FBI Set Up Michael Flynn: “What is our goal? Truth/Admission or get him to lie”?
“What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute [him] or get him fired?”
Unsealed documents of a January 2017 interview with Michael Flynn, who was ultimately charged with making false statements to the FBI, certainly look like the entire point of the interview was “to get him to lie.”
#FLYNN docs just unsealed, including handwritten notes 1/24/2017 day of Flynn FBI interview. Transcript: “What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?” Read transcript notes, copy original just filed. @CBSNews pic.twitter.com/8oqUok8i7m
— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) April 29, 2020
The documents:
The handwritten notes up close:
?? DEVELOPING…
Unsealed FBI notes reveal the intent of the FBI’s 1/24/17 interview of Flynn:
“What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute [Flynn] or get him fired?”
FBI Notes confirm it was all a pretext. pic.twitter.com/Y4IDyE4YZm
— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) April 29, 2020
And you would know the FBI’s infamous love birds, former agent Strzock and attorney Page’s correspondence was part of the plan:
#FLYNN docs just unsealed, including emails between former FBI agent Strzok, former FBI lawyer Page and name REDACTED. Timing: Day before Flynn FBI interview 1/24/2017 Discuss how to warn Flynn lying to federal agents violation 18 USC 1001 — “casually slip that in” @CBSNews pic.twitter.com/83u6gasnfy
— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) April 30, 2020
Essentially:
My quick hot takes:
1) They set up a perjury trap but
2) When it didn't catch Flynn, they offered him a deal he couldn't refuse…we'll leave your son alone if you plea to a crime we know you didn't commit. https://t.co/rUB8qSsulr— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) April 29, 2020
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
so where does the general go to get his reputation, life savings, and his multi-generational family home back?
and let’s be honest, no matter what evidence they see and hear, no DC/Virginia Beltway swamp will convict anyone involved in this, even if someone manages to bring charges.
i wouldn’t put it past the other rats deliberately botching any filings, procedures, etc, just so their fellow traitors can walk away free, pensions & benefits intact, unlike our Constitution.
“…no DC/Virginia Beltway swamp JURY will convict…”
stupid fingers
that’s what i get for poasting s*ber.
and we are no longer a nation of laws.
no way in hello we are voting our way out of this orchestrated attack on our Constitution.
one thing, or another, has to give. your continued existence will depend on it.
chose wisely.
Powell about this and Flynn tonight.
https://youtu.be/fJhpPGA-TYo
Didn’t Trump write an XO stating that for crimes such as this there would be military tribunals instead of the traditional court trial? The reasoning was evidently to prevent a corrupt jury from ignoring obvious evidence and pronouncing the guilty as being innocent as well as to prevent the trials from going on for years and years.
Why would that be Constitutional?
His book will be an epic bombshell and sell millions.
He’ll at least be able to make his money back in this manner.
IF the media were honest, his reputation would be cleared and the culprits tarred; but as we know, the msm is s—.
Your Obama FBI, Ladies and Gentlemen. A purge at the top is needed
Not just a purge, scalps need to be taken, these slim bags need a taste of their own medicine. Could Flynn be a special prosecutor who runs these people through their own wringer?
So they need to be framed and denied their Constitutional rights?
They can have their right to remain silent while they hang based on the evidence. They can have their constitutional right to be incarcerated.
Can they be prosecuted for abuse under color of law?
Also, is there any chance of them being sued personally, total asset forfeiture, to allow Flynn to recover all he lost.
These people need to be destroyed.
At this point I’d be happy with framing these corrupt bastards with murder.
Turn about is fair play. They had the intention of overthrowing the election, of removing a duly elected president.
That is a coup and they should hang.
How the hell is Wray still head of the FBI?
Note to Self: If you are engineering a plot to overthrow the President, don’t keep notes.
between fisa and the flynn case maybe we need to flush the toilet one last time
Hate to tell ya, but it’s gonna take more than one flush!
If hot water and soap don’t do the trick it may be necessary to put on gloves and take a plastic knife to that mess.
Yes, but the plumber (Barr) is doing nothing
Joe DeGenova claims they’re building a conspiracy case.
I don’t get it. I mean, I know why the Nazis kept records: they thought they were destined to win all the things, it would never come out, and besides they were the good guys on the side of the immortals.
But why would the swamp creatures n Screaming-D’s write this kind of stuff down … oh, wait. Nevermind.
Yes the same reason as the Nazi.
