Andrew C. McCarthy on the latest revelations in the Flynn case
The news that’s been coming out recently on the Flynn case would be shocking if we hadn’t already suspected as much from the start. But here’s the latest:
In the motion, [Flynn’s lawyer] Powell argues that the new information “proves Mr. Flynn’s allegations of having been deliberately set up and framed by corrupt agents.” She elaborates that the evidence that has finally been communicated to her “defeats any argument that the interview of Mr. Flynn on January 24, 2017, was material to any ‘investigation.’ The government has deliberately suppressed this evidence from the inception of this prosecution — knowing there was no crime by Mr. Flynn.”
…[I]t has long been speculated that Flynn — though he did not believe he was guilty (and though the agents who interviewed him also did not believe he had intentionally misled them) — nevertheless pled guilty to false-statements charges because prosecutors from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s staff threatened him. Specifically, Flynn is said to have been warned that, if he refused to plead guilty, prosecutors would charge his son with a felony for failing to register with the Justice Department as a foreign agent. Such a so-called FARA violation (Foreign Agent Registration Act) is a crime that the DOJ almost never charged before the Mueller investigation, and it had dubious application to Flynn’s son (who worked for Flynn’s private-intelligence firm).
Well, Powell now contends that the new disclosures demonstrate that Mueller’s prosecutors — she specifically cites Brandon Van Grack, who now runs Justice’s FARA unit — did indeed promise Flynn that they would not charge his son if Flynn pled guilty. Worse, Powell avers that the prosecutors coerced Flynn and his counsel to keep this agreement secret. That is, this was to be a side deal that would not be written into the plea agreement and therefore would be kept from the court and the public.
Under federal law, all understandings that are relevant to a guilty plea must be disclosed to the judge. It would be not merely a serious ethical breach for government lawyers to fail to reveal such an arrangement. It would be a fraud on the court.
Much more at the link.
No one on the right will be surprised at any of this. No one on the left will care about it. And I’m not the least bit sure anything will be done about it.
And that’s where we stand today.
Can you just imagine the MSM, if the roles were reversed?
Is Flynn currently in prison? If the DOJ doesn’t immediately let him go, Trump should issue a full pardon, now.
Now, let’s talk about “prosecutorial misconduct”…
In all of the confusion about his guilt or innocence, I’m really puzzled by why it was so important for them to get rid of him. Once again the question arises…”what don’t I know?”
Roy Nathanson:
Flynn is not in prison. He hasn’t even been sentenced, and his sentencing has been indefinitely postponed while the whole thing is being investigated.
SueK,
My understanding is that Obama and his cronies *really, really, really* disliked Flynn from when he ran the Defense Intelligence Agency. They viewed him with a particular animus. And when Trump announced that he wanted Flynn to be his National Security Advisor, Obama and his adjuncts in the FBI and DOJ decided to get rid of him with a malicious prosecution.
why it was so important for them to get rid of him
He accords with Trump’s view of foreign policy; knows the perfidy of the Intel “community” from the inside of Obama’s admin (among others); would have facilitated ditching the Iran deal, undoing Obama’s darling baby; would have reformed Intel agencies from the jump, and maybe worst from the Obamite perspective, is highly competent in his field. They feared him. He’s a spook.
They may indeed have particularly despised Flynn and wanted him gone. But I think there was a bigger reason, which is that they saw him as uniquely vulnerable because of his son’s vulnerability, and they strongly hoped that their pressure would cause Flynn to implicate Trump.
They were really after Trump in all of this.
Thanks Neo. A casual search didn’t offer up that info.
Neo is correct. What I forgot to mention is that by targeting Flynn in this way, it was an attempt to strangle the Trump administration in its crib. This, the Steele Dossier, etc., — all are related.
” Specifically, Flynn is said to have been warned that, if he refused to plead guilty, prosecutors would charge his son with a felony for failing to register with the Justice Department as a foreign agent. Such a so-called FARA violation (Foreign Agent Registration Act) is a crime that the DOJ almost never charged before the Mueller investigation, and it had dubious application to Flynn’s son (who worked for Flynn’s private-intelligence firm)…..”
