The insufferable and FIRED former FBI Director James Comey
Posted on 12/18/2018 11:35:27 AM PST by Liberty7732
Every once in a while, you come across a set of circumstances that brings you great sadness about our country’s state of affairs. (Yes, it may be happening more frequently.) The events surrounding the prosecution of General Michael Flynn and his treatment by the FBI and Special Counselor Robert Mueller is such a situation — and the reason that Judge Emmet Sullivan has been having a difficult time with the plea and sentencing that was scheduled for today and has now been delayed.
By now, most of you are aware of the circumstances of clear entrapment behind the charges against Flynn, but they nevertheless require elucidation, because they loom large beyond Flynn’s case. First, General Michael Flynn is a 33-year veteran of the United States Army with an impeccable history of patriotic service to his country. His service specialized on counter-intelligence, and he is likely responsible for the identification, capture, and destruction of more anti-American terrorists than anyone in the history of the United States. In other words, a true hero.
On Jan. 20, 2017, Flynn assumed the office of National Security Advisor to the President Trump. Just prior to taking on that role, on Dec. 29, 2016, Flynn had contact with Russian Ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak. The details of this contact are somewhat sketchy, but suffice it to say that the contact took place.
During this time, the Obama Administration, still reeling from the Democrats’ unexpected loss to Donald Trump in the presidential elections, was bent on blaming Russian interference for the defeat of the anointed Democrat darling, Hillary Clinton. The shock associated with the defeat led to a zealous effort to identify and understand the extent and machinations of this interference and to discover whether the Trump campaign was in any way involved.
The agency tasked with the investigation of potential Russian meddling was the Federal Bureau of Investigation headed at the time by James Comey. The FBI was very interested in the specifics behind the interactions between Flynn and the Russian Ambassador because it wanted to know whether there was any evidence of promised benefits to the Russians under the new administration in exchange for Russian assistance in tilting the election in Trump’s favor. To be clear, the mere fact that the Russian Ambassador had made contact with Flynn was not illegal, or even unusual during a transition.
For the sake of our discussion, I am going to assume that the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s version of the details regarding the contact between these two men is correct. I am going to grant the Mueller team’s assertion that Flynn had not forgotten about the contact he had with the Kislyak (even though both FBI agents who conducted the interview did not believe Flynn was lying.) I am going to assume, as Mueller reports, that by the time the FBI agents contacted him, Flynn was already relating a false narrative regarding his conversation with the Ambassador. I am also going to assume that, as Mueller says, Flynn was given more than ample opportunities to correct the falsehoods he delivered to the inquiring agents on Jan. 24, 2017. I am also going to acknowledge, for the sake of argument, that Flynn was not coerced into admitting that he had lied when he struck a plea deal with the FBI and that he was actually being accurate when he admitted his illegality to them.
But even if those assertions are true, Judge Emmet Sullivan, the judge responsible for sentencing Flynn on Tuesday and the one who has asked to review any exculpatory evidence in the case, must still throw out the case against Flynn.
The principal question is whether the FBI induced Flynn into lying during its interview of Jan. 24, 2017. More directly, did the FBI conduct its interview in such a manner as to induce the general to lie. After reviewing the Mueller memo to the court, my conclusion is that it absolutely, positively did.
In arriving at this conclusion, I first take note that prosecutorial entrapment is clearly illegal and fatal to the prosecution of a suspect. Entrapment, the act of government agents or officials that induces a person to commit a crime he or she is not previously disposed to commit, is a vile and vicious technique that if allowed to run unabated represents a fundamental threat to our liberties and to our abilities to live our lives in peace and free of government persecution.
Entrapment cannot be tolerated.
Consequently, if the FBI induced the general into committing the crime of lying to the FBI, it would nullify its prosecution of him and force the case to be dismissed.
According to the memo produced by Robert Mueller in defense of his prosecution of Flynn, Mueller admits that the FBI knew prior to its interview that Flynn had made contact with Ambassador Kislyak on Dec. 29, 2016, “the same day the US announced sanctions against Russia for its interference with the 2016 elections. ” Moreover, Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe, the man who contacted Flynn about a potential meeting with FBI investigators, believed Flynn had already lied to others regarding his contacts with the ambassador and that he was already “committed to that false story.” Even so, those deceitful acts of delivering a false narrative on the part of Flynn, whether excusable or not, were not illegal. Despite this, McCabe, in coordination with James Comey, made the decision to bypass protocol in seeking the interview with Flynn in the hopes that he would repeat those lies to investigators. In other words, McCabe and Comey built a trap for Flynn.
Additionally, we know from comments made by Comey that when McCabe set up the interview with Flynn, he knowingly bypassed protocol. We also know that Flynn inquired as to whether he should have his attorney present and was dissuaded from doing so by McCabe.
More egregiously, McCabe and Comey purposely decided not to warn Flynn that it was illegal to lie to the FBI. This is an important detail because it is distinguishable from the mere omission of the information, which is how the media generally reports this fact. Instead, according to Mueller’s memo to the court, McCabe and Comey made the purposeful decision to conceal the subject’s legal peril. The reason for this purposeful omission was to fool Flynn into being “relaxed,” and because “they were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely affect the report.” The implications of this admission are fatal to Flynn’s successful prosecution since they acknowledge that if the FBI had properly performed its job, Mueller would not have committed the crime of lying to them. Once again, the FBI investigators admit to the entrapment of Flynn.
Judge Sullivan is clearly aware of all of these facts as he tries to decide how to rule on the Flynn plea and sentencing.