I find myself struggling with this. Yes it seems clear to me that the FBI created a case against Lieutenant General Flynn but I’m struggling finding Flynn harmless. Fact is a retired Lieutenant General from the US Army intelligence command hired Covington and agreed not only agreed to a plea deal but was apparantly ready to give his allocution in court. Now we’re supposed to consider it was just the “deep state” against Flynn and awe shucks, he was “hoodwinked, bamboozled, lead astray” by his lawyers and the fabulous minds at the FBI! Not really a complementary position for a retired Lieutenant General to take, IMO. Seems maybe Flynn wasn’t a great choice for any cabinet level position if he was so darn naive.
So you expect a lay person to completely understand the laws in question. That is what we hire lawyers for. At the same time we expect the lawyers we hire to be advocates for us and us alone.
Covington filled out the FARA documents that Flynn and his son were being threatened with. Because of that they were just as culpable, the DOJ basically had covington snookered to throw their client Flynn under the bus. They obviously had a conflict that should have prevented them from representing Flynn. I don’t remember the term but the conflict was inexcusable and should have had the thrown out automatically.
Second the DOJ tried to threaten Flynn JR with the same false FARA violation, their plea agreement was coerced by threatening JR. They were obligated to report that to the judge and document it. they tried to cover it up because they knew it would blow the case up.
The results are the prosecutor tried to commit several frauds on the court.
Any lay person and most decent lawyers would have been buried by this case. It took someone at Sidney Powell’s level to open this up to sunlight.
WillS68 you can struggle with this all you want, but at the end of the day the DOJ and FBI committed several civil rights violations and several acts of perjury and thats all that matters.
You need to get up to speed on the facts. Flynn claims that the DOJ threatened to prosecute his son, who’d just had a baby, if he didn’t plea. The new documents seem to back that up. Another part of these new releases seems to show that the DOJ made a side deal with Flynn’s lawyers that he was not aware of. And we know from previously releases that his lawyers were conflicted and never revealed that to him.
You need to get up to speed on the facts. Flynn claims that the DOJ threatened to prosecute his son, who’d just had a baby, if he didn’t plea. The new documents seem to back that up. Another part of these new releases seems to show that the DOJ made a side deal with Flynn’s lawyers that he was not aware of. And we know from previously releases that his lawyers were conflicted and never revealed that to him.
Sorry for the double post.
Oh, and don’t forget that FBI/adulterer Peter Strozk, who interviewed Flynn, also texted to his lover, Lisa Page, about finding a way to get invited to a party with the original FISA judge on Flynn’s case, Contreras, because they were old friends and he wanted to talk to him without arousing suspicions. Contreras was forcible recused from the case after that little conflict came to light, which is why Sullivan now has it.
Oh, oh, and Strozk is also the one who tried to bury Anthony Weiner’s (Huma’s husband, who’s Hillary’s aide) laptop after the FBI seized it for sexting a minor but found, wait for it, what appeared to be all of Hillary’s missing emails, just two months before the 2016 election.
Oh, oh, oh, he was also in charge of counter espionage for the FBI, during the time that the Russians supposedly hacked the election.
Oh, and we don’t even know if the FBI ever examined the laptop. Or if they even still have possession of it.
Another computer that the FBI has no interest in is Paul Krugman’s! He admitted to having child porn on his server and Barr did nothing
Will, people routinely take plea deals and allocute to crimes they know they didn’t commit. It’s a scandal, but it’s a fact. It’s a scandal when the prosecutors truly believe that the defendant did commit the crime, or that he committed something worse; it’s even more of a scandal when the prosecutor has no such belief.
In addition, if they were investigating him in the first place for a Logan Act violation, that’s itself a scandal. There’s a reason nobody’s ever been prosecuted for it. Because prosecutors know that the moment a court gets a chance to strike it down it will. It hasn’t been struck down because for over 2 centuries prosecutors have kept it out of the courts’ hands. And that’s just against anyone; using it against an incoming administration is even more inexcusable.
I’m sure this was not on Trump’s radar, or on that of anyone on his transition team, but if I were in that position and it had occurred to me that the outgoing administration might pull this stunt I would have announced to everyone on the team that as far as we’re concerned the Logan Act is a nullity, and that should anyone be charged with it they will get a guaranteed pardon by 8pm on Jan 20th. Then tell that to Yates and her goons.
The Prisons are full of people who are really guilty. Or, innocent.
Let’s put it this way – even on the local level, there’s a whole lot more dirty prosecutors than the general public would like to think there are, and they pull these kinds of tricks all the time. What’s most shocking is that here we have the DOJ pulling the same kinds of tricks as the average dirty cop on the south side of Chicago, trying to take a cut of the street dealer’s stash for himself.