Is this not blackmail?
If Powell’s allegations are true, those in the DOJ and Meuller’s special counsel and FBI who decided to railroad Flynn should be executed; preferably by hanging. Further, all Flynn’s legal expenses + 200% of his legal expenses should be taken from the perpetrators and turned over to Flynn.
But IMHO, nothing at all all will happen to the perps, other than being forced to retire but still retaining their pensions.
Up to this point Judge Sullivan’s lack of curiosity re FBI skullduggery is troubling.
I found this on another site (Powerline) – sorry, my copy didn’t include the link for some reason.
It sounded reasonable and in agreement with the explanations above as well as a bit more explicit and inclusive. Makes the effort to get him condemned and imprisoned a bit more “reasonable”.
“Bonnie
Flynn allowed himself to be used as a canary trap. He was part of the team that informed Trump in the first place that he was going to be fighting against the entire Deep State, along with all of their spouses/brothers/wives/relatives in the media. They are all intermarried and connected. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than the Deep State.
Now they’re caught. These FBI bureaucrats committed treason and broke the law multiple times in their pursuit of Flynn. With his exoneration, the DOJ can then turn around and prosecute these people. And then roll up the entire stinking mess. Brennan, Comey, McCabe, Strozk, Page, Clapper, and more.
It’s going to be glorious. ”
I don’t know about that last sentence…wishful thinking, I’m afraid. I’m wishing with her, but don’t intend to bet the farm on it!
LeClerc – on the other hand, if he had sided with Powell (Flynn’s lawyer) earlier, she wouldn’t have kept digging and turned up the really deeply buried bones.
His prior lawyers may be on the hook for ethical and criminal charges as well.
And yet, anyone want to lay odds that the next time someone tries to allege the boys and girls in the law enforcement/intelligence community are playing fast and loose with the rules, McCarthy will be automatically deferential to them the way he was at the start of this whole mess?
Mike
MBunge,
Yes, this has been my thing with McCarthy he went on and on forever about what a stand up fellow his friend Bob Mueller was and blah blah blah and while he may a bit more questioning now he still seems to take too unquestioning of a view of things involving the DOJ.
Hell of a note. Fox had it right…the entire collusion thing on to whatever’s happening today.
MBunge:
That has been McCarthy’s tendency, yes.
But his disillusionment with Comey et al became quite profound, and he publicly ate crow about it (can’t find the column right now). I don’t think he’ll ever be quite that naive and trusting again.
The Democrats are evil. Not just wrong. Not just misguided. Evil. Morally retarded and evil.
That includes the news media as the propaganda wing of the D party.
Evil.
If America is to survive, we have to destroy the evil aligned against it.
I hope Pres. Trump not only pardons him
but re-appoints him to the post of National Security Advisor.
Flynn needs to be brought back into the Trump admin. He knows waaaaay too much about Obama admin illegal activities.
Yeah, Ray, and he may know waaaaay too much about SparkleFarts’ spying, on foes of the Iran deal, as described by Lee Smith.
More interesting developments.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/04/28/former-flynn-counsel-finds-6800-new-pages-of-evidence-not-turned-over-judge-sullivan-is-not-amused/
Big oopsy – blamed it on the IT guys for not understanding they wanted everything searched, and claim they only checked a subsection for keywords rather than specifying a broader search — and besides, they already handed over 600,000-plus records, whaddayawant!!
Commenters at CTH with experience in litigation discovery point out that firms like C&B do these searches all the time, and they don’t miss that many relevant documents unless they want to. Speculation is that they got word somehow that DOJ or Powell has some of the docs already, and they better get ahead of the eight ball.
What are the mysterious revelations in the sealed papers?
