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Attorney General William Barr on Michael Flynn, Obamacare and coronavirus restrictions – Transcript

By Catherine Herridge

May 7, 2020 / 7:17 PM / CBS News

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/attorney-general-william-barr-on-michael-flynn-obamacare-and-coronavirus-restrictions-transcript/

As you recall, in January, General Flynn moved to withdraw his plea, and also alleged misconduct by the government. And at that time, I asked a very seasoned U.S. attorney, who had spent ten years as an FBI agent and ten years as a career prosecutor, Jeff Jensen, from St. Louis, to come in and take a fresh look at this whole case. And he found some additional material. And last week, he came in and briefed me and made a recommendation that we dismiss the case, which I fully agreed with, as did the U.S. attorney in D.C. So we’ve moved to dismiss the case.

But is the Flynn case effectively over today from the Justice Department’s point of view?

We think the case against Flynn for false statements should be dismissed, as far as the Department of Justice is concerned.

[hehe ... sounds like Flynn case is still active for other reasons]

Well to constitute a false statement, you need two things. One, you need a false statement, lie. And then it has to be material to a legitimate investigation. And I think on the question of lying, it’s as Comey, Director Comey said just a few months after this episode, he said it was a closed question. And that, while you might make that argument, it was a very closed question.

But it’s on the question of materiality that we feel really that a crime cannot be established here because there was not, in our view, a legitimate investigation going on. They did not have a basis for a counterintelligence investigation against Flynn at that stage, based on a perfectly legitimate and appropriate call he made as a member of the transition. So.

Let me just also say that when he pled, the issue of materiality is related to whether the government has a bona fide investigation going on. And that’s information that’s really within the control of the government. The individual party would really not have that information. So as new information just became available that has a bearing on whether there was a legitimate investigation, that requires us, our duty, we think is to dismiss the case.

Does the new evidence show that the counterintelligence case against General Flynn was simply left open to lay a trap for lying?

Yes. Essentially. They had started a counterintelligence investigation during the summer, as you know, related to the campaign. But in December, the team, the Crossfire Hurricane team, was closing that and determined they had found nothing to justify continuing with that investigation against Flynn.

On the very day they prepared the final papers, the seventh floor, that is the director’s office and the deputy director’s office up there, sent down word they should keep that open. So that they could try to go and question Flynn about this call he had with the Russian ambassador.

Let me say that, at that point, he was the designated national security adviser for President-Elect Trump, and was part of the transition, which is recognized by the government and funded by the government as an important function to bring in a new administration. And it is very typical, very common for the national security team of the incoming president to communicate with foreign leaders.

And that call, there was nothing wrong with it whatever. In fact, it was laudable. He— and it was nothing inconsistent with the Obama administration’s policies. And it was in U.S. interests. He was saying to the Russians, you know, “Don’t escalate.” And they asked him if he remembered saying that, and he said he didn’t remember that.