Comey, Strozk, McCabe, all of them – just two bit dirty cops who rose to an unbelievably high level.
There are dirty prosecutors. There are also clean prosecutors who sometimes honestly but mistakenly believe a suspect is guilty, and offer him a deal he can’t refuse. It happens all the time; I can’t believe there’s anyone who doesn’t know this. That’s why a guilty plea is no proof that someone committed a crime.
And Tom, citizens need to know that
and act on that knowledge.
“…Now we’re supposed to consider it was just the “deep state”
Yup.
When the full power of the FBI comes down and decides to make a citizen their chew toy, the best you can hope for is to make it out alive.
This isn’t about Flynn or his attorney and how they conducted themselves and what they did and didn’t do, it’s about how the FBI conducted itself and what it did and didn’t do. Someone can be guilty as hell and the FBI still needs to play it straight, conform with the law and procedure, and abide by the Constitution.
Keep your eye on the prize.
Better to let 1000 guilty go free than convict one innocent.
The FBI, OTOH, believes it best to convict 1000 innocent and let one guilty clinton go free.
The FBI has been an anti-American organization from its inception.
What about Civil lawsuits personally against the perps? Is that a possibility?
Yes, it most certainly is. Also, with Barr and Trump as president, I assume the DOJ will settle fast and big.
The case has to be dropped by the DOJ or dismissed by the judge for Flynn to have standing
Perhaps off-point, but off of today’s sidebar song I’ve had myself a 4-hour Life From Daryl’s House marathon.
On-point, this is how I’m keeping my act together, with today’s escalation of madness. For the longest time, I thought Schlichter’s Blue/Red civil war was an allegory, there was some intrinsic limit to govt malice n incompetence, and Heinlein’s Crazy Years were on a different timeline.
They haven’t shut down the music, yet. I still buy copies, on hard media when I can get it. Doubtless, they’ll come to burn those, too, before too long. But I’ll have access to the songs a bit longer, after they dial the interweb down to only “essential” content.
“Everything not compulsory is forbidden.”
This is a push on the first domino that will knock a lot more over. comey, mccabe, priestap, lynch, yates, clapper, brennan, page, strzok… there will be many more. This is beginning of the end of the obama presidency. his legacy will not only be left in ruins, it will go down in history as the most corrupt, lawless administration ever. ‘By the book’susan rice? I don’t think so.
They did his to him, what will they do to YOU?
They did THIS…
They have their plans.
Just ask any antifa browshirt.
I would love to run into an Antifa bunch now (I never will, I know), I could take down an entire street full of them myself. (so could you) I would just run at them, coughing loudly, and yelling “I TESTED POSITIVE!!!!” It would be so much fun to watch them scurrying away like cockroaches!!!
Dreyfus.
I think it would not have gotten this far unless the dominoes were already fallen. The is the announcement of a finished deal.
Anyone seen this yet?
Elise Stefanik
✔
@EliseStefanik
Devastating flashback clip of Comey just aired on @marthamaccallum show.
When asked who went around the protocol of going through the WH Counsel’s office and instead decided to send the FBI agents into White House for the Flynn perjury trap, Comey smugly responds “I sent them.”
Small aside – the FBI practice of memorializing interviews after the fact in 302’s is an abomination, a grievous insult to justice, and should be outlawed by Congress. Only a devious bastard like Hoover could have created such a slimy way to manufacture “evidence” against someone. If the Flynn 302’s (yes, both of them) are representative (and somehow I think they are), they aren’t worth the paper they are printed on.
Just as “all models are wrong, but some are useful,” all 302’s are fiction but some are useful.
This is even worse than what the DOJ did to Ted Stevens.
and again, no consequence will befall the guilty
Latest releases are small part of a puzzle dating back to 2015. Durham may prove conspiracy after all.
The FBI in its entirety is corrupt and has been since its inception. It should be disbanded. It does far more harm than good as what good it does can easily be handled by the states.
The FBI indeed has a troubled history. J. Edgar Hoover was an abomination. He belonged in a communist police state, but, boy, did he have good PR. Now that is seems every department and agency in the federal government has its own police force, I do question the need to have an FBI. Decentralized and disbursed police powers are likely less of a threat to liberty.
