Thursday, March 28, 2024

Explaining The Case of General Flynn: A Set-Up From The Start

Lt. General Michael T. Flynn was set up by “rogue elements” of the FBI. Unsealed documents now in the public record proves it for anyone looking at this case with a sober mind.

The end goal for those involved in this “case” was never to find the truth of an allegation, as any legitimate investigation would do. Instead, the end goal of this “investigation” was to persecute a man for standing on the wrong side of bureaucratic power.

The most damning of the documents comes in the form of handwritten notes (pictured below).

It isn’t made clear by the document who is writing the notes, so I will refer to him merely as “the author”.

It’s worth noting that Maria Bartiromo reported notes sounding exactly like these would be released in the coming days. In her report, she said the notes were taken by James Baker who was then the General Counsel for the FBI.

The notes describe a change of heart by whomever is writing them on just how to proceed with the Flynn interview that was going to be conducted in the White House. The critical part of the notes start by saying:

“Yesterday, I agreed that we shouldn’t show Flynn [redacted] if he didn’t admit. I thought about this last night, and I believe we should rethink this. What’s our goal? Truth/admission, or to get him to lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired? We regularly show suspects evidence with the goal of getting them to admit their wrongdoing.”

The author is describing the difference between investigating General Flynn with good faith, and persecuting him for being on the wrong side of the political aisle.

At the time, Flynn was under investigation for a violation of the Logan Act. This allegation was based around a phone call that Flynn had with the Russian ambassador: Sergei Kislyak. On the call, there was a brief discussion about sanctions where no commitments were made either way. This supposedly constituted a violation of the Logan Act. The allegation was specious and worthy of mockery.

Nonetheless, Flynn was being investigated for a violation of the Logan Act.

If these rogue elements of the FBI were actually pursuing a Logan Act case, then they would show Flynn the evidence of him talking about sanctions on the call with Kislyak. That would force him to admit his “wrongdoing”, as the notes’ author says. But his position wasn’t the popular one.

The notes go on to say:

“I don’t see how getting someone to admit their wrongdoing is going easy on them. If we get him to admit to breaking the Logan Act, then hand it to the DOJ and let them decide what to do with it.”

The notes seem to counter the argument that was given to the author by those who didn’t want to show Flynn the transcript of his call with Kislyak. From these notes, we can reasonably assume that these people didn’t want to show Flynn the transcript because it would constitute “going easy on him”.

But how would that be?

It’s easy enough to determine. The DOJ would laugh this Logan Act case out of their building as soon as it landed on a prosecutor’s desk. There was no way that any federal prosecutor would take a 3-Star general, and incoming National Security Advisor, to court for doing his job. That would be a smoldering and disgraceful end to the career of whichever prosecutor was dumb enough to touch that case. These FBI agents seemed to know that. And they didn’t want to “go easy” on Flynn.

The notes go on:

“Or, if he initially lies, then we present him [redacted] and he admits it, document for DOJ, and let them decide how to address it.”.

The author of these notes is now describing a more hard-nosed way of dealing with the Flynn interview that would still have a tenuous connection to legitimate law enforcement.

In this scenario, it is left to the DOJ to decide whether or not Flynn intentionally lied—or whether he simply misremembered the events of his call with Kislyak. Evidently, this also constituted “going easy” on Flynn. But how come?

Because the DOJ would laugh this one out of the building even more quickly than the first scenario. Not only did they bring a ridiculous Logan Act case that nobody would prosecute, now they were bringing a case over someone not remembering the specific events of a phone call. That sort of case—lying to a federal agent—is almost never worth bringing to court, unless it’s an absolute slam dunk.

Disgraced former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was a recent beneficiary of this.

The method, despite its hard-nosed tactics, still represented “going easy” on Flynn.

For starters, there was no way it resulted in a prosecution. There was also no way it resulted in much of a public scandal for Flynn, because this case is just so laughably absurd. But it was deeper than that. In reality, this option was unacceptable for the same reason the first option was unacceptable.

In either case, it would require the FBI being honest about the predicate for the interview.

They couldn’t cryptically claim that Flynn was in deep contacts with Kremlin officials, possibly as part of some nefarious collusion scheme that didn’t exist. If this was about collusion between Trump and the Russians, then Flynn’s lie about his conversation with Russians about sanctions had the appearance of meaning. It felt much worse than merely misremembering the details of a phone call, after the FBI questioned the National Security Adviser for doing his job. They had no case if they were honest about the interview’s predicate, and so they lied about it. For what it’s worth, the author really didn’t agree with the games that were apparently being played.

The notes go onto say:

“If we’re seen as playing games, the WH (White House) will be furious. Protect the institution by not playing games.”

That part is self-explanatory. This was the author screaming at the moon, desperately hoping the people around him wouldn’t bring a flamethrower to the reputation of the FBI. Ambushing Flynn in an interview, and making him perfectly recall the events of one phone call out of a thousand was—in the author’s view—playing games.

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