As the Mueller memo states, the overall effect of the FBI’s efforts was to make Flynn believe that he was dealing with allies in an investigation, not that he was the subject of one.
With these admissions, Mueller has essentially painted a picture whereby the FBI created an environment by which Flynn would be induced into committing a crime he would not otherwise have committed; the very definition of entrapment.
With this information, it is very likely that, should this have gone to trial, it would have been thrown out because of entrapment of the defendant and due to the FBI’s advice to Flynn against obtaining legal counsel. Instead, the case was pleaded out by a defendant who was on the verge of bankruptcy from the mammoth legal defense bills he had incurred and whose son was being threatened with prosecution should he not submit to the FBI’s demands.
This story reveals one of the grossest displays of reckless disregard for prosecutorial restraint and for the rights of the defendant imaginable. With any luck, Judge Sullivan will see the brazen unprofessionalism displayed by McCabe, Comey and Mueller and bring some semblance of justice to the negatively impacted life of a man who is nothing short of a great American hero.
That's laughable.
A treason charge requires the defendant to be acting on behalf of an enemy of the U.S. There's actually a legal definition of enemy, and it hasn't applied in U.S. law since World War II because that's the last time the U.S. declared war on any other nation.
As I've mentioned elsewhere today, even the Rosenbergs -- who were executed for selling the U.S. atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union -- were not charged with treason.
I assume Flynn lied because he admits it in this pleading. My point was that it seems impossible to convict him of this if the only evidence of it is the wiretapped communications with Kislyak which presumably cannot be admitted as evidence in a U.S. criminal court.
Like it or not, fair or not, Flynn probably has the best deal he’s going to get in hand, right now. That’s my opinion.
I think you're right. It certainly explains the decisions he has made during the course of this case.
When a judge starts screaming about treason, in court, in front of the media, you can bet that is next on the table if Flynn doesn’t roll over.
Laws only matter to those who don’t rule on them. You analysis is correct, but we are past the point that really matters anymore.
A judge can do dang near anything, and if they decide that it meets the “treason” standard, then it is treason. You can appeal, but if you haven’t noticed old Kavenaugh is looking pretty blue right now and will probably just play ball.
Your post is entirely speculative. We’ll see what happens over the next three months.
His phone wasn’t working in D.R. at the time. Therefore, your premis is in error.
It seems that lying to the FBI shouldn’t be a crime since they lie, cheat, manipulate, falsify, and fail to verify evidence in order to achieve the end they seek.
Then what does THIS mean?
"I cannot recall any incident in which the court accepted a guilty plea in which he was not guilty, and I don't intend to start today." -- Judge Sullivan
Really, Comey openly boasts that he violated standard DOJ and FBI protocols, and took advantage of a brand new administration in its very first few days ... and contrary to Comey’s b.s. about previous admins., any WH in its first week in office might have been caught up in something similar in the past, IF the FBI had been so unscrupulous as to attempt to bring down a top new official in the past in the same way.
Read the details of Flynn’s January 24th interview. I’m pretty sure he explains that he couldn’t initially receive Kislyak’s call due to poor cell service, but he got a phone message from Kislyak and arranged to call him back several hours later.
The lobbying for a foreign govt is because he working for Turkey including being paid for a newspaper column he authored supporting Turkey that printed the day of trumps inauguration. If you don’t register as a lobbyist you violate the law.
Flynn’s discussion with the Russia ambassador was totally ok.
Shame on you for not crediting the author of:
“And how we burned in the camps >> << “If...If!”
“We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
“The best nonfiction book of the Twentieth Century” (Time)
ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN’S “The Gulag Archipelago” Vols 1,2,3
I heartily urge all to read the books.
The real problem is Flynn being paid by turkey and not disclosing it —even after trump named him the incoming Natl Security advisor. THAT is what mueller is threatening to charge him with if he doesn’t like the Lying to the FBI charge. And that charge is why Flynn would rather go down on the lying charge than be guilty of being an agent for a foreign govt.
“I assume Flynn lied because he admits it in this pleading. My point was that it seems impossible to convict him...”
If he admitted he lied, that is 98.2% of a conviction, on the spot, and that 1.8% will cost him several hundred thousand dollars to reverse. That’s just the way it is.
Most states have laws that make obstructing, delaying or providing false information to a peace officer a crime albeit a relatively minor offense.
Yes, but those are deals, and usually different severities for the same act (like manslaughter instead of third degree murder). It's different when one agrees to the deal, and then the prosecutor goes after the more serious charge anyway.
If the judge dismisses the case against Flynn, wouldn't that dismiss the other charge he dealt down, too, as double-jeopardy? Or is this a case of two unrelated charges, one worse than the other, and Flynn plead to the lesser charge in exchange for dropping the serious charge; but now Mueller wants to bring back the serious charge to retaliate against having the lesser charge challenged over Mueller's tactics?
It all smells like prosecutorial misconduct to me.
-PJ
-PJ
The job of the FBI is to investigate crimes that have occurred, not create elaborate ruses that result in new process crimes.
Perhaps, but I don't think you can deny that it's a routine practice.
Particularly when law enforcement is looking for leverage against a suspect.
Two of Flynn's associates were indicted for unregistered lobbying for Turkey and other crimes. Flynn undoubtedly provided a lot of information that let the prosecutors build their case.
Do you think he would have done that without the leverage the DOJ got when he lied to the FBI?
The insufferable and FIRED former FBI Director James Comey
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