I have tried hard to figure out a suitable set of reforms, but cannot. They seem to think of themselves as a sort of Praetorian Guard who determines who may rule and who may not. It is, therefore, a direct challenge to our republic, the sovereignty of the people over the government, an our common mores and values of the decent utilization of state power and the administration of justice. I therefore conclude, with light consideration, it must be disbanded.
Indeed, J. Edgar went on to play a key role in the American Reich. 😉
(The Man in the High Castle).
Do you remember when the judge rejected the original motion for dismissal, and suggested Flynn committed treason? It turns out he was simply regurgitating what Rachel Maddow had said about the case the night before.
I hold the judge’s actions in this respect as egregious and firm grounds for appeal. The judge himself seems to have realized this after the fact with an apology.
In any event, my take was a little different. I though the judge was trying to goad Flynn into retracting his guilty plea, or be firm in making that plea. I think he delayed hearings and sentencing specifically to allow the Office of the Special Counsel to finalize its report and dissolve to bring Flynn out from under its threat to allow him a better hand.
I may be wrong, but that was my interpretation. We will see.
diGenova:
Remember when he [Judge Emmet Sullivan ] came out and he accused the General of committing treason and started asking him [Flynn] a series of questions that the prosecutors, who were fumbling, they didn’t know how to answer him? He said in a series of statements, the judge did, exact words, line for line that Rachel Maddow had said the night before on her show when commenting on the upcoming Flynn hearing.
Tucker Carlson on this tonight.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UJgRk1p8ktY
And the Media knew they and Hillary desire committing this crime at the time.
Paul Sperry
@
There are lies, damned lies & then there’s the dam of lies the NYT, WaPo & CNN have built to hold back truth about the #SpyGate scandal in which they’re co-conspirators. The Big Media knew the Hillary camp was working w the FBI to frame her opponent. They all knew it & buried it
The FBI and DOJ went after some people for political reasons. Now I’d like to see the DOJ investigate and prosecute those involved. Make them fight for their freedom the same way. I don’t care if DC courts acquit everyone as long as they are put through the same process. I’m suggesting this for those that broke and bent the law. Justice delayed is justice denied.
As they say, the process IS the punishment.
I assumed the case was toast when the judge first ordered the presentation of exculpatory evidence, and it wasn’t produced.
But the judge in in one of those history book situations, in which major institutions are apparently guilty of major felonies. Not to mention malfeasance by a huge law firm.
This is extreme politics, and the judge has to consider not only the merits and demerits, butvalso, who is going to win the power struggle.
His life could be on the line.
I’m expecting to see an orgy of those videos of Comey & Co, chastising Congress during their smug sanctimonious, preachy, obnoxious testimony a few years ago. The magnitude of their pompous and brazen lies to Congress is really infuriating. We need to restore hanging for traitors in the highest of high places.
The top brass of Obama’s FBI was so concerned that President Trump would pursue a foreign policy inconsistent with that pursued by President Obama that they were prepared to frame a 3 Star General and deny him his Constitutional rights.
And Barack Obama knew nothing about this? Pull my other finger. President Trump needs to take control of the DOJ. The charges against Flynn should be immediately dismissed and Christopher Wray should be fired.
The next time FBI Director Wray is up on the Hill, he should be read the riot act, saying that he can either resign or the next time the Hill finds something, anything redacted or withheld purely to cover for the mistakes of the FBI, he will be referred to the House for impeachment.
The top brass of Obama’s FBI was so concerned that President Trump would pursue a foreign policy inconsistent with that pursued by President Obama that they were prepared to frame a 3 Star General and deny him his Constitutional rights.
And Barack Obama knew nothing about this? Pull my other finger. President Trump needs to take control of the DOJ. The charges against Flynn should be immediately dismissed and Christopher Wray should be fired.
Conspiracy to remove a president because the establishment doesn’t like his foreign policy? They should make a movie.
Something like “[number] days in [month]”
If this doesn’t finally get the torches and pitchforks out, I don’t know if anything can.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/powell-unsealed-fbi-handwritten-notes-emails-reveal-agents-plotted-perjury-trap-flynn
The details jut get worse and worse and….
The dangerous and infuriating part of this is there is no downside for the deep state who perpetrated this miscarriage of justice. Pensions, promotions will continue as nothing will change.
Joe Biden was deeply involved in this.
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2020/04/29/joe-biden-was-at-meeting-where-james-comey-was-told-brief-trump/
Makes wonder if Slow Joe is just running as the firewall protecting Obama. Will he eventually be testifying that Obama knew nothing about any of this? Is that what Obama meant when he was overheard on live mic “Joe, you don’t have to do this.”?
