Posted on 12/19/2018 11:56:02 AM PST by detective
As Michael Flynn stood for sentencing Tuesday, you could imagine the special counsel attorneys audibly exhale in relief as he declined to withdraw his guilty plea. Until that moment, it was an open question whether Judge Emmet Sullivan would excuse the governments now apparent misconduct.
Instead, the judge blasted Flynn for selling out his country and wondered whether a treason charge might have been considered at some point. The Federalists Sean Davis hypothesized that the judge was frustrated by the Flynn team attempting to have his cake and eat it too. If Flynn wanted to attack the governments abuse of constitutional rights, finethen withdraw the plea. If not, then drop it.
The stakes were high. Last week, the Robert Mueller team filed a court document effectively threatening prison time if Flynns defense team continued alerting the judge to the pattern of misconduct perpetrated by the rogues gallery led by former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe.
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
A luncheon with hundreds of other people?
He sat right next to Putin at the 10th anniversary of Russia Today, RT.
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Here's a little background on Russia Today...
"RT [Russia Today] was conceived by former media minister Mikhail Lesin,[32] and Russian president Vladimir Putins press spokesperson Aleksei Gromov.[33]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network)
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Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, with Mikhail Lesin
during a meeting in Moscow
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November 2015...
Nov 7, 2015
Mikhail Lesin, a prominent Russian political figure and mass media expert credited with inspiring the creation of Russia Today (now RT), has died in Washington, DC after a heart attack.
Lesin, a former press minister and ex-head of Gazprom-Media, Russias largest media holding, died at the age of 57 on Wednesday, according to family members. Mikhail Lesin died from a heart stroke, a family member told RIA Novosti.
Meanwhile, TASS has reported that Lesin was found dead in his hotel room in Washington, DC, citing the Russian Embassy in the US. Police found no signs of foul play, but a formal investigation has been launched. It has been reported that Lesin had been suffering from a prolonged unidentified illness. ..."
https://www.rt.com/news/321121-lesin-dies-heart-attack/
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Nov 2015...
"Nicknamed the 'Bulldozer', Lesin was one of the key props of the Putin presidency, personally masterminding a wide-ranging media crackdown which has left the vast majority of Russian TV stations and newspapers obedient to the Kremlin."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3315994/Vladimir-Putin-s-media-mastermind-dead-DC-hotel-murdered-FBI-informant-alive-claim-Russians.html#ixzz3rOUopg7Q
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"On Friday, November 6 [2015], RIA Novosti reported that Lesin died of a heart attack citing a spokesman for the family as saying: "Today, Mikhail Lesin died ... His death came supposedly from a heart attack."[35][38]
RT [Russia Today] reported the next day that the cause of death was a heart attack.[31][39][40][41]
https://web.archive.org/web/20161026095000/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Lesin
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"Vladimir Putins former media czar "was murdered" in Washington, DC, on the eve of a planned meeting with the US Justice Department, according to two FBI agents whose assertions cast new doubts on the US governments official explanation of his death.
[Lesin] was going to talk about the inner workings of RT basically, how the propaganda machine works. DOJ was investigating RT. ..."
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jasonleopold/putins-media-czar-was-murdered-just-before-meeting-feds?utm_term=.koLV9zmDz#.cuo1YjnWj
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UPDATE: MAR 2016...
A former aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin found dead in a Washington hotel room was killed by a blunt force trauma to the head, U.S. authorities said Thursday.
Mikhail Lesin, 57, was found dead on the floor of his room in Dupont Circle on November 5.[2015]
Autopsy results show that he died from blunt-force injuries of the head, according to a joint statement Thursday from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reported by NBC Washington , but the exact manner of death was undetermined.
Also contributing to his death were blunt-force injuries of the neck, torso, upper extremities and lower extremities, the statement said.
Russian media originally reported that Lesin, a former government minister, had suffered a heart attack. ...
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"...the plot thickened late Thursday with one U.S. official apparently telling
The New York Times that [Mikhail] Lesin's wounds came from an altercation that happened before he staggered back to his hotel room that night.On Friday, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty uncovered another wrinkle, reporting that Lesin had confirmed his attendance at an event in the U.S. capital 48 hours earlier, but he never showed. ..."
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Backup link to NY Times article:
https://web.archive.org/web/20171126103233/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/11/us/former-putin-aide-found-in-washington-died-from-blows-to-head.html?smid=nytcore-iphone-share&smprod=nytcore-iphone&_r=0
Backup link to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty article:
https://web.archive.org/web/20171126104000/https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-lesin-mysterious-death-key-facts/27604577.html
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A onetime aide of Russian President Vladimir Putin whose body was found last year in a D.C. hotel room died of head injuries suffered in accidental falls after days of excessive drinking, authorities in Washington said Friday as they closed the death investigation.