Maybe this:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/04/27/maria-bartiromo-expands-on-her-flynn-exoneration-claim-james-baker-notes-highlight-fbi-set-up/
“Apparently, former FBI chief legal counsel James Baker made notes surrounding the FBI meeting where agent Peter Strzok and agent Joseph Pientka interviewed National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. According to Bartiromo James Baker’s notes are exculpatory in that they show the intent and purpose of the FBI interview was to set-up Lt Gen. Flynn.”
Suspense builds.
The way I see it there are three big issues that the future of the USA hangs on. The resolution – or not – of these issues is what will determine our fate as a free republic.
1. The individual must have control over his/her personal data with severe legal and financial remedies for violations of privacy. No more signing off your data rights just to use your new iPhone.
2. Lawfare. The discrepancy between governmental and private legal resources needs to be addressed. The Flynn case is just one of many. Remove the immunity of government prosecutors and make them civilly liable for overreach.
3. I don’t know how to address this constitutionally but I am sick to death of the incestuous gov/media/think tank/academy/ngo class. One per family. Period.
If we can’t get these issues straightened out satisfactorily with the representation we’ve got, it’s time for America 2.0
im sorry but these actions indicate this is not the nation i though I grew up in. Müllers actions are right out of the Nazi/ Stasi playbook . what is it with Germans? even before there were nazis they had a long history of genocide?
Molly Brown,
I think America 2.0 isn’t happening without bloodshed. Terrifying. It pains my naturally optimistic outlook to say that.
Trump was the first chance to avoid that bloodshed. We all know how that’s been going.
Strangely, I would lump the present crisis (COVID-19) in with the first chance: crisis being danger and opportunity as they say. If the healthy states come out of this strong, if the governors who went way too far ( far too soon) come out of this politically weakened we could see a lot of reform, especially on China’s economic and political influence and manipulation.
Sue K,
I think that would be nice if it were true. But I can’t see General Flynn putting his son in jeopardy too. And he’s a sharp enough guy that he would know these evil SOBs would go after his family in the process.
I do think Flynn is savvy enough, and dutiful enough to make it clear to the POTUS not to pardon him or even speak of possible pardon it until it is all said and done. If he is eventually sentenced, I think there will be a pardon. I also think if impeachment hadn’t been dragged out as long as it was, that Flynn would have accepted the sentence, knowing after impeachment proceedings, Trump could pardon him. But they had to delay while impeachment was dragged out as long as possible and beyond all sense propriety.
The forces arrayed against POTUS and his allies (and us) are staggering. I’m pleasantly surprised they’ve been able to fight the corruption as much as they have.
And I too hope that if/when Flynn is exonerated (I still don’t trust Judge Emmett Sullivan), that POTUS nominates him again to whatever position helps him do the most damage to the Deep State.
Molly Brown,
You are talking about procedures. But no procedural fixes will make a difference if the people in government in charge of the implementation are corrupt. And, it is becoming clear that “there is something rotten in the state of Denmark”.
There must be a thorough house cleaning in Washington. No administration can make and execute sound and effective policy when it is being opposed and undermined every step of the way by the very bureaucracy that is supposed to serve it.
Old construction saying: “When you are up to your ass in alligators, it is hard to remember that you set out to drain the swamp.”
“I don’t think he’ll ever be quite that naive and trusting again.“
One can hope but McCarthy is a former assistant U.S. attorney who now acknowledges that federal law enforcement was weaponized to try and unseat/overthrow an elected U.S. President. If that doesn’t radicalize you, nothing will and I don’t get any sense McCarthy has been radicalized.
This mess has exposed a clear need for meaningful reform of the FISA process. There will be committed resistance to any such reform. Is McCarthy angry enough to push through such resistance or will he just shrug his shoulders when the reform effort fails?
Mike
D. D. Eisenhower: “Whenever I run into a problem I can’t solve, I always make it bigger. I can never solve it by trying to make it smaller, but if I make it big enough, I can begin to see the outlines of a solution.”
Where’d he learn that?