Am I wrong in thinking Biden has hired the law firm that betrayed Flynn?
I’m a fairly new user of twitter. Started following Sydney Powell a couple of days ago. Today, I’m not following her, and when I searched for her on twitter, I couldn’t find her. I didn’t unfollow her.
Welcome to Twitter
There is no question that the Obama-shaped intelligence community was a gigantic sewer–as is everything involving our first hate-America president
IMO, this was dirty pool on the part of the FBI and DoJ. That said, Flynn was a former DNI, director of national intelligence. He had worked in the Obama administration with some of these folks. He had been in D.C. and knew the terrain was not favorable to PDJT nor his appointees.
I don’t know what was used to hang over his son’s head for prosecution and thus the ability to work to force a plea from Flynn. I don’t really think it’s relevant. He had the option to tell the prosecution to pound sand but didn’t. Instead he chose to enter a guilty plea.
His counsel at the time, Covington, was clearly not working in the best interest of Flynn and based on that alone the court should, IMO, allow him to withdraw his plea.
Final observation, I have a very hard time feeling sorry for Flynn. He wasn’t some naive newcomer to D.C. he was an experienced DC operator, appointed as the incoming NSA, national security adviser. How could he have allowed himself to be maneuvered into the interview without counsel present?
Possibly because he thought, as one of the “in crowd” they would never f**k with him.
As for his son, imagine if someone threaten to run your son through the mill as they had just done to you. It wouldn’t matter that your son hadn’t done anything. Again, the process is the punishment. Would you want your son to go through it?
DaveGinOly,
Flynn was NOT part of the ‘in crowd’; he was the exact opposite. He was an experienced D.C. guy, a former head of DIA and former deputy DNI. He knew where the bodies were buried, knew how to work the levers of power he would hold in the DC system as the NSA.
The man was run out of town very publicly and with little decorum when he was fired as DIA by the Obama administration. So please stop deluding yourself that Flynn was in any way a part of the ‘cool DC in crowd’. He wasn’t and THAT is why he was targeted for removal.
I wouldn’t want anyone’s child subjected to a politically motivated prosecution and used, in an unethical if not outright illegal manner, as a bargaining chip in some fraudulent plea bargain to make the process stop.
The investigation/prosecution team is dirty as hell, every day more facts demonstrating what they would do to get a conviction or guilty plea comes out.
None of that changes the fact that Flynn should have, IMO:
1. Not met law enforcement officials without counsel. No one should ever do that. If no meeting then no perjury trap.
2. Told them to pound sand and go to trial.
What were they going to do? Charge the incoming NSA with a Logan Act violation? No way the DoJ would try that case in front of a jury.
“IMO, this was dirty pool on the part of the FBI and DoJ.”
No kidding chief, you think?
It’s not about Flynn and it’s not about “dirty pool”.
It’s about a corrupt group at the top of our government trying to overturn an election.
This is called a coup and that is what this is about.
Barry,
Yeah I do think it was dirty, that’s why I stated that. I don’t disagree that this cabal at FBI and DoJ and the Intel community was going to use whatever pretext they could to attempt to get PDJT. I don’t disagree that Flynn and his son got caught up in that effort.
I do believe that Flynn made a rookie mistake that is, IMO, inexcusable in someone of his background and experience in talking to the FBI without an attorney from the WH counsels office present.
CommoChief
Flynn did not have counsel because he didn’t think he was the subject of a criminal investigation. He wasn’t given a Miranda warning. He pled guilty to save his son from being prosecuted and I guess ruined.
Why do you ignore the fact that the FBI threatened to prosecute Flynn’s son if he did not plead guilty? The FBI’s conduct was reprehensible reprehensible and illegal. I hope that Comey McCabe, Strzok and Page are prosecuted and that Flynn is awarded a gazillion dollars in damages.
Terence,
I didn’t ignore the FBI threatened prosecution of Flynn’s son, as I stated above, I don’t think it is relevant. IMO, Flynn should have told the prosecution to pound sand with this attempt to blackmail him into a confession. Not allowing yourself to be blackmailed is counterintelligence 101.
Look the whole way the prosecution went about this was dirty pool. I agree with you that, if a case can be made against the prosecution/investigation team, it should be made.
I just have a problem with the idea that a former deputy DNI, a former Director of DIA, defense intelligence agency, and a former intelligence officer with three decades of experience who was fired publicly due to severe differences with the Obama administration, would allow himself to be maneuvered into this situation.
