Professor Jonathan Turley Corrects Obama About ‘Precedent’ in Michael Flynn Case
“It is a curious statement. First and foremost, Flynn was not charged with perjury…”
In Obama’s recent ‘leaked’ phone call, he claimed that there is no precedent for someone charged with perjury getting off scot-free.
In a thread on Twitter, Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University offered a free lesson on the subject. See below:
President Obama is being quoted on Flynn, saying “There is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free.” It is a curious statement. First and foremost, Flynn was not charged with perjury… https://t.co/fWlSFWkp8S
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 9, 2020
Second, we now know Obama discussed charging Flynn under the Logan Act which has never been used successfully to convict anyone and is flagrantly unconstitutional. Third, this reaffirms reports that Obama was personally invested in this effort. Finally, there is precedent…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 9, 2020
There is a specific rule allowing for this motion under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48(a). There are specific Supreme Court cases like Rinaldi v. United States addressing the standard for such dismissals….
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 9, 2020
The Justice Department has dismissed cases in the past including the Stevens case.That was requested by President Obama’s own Attorney General Eric Holder for the same reason: misconduct by prosecutors. It was done before the same judge, Judge Sullivan. How is that for precedent?
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 9, 2020
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Comments
Perjury, you mean like Billy Jeff’s impeachment?
1 – For someone who touted his bona fides as “a professor teaching constitutional law”, Obama occasional displays surprising holes in his knowledge of America and American law. As we see here. But the most glaring example, imho, was the time he was on camera during his first campaign unsure how many states there are – this despite having already served in the US Senate where every floor vote should have underlined that there are 50 states, 2 senators to a state.
2 – Obama is a petty petty man. I know Trump gets accused of this as well, but that doesn’t give O a pass. Flynn worked for Obama in his first term, was willing to tell Obama to his face when he thought his Middle East policies weren’t going to work, and got sidelined as a result. Guess what? His Middle East policies didn’t work. Not too surprising, every president since Eisenhower has had that problem. A more secure man would have let being told the Emperor wasn’t wearing any clothes go, but it looks like Obama was the driver behind screwing over Flynn.
Um, the “57 states” thing is mostly a joke we tell each other. He never actually said or meant that there were 57 states. If you listen to the recording it’s very clear what happened: He started to say he’d been to all 50 states, and in mid-sentence remembered that he’d only been to 47, so he tried to edit his words and it came out as “I’ve been to all fifty….seven states”. There’s a distinct pause after “fifty”, where he did this rethink.
It’s the same sort of slip of the tongue that everybody has, and it’s unfair to keep using it against him, except that he kind of deserved it because his news reporter allies kept doing the same to Republicans’ slips of the tongue, no matter how obvious they were.
E.g. when Cheney, after several times saying that the US believed Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program, and was trying to build nuclear weapons, he slipped once and omitted the word “program”. It was completely obvious that he didn’t actually mean that Iraq had reconstituted nuclear weapons, not only because he’d said otherwise multiple times in the same interview, but also because what would that even mean? How does one reconstitute a weapon? Just add water?! The whole thing was ridiculous, and yet every Dem with a byline thundered that Cheney had lied.
And that was just one example of many. So when 0bama had his slip, even though it was obvious what he had meant to say, turnabout was fair play and it was fun to pretend he didn’t know how many states there are. But let’s not forget that it was a pretense.
He really did say “corpsemen”, though.
1 – For someone who touted his bona fides as “a professor teaching constitutional law”, Obama occasional displays surprising holes in his knowledge of America and American law. As we see here. But the most glaring example, imho, was the time he was on camera during his first campaign unsure how many states there are – this despite having already served in the US Senate where every floor vote should have underlined that there are 50 states, 2 senators to a state.
2 – Obama is a petty petty man. I know Trump gets accused of this as well, but that doesn’t give O a pass. Flynn worked for Obama in his first term, was willing to tell Obama to his face when he thought his Middle East policies weren’t going to work, and got sidelined as a result. Guess what? His Middle East policies didn’t work. Not too surprising, every president since Eisenhower has had that problem. A more secure man would have let being told the Emperor wasn’t wearing any clothes go, but it looks like Obama was the driver behind screwing over Flynn.
Obama had to take down Flynn because Flynn could expose Obama’s rampant middle east failures that our press covered up during his terms.