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I chased down the Rachel Maddow transcript that Techno_Fog included

https://twitter.com/Techno_Fog/status/1259586046247014400

The Rachel Maddow Show, Transcript 2/13/2017
http://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/rachel-maddow-show/2017-02-13

I think there is an even more incredible admission that wasn’t highlighted by Techno - that, “she knew that that was not something that would be pursued in court. There wouldn`t be a prosecution based on the Logan Act.”

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Joining us now is Adam Entous. He`s “The Washington Post” reporter who broke this tonight.

Mr. Entous, thanks very much for making time for us tonight. I really appreciate it.

ADAM ENTOUS, WASHINGTON POST NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: No problem. Thank you.

MADDOW: So, obviously, the headline here and the lead graph are arresting, jarring. Why exactly did the acting attorney general, Sally Yates, conclude or surmise that the Russian government might be able to blackmail Mike Flynn, the national security adviser?

ENTOUS: Right. So what happened was when this intelligence first came in, which would be in late December, early January, you know, Yates saw the intelligence and was concerned that Flynn was potentially in violation of what is known as the Logan Act, which is a very obscure statute which would bar a nongovernment official from trying to influence another government`s policies. And so, that really was – she knew that that was not something that would be pursued in court. There wouldn`t be a prosecution based on the Logan Act.

After Pence, the vice president-elect, and other officials started speaking publicly in defense of Flynn when these calls – it emerged that these calls existed, when they started to say things like, I checked with Flynn and I can tell you now categorically that the issue of the election sanctions imposed by the Obama administration were not discussed in his phone calls with the Russian ambassador, when Yates and Clapper and Brennan heard that, they knew because they had read the intelligence that that was not accurate.

And so, at that point, they knew that also the Russians knew themselves that what was being said was inaccurate because Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, had reported to Moscow his conversation with Flynn. And so, Russia knew that what was being said by the White House was not true and the fear was that basically the Russians could try to use that information to put that over Flynn and to try to put pressure on him. And, obviously, they were concerned that the vice president-elect, Pence, seemed to have been misled.

MADDOW: So, on that point about pressuring Flynn, let me shake make sure that I understand this precisely. If the Russians knew that they had discussed sanctions, that Flynn had discussed sanctions with the Russian government, and they know that he lied about it to the vice president and other senior officials, the Russian government conceivably could come to Mike Flynn, come to the national security adviser, and say, hey, we want to you do this thing for us and if you don`t, we`re going to tell the world or we`re going to tell the vice president or we`re going to tell the president of the United States that you`ve been lying to them. You wouldn`t want that to happen, would you? You better do what we want.

ENTOUS: I think it was less of a concern that they would tell the president of the United States or somebody else. I think the fear would be that they would actually just leak it publicly. And then Flynn would be obviously his reputation, his credibility would be tarnished. So, that was the concern.

And so, by telling the counsel to Trump at the White House, the goal was to take that leverage away from the Russians. So, as long as people in the White House were aware that this was an issue, they could try to address it and try to mitigate the risk that this could compromise Flynn and potentially compromise the Trump administration in its future dealings with Russia.

MADDOW: Adam, do you have any information about how the White House counsel Don McGahn reacted to this or whether the Trump administration took any internal action that they haven`t disclosed thus far publicly?

ENTOUS: Yes. I mean, so if – so we know that Yates provided this information to the counsel sometime near the end of January, before she was fired. Obviously, there`s a period of a couple of weeks that have passed since then and based on the surprise that Pence had to the breaking of the story last week that Flynn had discussed the sanctions with Kislyak, I`m surmising here, but I don`t know for sure, but that council certainly did not share this information with Pence, the vice president.

It`s unclear really who shared the information. Also, we had an interview with Flynn last Wednesday in which he repeated what Pence, which is that, you know, Flynn insisted that he had not discussed sanctions with Kislyak. So, it appears, based on that, one would think that he was not aware. So, frankly, I just don`t know who the council at the White House consulted with bout this.

MADDOW: Wow. That`s – I mean, that`s remarkable, that something this explosive comes to the White House counsel`s office and it doesn`t get fixed. That`s amazing.

Adam Entous, “Washington Post” national security reporter – thank you for helping understand this scope. Appreciate it.

ENTOUS: Thank you.

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Looking through these Maddow transcripts with AEWP, it’s a roadmap of deep state Brennan concocted narratives. They just feed him this stuff & he repeats it. Then they source his “reporting” to use as the basis to instigate other things. It’s the same fraud over & over again.

Other appearances of AEWP on Rachel Maddow:

The Rachel Maddow Show, Transcript 4/11/2017
http://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/rachel-maddow-show/2017-04-11

The Rachel Maddow Show, Transcript 5/26/17 Kushner and Kremlin
http://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/rachel-maddow-show/2017-05-26