All Flynn had to do is say ‘gee fellas we are real busy with getting our team into place so how about you send me an email listing your questions and concerns with a cc to WH counsels office and I will get back to you asap.’
This isn’t some hick or rube we are talking about, this was an experienced D.C. operator who had very good reason to know that the Obama administration holdovers hated his guts. IMO, he allowed himself to be compromised. Whatever the reason, naivety ain’t cutting it as a realistic excuse.
You forget, they are making up sh1t to frame him and will do the same for his son. Sorry, he was protecting his son. System is broken and needs to be fix. Flynn did the right thing. Protected his son and exposed the whole thing.
MarkSmith,
By all means, expose the system and it’s bad actors. My point is:
1. As an experienced D.C. operator and fired member of the Obama administration don’t take a meeting with Obama administration FBI holdovers without counsel. That point was as obvious then as it is now. No meeting = no perjury trap.
2. Refuse the prosecution offer. Pound sand let’s go to court. I don’t know what he has spent on legal fees since this began but it would have been more economical, in hindsight, to go to trial.
3. No offense but his son is a grown ass man. Adults are responsible for their own actions. Maybe we can agree that it is somehow noble of Flynn to choose to be sacrificed instead of his son being held accountable for his own actions. Still, that isn’t Flynn’s legal issue to bear, it is his son’s.
4. Prosecution/Investigation team played dirty pool. If there is a case to make against these folks then I certainly welcome their prosecution.
5. Flynn isn’t some naive newcomer to the swamp, he lived and worked within the swamp and knew it’s danger. For whatever reason he allowed himself to be ambushed and compounded the error by making, what the FBI alleged, is a false statement.
6. Lessons for everyone:
A. Prosecutors and investigators will try to trick you.
B. Their job is putting folks in jail. Folks like you.
C. They will, to quote a favourite movie, ‘use any means necessary, fair or unfair to weed you out, to trip you up and expose your flaws as a human being’.
D. Don’t say anything about anything to a prosecutor/investigator without counsel present.
E. If no counsel present say ‘I need to run it by my attorney’. Then shut up. Don’t try and be Mr Smart man of the world who doesn’t think that an attorney is needed.
F. Don’t expect much sympathy from me if you can’t or won’t follow those simple lessons. You haven’t earned it.
7. Don’t think it can’t happen
Commochief,
You might want to look at what the other commentators are saying through a different lens. Think about the FBI as the MOB. Even taking reasonable precautions doesn’t help. (nice store ya got here….be a shame if anything should happen to it) The FBI may not have had anything on Flynn’s son but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t make something up.
gmac124,
I appreciate that. If the above post specifically point 6A thru 6E didn’t make clear that I believe the FBI is fully capable of abusing its power for its own ends, then just let me stipulate to that as fact.
This whole conversation about Flynn and the FBI/DoJ needs some context of a few basic facts:
Fact- Obama administration holdovers wanted Flynn gutted and would do whatever it took to do so.
Fact- Flynn, having been fired by the Obama administration knew that these folks were not his friends.
Fact- Flynn was entering the Trump administration as the new National security adviser. His third tip top DC job. That is leaving aside his military service concluding as an LTG. He wasn’t some naive kid from EastBumF-k on his first week in DC.
I believe we can all agree on those points as facts. Now knowing this why oh why did Flynn meet without counsel?
IMO, he got cocky and let his guard down believing that he could handle whatever these folks threw at him without a lawyer present. I believe if you asked him he would say the same. He might express it a bit differently but that would be a fair restatement.
Now in closing, I don’t think Flynn deserves to be put in jail. Quite the opposite. I believe Judge Sullivan should dismiss the charges.
I also believe that every bad actor associated with this political prosecution should be held to account. Loss of pensions, criminal charges, disbarred etc, what can be done should be done as an object lesson to the remainder of the FBI/DoJ that there are consequences to launching and conducting a politically motivated prosecution.
The most important facet of the “behavior” of the FBI operatives here is how matter of fact, how casual it was. Stated differently, when any FBI interview is upcoming, the FBI participants decide up front “what our motivation is”. Stating the obvious, these operatives conduct their business on a regular basis by utilizing the “behavior”. Forget the President, forget General Flynn, and General Flynn’s son, this organizational “behavior” is business as usual with the FBI.
As you struggle to digest that, if the FBI is willing to risk using such “behavior” against the most powerful of us, what are their limits with those of us who have no power, no voice, those that don’t have the luxury of being represented by the most connected criminal counsel (Covington & Burling) and the most effective criminal counsel (Sidney Powell).