Mikhail Y. Lesin, 57, a former Russian advertising executive who helped create the Kremlins global English-language Russia Today television network, was found dead Nov. 5 in the upscale Dupont Circle Hotel, and for much of a year, the manner of death was ruled undetermined.
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July 28, 2017:
"Two of the agents said they were told that the FBI has obtained evidence and conducted witness interviews that indicate that Lesin was murdered. Neither agent would describe the evidence or give details about who the witnesses were, or what exactly they said. The third said that a colleague working on the case told him in January that Lesin was beaten to death.
The intelligence officer would not say how he knew Lesin was bludgeoned but said that the weapon was a baseball bat. Another source with direct knowledge of the autopsy performed by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Washington, DC offered new information about Lesins injuries: He had fractured ribs, a detail that has not been previously reported.
One of the FBI agents said that he learned Lesin was put up by the Justice Department at the Dupont Circle Hotel a midrange hotel out of keeping with Lesins extravagant lifestyle during an informal water cooler talk with a case agent working on the investigation.
Lesin, he was told, was going to talk about the inner workings of RT basically, how the propaganda machine works. DOJ was investigating RT. These are the types of meetings we have with people when we want to recruit them as informants.
Does he believe Lesin was murdered over RT?
Whether it was over RT, money, pissing off Putin or a combo or all of it, I dont know, he answered. But falling down drunk? Come on. Thats bullshit..
The second FBI agent said he learned that the Justice Department had put Lesin up at the hotel from a DOJ official on the case. The DOJ was investigating something with RT, he recalled being told, and investigators planned to ask Lesin how the station operated how it was run and how the Kremlin used it.
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The following article is from December (2014)
"Mikhail Lesin has stepped down as head of major state-controlled media holding Gazprom-Media, the company said late last week.
Gazprom-Media, whose holdings include independent radio station Ekho Moskvy, said Lesin's resignation was due to family reasons, Russian media reports said Friday.
The holding's board of directors will finalize his resignation at an upcoming meeting, Gazprom-Media was cited by Ekho Moskvy as saying. No replacement has been named.
Earlier, a flurry of reports of Lesin's imminent resignation appeared on Russian news wires, all based on undisclosed sources and giving divergent accounts of the motive.
Forbes Russia cited sources in the media and government as confirming the resignation, with one of the individuals claiming that the decision was made personally by President Vladimir Putin."
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/513690.html
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"When he [Mikhail Lesin] quit Gazprom Media in December [2014], a move seen as a shock, he cited family reasons although there were unconfirmed claims he had fallen out with other influential figures close to Putin. ..."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3315994/Vladimir-Putin-s-media-mastermind-dead-DC-hotel-murdered-FBI-informant-alive-claim-Russians.html
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" [RT (Russia Today) founder, [Mikhail] Lesin was a central figure in the early Putin years, spearheading the Kremlin's effort to silence the country's independent television, the first step in the consolidation of authoritarian rule.
The first target was NTV, at that time Russia's largest and most popular independent TV channel, whose hard-hitting news broadcasts, talk shows, and satirical programs criticized the government over growing corruption and the war in Chechnya and gave airtime to the opposition.
In June 2000, a month after Putin's inauguration, NTV's founder and majority shareholder, Vladimir Gusinsky, was arrested and placed in Moscow's infamous Butyrka prison.
While he was there, the information minister made an offer: Gusinsky could have his freedom if he agreed to transfer his media holdings to Gazprom, the state-owned energy monopoly. ..."
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/vladimir-kara-murza/ominous-return-putins-media-enforcer
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From the New York Times
By NICHOLAS FANDOS and STEVEN LEE MYERS
MARCH 10, 2016
WASHINGTON Mikhail Y. Lesin once occupied the upper stratosphere of Vladimir V. Putins Russia, an advertising executive turned cabinet minister who helped carry out the state takeover of the countrys independent media and later created the Kremlins global English-language television network.
Until late 2014 he ran the media wing of the states energy giant, Gazprom, before stepping down or, more likely, being forced out. He ended up in the United States, where he and his family owned properties in Los Angeles said to be worth far more than the salary of the former government minister.
And then, in November [2015], he was found in a hotel here in Washington, the victim, the Russian state media he had helped build said, of a heart attack.
On Thursday, more than four months later, one of the questions surrounding Mr. Lesins death was answered: The office of the chief medical examiner in Washington announced that he had not died of a heart attack, but rather of blunt force injuries to his head. But the mystery surrounding his rise and fall only deepened.
Although the examiner and the police did not declare his death a criminal act, the authorities clearly no longer consider it to be the result of natural causes.
Mr. Lesins body also showed signs of blunt trauma to his neck, torso, arms and legs, the result, according to one official, of some sort of altercation that happened before he returned to his room at the Dupont Circle Hotel on the night in November when he died at the age of 59.
