United States and possibly not even inconsistent with current policy would make a defense attorney drool.

IIRC Sally Yates told the FBI that a Logan Act case against Flynn was a no go, so Strzok used a previously concluded investigation that hadn’t been technically closed as the pretext for an interview.
Click to expand...
I think Flynn was in hot water not fit Logan act violations, but for his work with Turkey.

 
Sam Quentin said:
It has not been shown that the Russians did anything illegal.  Crowdstrike can not conclude that Russia hacked the DNC servers. The “conspiracy” case (Indicting “Russians” for using aliases on FaceBook) that Mueller tried to make against Concord seems to be falling apart.
Click to expand...
This is again false...Crowdstrike did in fact conclude that with confidence.  I posted the actual testimony earlier in a very long post...you can read even more of it.  Nowhere in it does it say they can not conclude that Russia hacked the DNC.  You are talking about whether they have direct proof of exfiltration of the data...

The case actually has not fallen apart whatsoever if you read the actual testimony.

And it would be nice if we also had the full transcripts that the Trump DOJ won't release.

 
There is a blurb on MSNBC that says "Judge in the Flynn case appoints retired judge to argue against DOJ motion to withdraw charges".

 
Sinn Fein said:
Judge has ordered that Flynn's original defense attorney's enter an appearance in the case as an interested party.

I imagine there will be some questions asked around the guilty plea...
Click to expand...
Covington had him on the brink of skating with little to no jail time. And then.... 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

dozer
****Official DOJ Investigation into Trump, Fake Electors, Fraud, Etc.****
5 6 7
Replies
348
Views
11K
Sabertooth
Sabertooth
dozer
Ret. Lt. Gen Mike Flynn
2 3
Replies
104
Views
3K
Genxersrule
G
G
Mueller Investigation - Common Misconceptions (1-10)
Replies
0
Views
197
Guest
G

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 15 (members: 0, guests: 15)
Top