Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe derided the Justice Department’s decision to drop its criminal case against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn Thursday as “pure politics designed to please the president.”
The FBI was obligated to interview him to better understand why he was talking to Russian officials. During the interview, he lied about the substance of his conversations with those officials. His lies added to our concerns about his relationship with the Russian government. Later, under oath in Federal Court, he twice admitted to lying to the FBI.
As one does, if one is …
“an innocent man” – Trump [said]
Fox wins again.We all know where this came from.And they (Trump) was warned.
Barr isn’t done yet. Trump boasts when he gets hit he hits back ten times as hard. Revenge/retaliation is certainly in the top three of emotions that drive his actions. I look for investigations possibly leading to indictments and prosecutions of some involved in the process of pursuing and prosecuting Flynn. At minimum Barr will be forced to finesse some sort of professional sanctions, whatever, I’m at a loss what’s available to him but Trump will see to it he exercises it. No one crosses Trump without it becoming his Priority #1 they pay for it.
Remember to ask the FBI if they have a properly predicated investigation before deciding whether or not to tell them the truth, folks.
What a message to send to the American people. Just plain disgraceful.
Nixon was an underachiever.
He needed a good AG.
“Trump boasts when he gets hit he hits back ten times as hard.”
Really tasting blood after this one.
After Mitchell and Kleindienst.
Oldie but a goodie:
Excerpt:
So let’s get this timeline straight.
August 2014: Flynn is ousted by Obama at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
June 2015: Trump announces his plan to run for president.
August 2015: Trump meets with Flynn for an hour and a half at Trump Tower.
December 2015: Flynn is paid by the Russian government to speak at a gala in Moscow and is seated at the same table as Vladimir Putin.
February 2016: Flynn starts acting as an informal policy advisor to the Trump campaign.
Got all that? Trump said in the interview last night that he didn’t think he knew Flynn in 2015. But he definitely did. Not only that, but by early 2016, Trump was being advised by Flynn on foreign policy matters during the campaign.
…there was no need to interview him, an act “undertaken only to elicit those very false statements and thereby criminalize Mr. Flynn.”
This is a patently false statement: the purpose of the counter-intelligence investigation is determine if the subject poses a risk, and what kind of risk that is. Interviewing Flynn about his conversations with Kislyak is more about determining his disposition towards those calls than gathering additional verbal information on them. Flynn’s lying shows consciousness of culpability, which is what the investigation is trying to determine.
Casting the interview the way Barr has is sophistry: it deliberately misrepresents an interview as nothing more than a verbally factual exchange of information.
https://intelligence.house.gov/russiainvestigation/
Russia Investigation Transcripts and Documents
This is not going to go quietly into the night.
History teaches us that if you hit someone hard enough, they never, ever hit back again.
Martha Stewart did Federal Time for lying to the FBI about a pretty small insider stock transaction. It certainly wasn’t as important as sanctions relief for the Russians who hold receipts on DJT.
Hmm I’m trying to remember when Barr pulled out that old sophistry wand and told the country that some kind of report said one thing, when in fact it said the opposite? Someone help me out here, cause I just can’t keep all this covering and uncovering straight.
Well, maybe the virus will get him.He cannot get away with everything all the time. Justice has to prevail at some point.
" He was an innocent man with documented evidence against him who pled guilty. Just like innocent men everywhere."
i would like an interviewer to ask Bob Mueller if he would have brought charges if Trump was not president. i would like the unredacted Mueller Report made public. i wonder what Michael Cohen knows about Russia/Flynn. there are questions to be asked.
Bill Clinton’s responses under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky were not “material” - to the Whitewater investigation - even if they were “untrue.” Nevertheless, they led to his impeachment, a Senate trial and disbarment.
The Department’s position that the FBI had no reason to interview Mr. Flynn… ignores the considerable national security risk his contacts raised…
Republicans are weak on defense.