I don’t know, but may conjecture he picked it up from James Madison. Where ever it came from, it’s a useful, crafty thing we’d do well to recollect.
Last time I checked Andy McCarthy was not (add all caps in your mind if you need it) a member of Congress. So his ability to “push through” resistance to such reform depends on his ability to influence others, including you. You have to exert your influence on the Congress critters IMO.
“So his ability to “push through” resistance to such reform depends on his ability to influence others, including you. You have to exert your influence on the Congress critters IMO.”
And how do you exert such influence? By making a reasonable argument and then just forgetting about it when your reasonable argument is unreasonably rejected? Or do you exert influence by making it perfectly clear that failure to act will result in negative consequences? Like McCarthy writing repeatedly in National Review that people should stop voting for Republicans or donating money to the GOP?
McCarthy is a former law enforcement official who now admits the enforcement of the law was corrupted in a way he never thought possible. What is he actually going to do about it? Has he even gotten into a Twitter spat with one of the NeverTrumpers who has studiously avoided engaging with anything McCarthy has written on the Russia Hoax?
Mike
You do it by talking and writing to Congress, or by smacking the pinata McCarthy? And how is McCarthy to implement those negative consequences? How do you do that Mike? He doesn’t play in the Twitter sewer in the way you would approve? Sad.
For all these reasons he doesn’t meet the MBunge stamp of approval, so under the bus he goes. Oh well, when you find the perfect knight let me know.
Fractal Rabbit,
The country can split up legally and without bloodshed. Article V in the Constitution.
If it enough states decide to exit the union, that’s how it will be done.
What we are seeing right now with the corona virus and some states deciding to go ahead and open up without a federal stamp of approval is a glimmer of the future.
Just wait until we have a democratic administration that tells the fossil fuel producing states to shut down those industries. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” You know how California loves to brag that if they were an independent country they would be the 7th biggest economy in the world? Well, Texas is right behind them and they have actually BEEN an independent country!
Sadly, and as much as I appreciate Trump’s efforts, he’s just providing us with all the evidence we need to know that – as Avi says; ‘the nation I grew up in is gone.
I am more committed to the idea of ‘liberty’ than 50 ‘united’ states.
Cont’d.
Ironically, the left has laid the psychological groundwork for the eventual dissolution of the country by constantly denigrating our history and delegitimizing our founding principles. How many of the kids brought up on the ‘Zinn’ school of American history are going to think keeping the USA together is worth fighting for?
And as for all the illegals and ‘refugees’ the left has let in – where do you think their loyalties lie?
Molly, very good start.
Roy, good start, esp. on “There must be a thorough house cleaning in Washington”.
I say, not only in Washington, but in the whole country’s Elite culture, starting with the MSM.
Fractal, indeed, America 2.0 isn’t happening without bloodshed, *unless* Barr/ Durham can make such big busts of Barry’s SparkleFarters (and their MSM allies), such that the relatively-sane segments of the Elites face the music, that huge segments of these Elites are so deranged, as to present existential threats to this civilization.
If Sidney Powell can inflict upon the Feds the most humiliating Courtroom defeat in D.S. history, I’ll have hope that the saner Elites (e.g. Andy McC., Mitch, and Miss Lindsey) will *really* start to wake up.
If Barr/ Durham can bust a slew of SparkleFarters, and at least some of their MSM shills, I’ll hope that more of the saner Elites will wake up, enough to guarantee DJT 4 more years.
If DJT can get these 4 more years, Barr etc. should then be able to flip enough SparkleFarters etc., to start an avalanche of flipping, e.g. vs. other Swamp creatures and NGO brass (esp. at the hopelessly corrupt colleges), to wake still more of the saner Elites (e.g. those Dems/ Lefties who retain some respect for Dersh/ Greenwald).
Book it, the (anti-Dersh) D.S., and the (anti-Greenwald) Left, see the stakes here, and thus will move heaven and earth to beat DJT.
These next 6 months will be a drama, unlike anything the Western world has seen, since the Nazi’s and Commies were Duking it out on the streets of Berlin etc., c. 1931-32.
And, Mollie, if DJT loses, or if Barr chickens out, then, yes, “red” America will see no choice, but to secede from this house of cards, rather than await the bloodbath, which the Dem brass would allow their lackeys to inflict upon us.
These lackeys include BLM, antifa, and the urban Gangs (incl./ esp. of illegals).
And, recall, we were already seeing secessionist buzz, in E. Oregon and W. VA, before the virus crisis.
Regarding secession: The federal government takes whatever percentage of our wages they choose. (At one point this was 94%(!) for some taxpayers.) The government takes our money before we even see it. They are paid first. We receive the remains.
I can go on and on, but if that didn’t result in a revolt, and it didn’t when enacted in 1909, what makes you think a convoluted case of espionage involving shredded documents is going to get anyone off his couch to fight for liberty?
Oh, we also kill over half a million babies in the womb every year.
How much ruin is in a nation? A great deal of it.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/467815-there-is-a-great-deal-of-ruin-in-a-nation
Om,
Sad, but true. We frogs have been in progressively warmer water for a long time now. There are many things in the past 100 years worse than the things we know our government is doing now, and prior generations didn’t jump out of the pot.
“This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.”
Sean Davis, The Federalist: Explosive New Flynn Documents Show FBI Goal Was To ‘Get Him Fired’
https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/29/explosive-new-flynn-documents-show-fbi-goal-was-to-get-him-fired/
It’s as bad as we might have imagined as far as injustice goes, but stupider than I’d have ever thought these jackasses to be.
sdferr – can you imagine how much more easily this corruption would have slid by if the perps had “destroyed the tapes” — to use a Watergate analogy — instead of saving them. And all of these brilliant investigators never learned that email is forever??
It appears, however, that Steele knew enough to destroy his “production documents” after finishing his hit piece, er, dossier.
Y’know AesopFan, I think it all comes back to their hubristic certainty that Clinton was going to win and therefore they’d be covered: no one in opposition would ever know. I can’t think of another simpler rationale.
What’s shocking is that probably nobody will be called in tribunals.
Decades of propaganda against the alleged horrors of “McCarthyism” – with traitors treated as noble figures, while tens of millions were ground in Communist countries – are still bringing their fruits.
The media holds the reins of what counts as real scandal, like Hydroxychloroquine… Nobody has really the courage to oppose the shame and hate poured relentlessly on you when you dare to fight.
Whittaker Chambers, whose “Witness” is one of the most perceptive and important book ever written, had rightly understood that a decisive cultural battle had been lost in the ’50s – not only in the USA but in the whole western world.
This is why East European countries like Hungary and Poland is hated and feared so much in progressive circles: their learned lesson and consequent stance is a pain in the cultural establishment’s neck, hence, the constant attempt to frame them as Fascist.
Prepare to be shocked! Or not, never mind …….
https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/04/29/former-fed-prosecutor-andrew-mccarthy-blasts-fbi-over-new-revelations-about-flynn-meticulously-planned-out-scheme/
Paolo, by “countries like Hungary and Poland”, are you meaning mainly the current leaders there, Orban and Duda?
Commentators on FOX, at least, always preface any of their statements/analyses about the unethical and illegal actions of people at the DOJ, FBI, CIA, State Department, and who knows where else in our Federal government–brickbats all aimed at President Trump, his Administration, and his policies–by uttering the prescribed formulaic lines about how “they are not talking about the “hard-working rank and file employees”” at these various agencies–No, No, No–these commentators are only talking about the “bad apples at the highest levels” of those extremely powerful parts of our Federal government.
What evidence do they have, and how sure are these commentators about these rank and file employees, and their attitudes?
As I have pointed out in several comments on various threads here, if any of these “rank and file employees” had any great objections to the actions of their bosses, I have yet to see any evidence of them.
No angry letters to any editors that I am aware of, no groups of protestors circling the offending offices, (yes, faint and only very occasional and passing mention that perhaps some patriotic and disgusted federal employees have been giving various Republican members of Congress and Committees some inside information), but no real “whistle blowers,” have yet appeared, and there have been no actual substantial stories, leaking out, about how disgusted, patriotic members of the rank and file have “come forward” to offer insider evidence of the unethical and illegal things their bosses have been doing, not even any anonymous posters slapped on walls in the dead of night; in essence basically nothing.
My conclusion?
In what is–to judge by things like donation patterns–an overwhelmingly Leftist/Democrat Federal bureaucracy, these “rank and file” employees have, it appears, been quite content with what their bosses have been doing, and, in fact, have likely been silently cheering them on.
I guess a rotten apple at the top came from a barrel of rotten apples. Nice and shiney on the outside, inside, not so much.
P.S.–Despite what I’d imagine have been pretty intense and comprehensive efforts to plug the constant leaks coming out of the White House–and how these leaks seem to have diminished in number–if a document or action is important, news of it, quite often, still leaks out. (This, of course, presupposes that such a leak was not deliberate on the part of President Trump, or his WH staff).
By way of contrast, if there were any old fashioned patriotic whistle blowers at, say, the FBI, how to explain the ability of the FBI to keep the hand written note that was just released–detailing how top leaders at the the FBI were planning to set up Gen. Flynn–secret, and so very closely held?
. . . how to explain the ability of the FBI to keep the hand written note that was just released–detailing how top leaders at the the FBI were planning to set up Gen. Flynn–secret, and so very closely held?
A partial answer appears in the following Sen. Chuck Grassley tweet, Snow:
“New DOJ/Flynn docs are stamped w SCO as in Special Counsels Office
Did Mueller have these docs? Why did his team sit on them? What else is Mueller team that cost taxpayers $30+ million hiding? The ppl deserve answers 2restore faith in federal law enforcement agencies”
https://mobile.twitter.com/ChuckGrassley/status/1255888794206822400
Mueller’s team did have these docs, is my surmise. And they buried them.
More: Techno Fog tweets a thread with document copies (which see entire) —
*** The operation that targeted Flynn: CROSSFIRE RAZOR
1/4/17: FBI field office found “No derogatory information” on Flynn and decided to close RAZOR.
1/4/17: FBI leadership (STRZOK) went off the rails and targeted Flynn: “Don’t close RAZOR”
[…] Peter Strzok texts to the FBI Case Manager handling the Crossfire Razor (Flynn) case.
Strzok: “If you haven’t closed RAZOR, don’t do so yet”
Strzok: “7th floor involved” (FBI Leadership)
(Possible use of Logan Act “violations” to keep investigation open) ***
https://mobile.twitter.com/Techno_Fog/status/1255911184538185728
sdferr – “Mueller’s team did have these docs, is my surmise. And they buried them.”
A good number of people on Mueller’s team apparently WROTE the docs.
Hubris may have explained the initial failures to destroy the incriminating notes & texts etc, but why in the world did they not eliminate everything after they got control of the investigation?
I’ve always wondered why the Strzok-Page texts even still existed after Trump started pushing back. Since the IRS and others faced no back-lash on missing messages, documents, whatever — and Hillary got away with the Bleach Bit-ing of her server — why not just deep-six as much as they could when they had the chance?
Hello aNanyMouse
I mean also them, but not specifically them. Progressive politicians and intellectuals hate whatever obstacles their vision of a globalized society run by them on their morally radical and politically Socialist platform. For these people, Soviet Communism has been a positive experiment which “unfortunately” failed; and they more or less openly still blame the failure on the “backward culture” of these countries, because they were not able to understand and welcome the beauty of Communism.
Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, with their history and experience, know better and can’t be easily fooled. But in one generation, or less, media and cultural pressure from the west will penetrate even there, if something does not happen.
Orban is just one of the expression of this cultural resistance. This does not mean that everything Orban does is pure and just, of course, but the general perspective is that one.