The medical examiners office did not explain the timing of its announcement, nor why the findings took so long.
Officials there had said as recently as Wednesday that it would not imminently release its findings, only to reverse course the next day.
His death remains the subject of a police investigation, though spokesmen for the Metropolitan Police Department and the F.B.I. in Washington declined to comment.
For months, Mr. Lesins fate has been the subject of much speculation.
In the Russian news media, he was said to have had a falling out with a major shareholder of Gazprom Media, Yuri V. Kovalchuk, an even closer business ally and friend of Mr. Putins.
Some speculated that he had fled to the United States in a kind of self-exile, one that is not unknown among ministers and businessmen who once were in favor inside Mr. Putins Kremlin. ...
Herr Mueller is a thug and a fascist and one of the main worms in this rotten apple.
If he did that, I think it's a good bet that every legal problem he's facing will disappear.
Why?
Because it's very easy for a crooked prosecutor to abuse a U.S. citizen who is willing and able to pay a fortune in legal fees to defend himself. A bankrupt criminal defendant is the worse thing a political operative like Mueller ever wants to deal with -- because a defendant with nothing to lose isn't going to give a sh!t about the law anymore.
This was moronic, but unlike Mueller, Flynn has a very distinguished history serving the United States well.
If he missed on one issue, even this one, I’m going to cut him some slack.
If they could show me where he advocated for Turkey and sold us out, I would look at it differently.
The man has lost his home. His family has been bounced around. He has been termed a traitor. All this and there is no evidence he ever betrayed the U. S. at all.
Optics aside, he’s a good man and always has been.
This is just one more excuse to talk about Trump has if he has had the worst set of staff in the history of our nation.
Baloney!
There was no crime for them to investigate.
Flynn talking to Kisylak was perfectly legitimate and appropriate.
The FBI was there to COMMIT a crime as part of a coup against PDJT.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said Saturday special counsel Robert Mueller is trying to cover up his involvement with the Uranium One deal that benefited the Clintons while trying to have a coup against the president.
REP. LOUIE GOHMERT (R-TX): Robert Mueller has done more damage during his 12 years as FBI director than any other probably all directors put together...
He has wasted money right and left. Amazingly, hes hired people like [Andrew] Weissmann that worked with him and [Rod] Rosenstein in investigating the Russian illegal efforts to obtain our uranium which they quashed information in order to allow the sale to go through so that Hillary could get the $145 million for her foundation.
So it is really outrageous. Hes covering for himself at the same time hes trying to have a coup against the president.
“A luncheon with hundreds of other people?
He sat right next to Putin at the 10th anniversary of Russia Today, RT.”
It sure looks like a luncheon(or maybe a dinner) to me.
It looks like 10 to a table and at least 12 other tables.
Flynn was a U.S. general. He would be expected to be seated at the most important table.
The other references have nothing to do with general Flynn.
And you have no problem with a U.S. general cozying up to a guy that the Trump adimin themselves view as a dangerous adversary, not to be trusted? Appearing on their state-controlled network as a regular?
Of course not. Dealing with the enemy is an important part of winning the war.
Freepers who bitch and moan about every little contact with someone they do not like and ignorance of the event are pathetic
Lol!
Oh, so Flynn was acting as a "double agent", eh? In plain sight, trying to fool the Russians? Do you think he was wearing a 'wire'? /S
“you have no problem with a U.S. general cozying up to a guy that the Trump adimin themselves view as a dangerous adversary, not to be trusted? Appearing on their state-controlled network as a regular?”
General Flynn attended a luncheon with Putin. That is not “cozying up.”
General Flynn did not participate in an illegal scheme to give Putin half of the U.S. uranium reserves as Clinton and Mueller did.
Mike Pence, from the Oct 5, 2016 VP debate...
When Donald Trump and I observe that, as Ive said, in Syria, in Iran, in Ukraine, that the small and bullying leader of Russia has been stronger on the world stage than this administration, thats stating painful facts. Thats not an endorsement of Vladimir Putin thats an indictment of the weak and feckless leadership of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
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"What were dealing with is the you know, theres an old proverb that says the Russian bear never dies, it just hibernates.
And the truth of the matter is, the weak and feckless foreign policy of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has awakened an aggression in Russia that first appeared a few years ago with their move in Georgia, now their move into Crimea, now their move into the wider Middle East.
It seems to me a judge should be on guard against misconduct by a prosecutor regardless of whether the defendant is guilty or not. If the judge see a crime, he has an obligation to respond.
I guess you still hate Newt because of his picture with Peolsi....... same thing
Irrelevant anecdote. Leadership involves meeting people
That ship sailed already. At yesterday's hearing, the judge put Flynn under oath and asked him if he was pleading guilty because he was guilty or because he was threatened. Flynn said "because I am guilty." He can't withdraw his plea now without facing new perjury charges for what he said yesterday.
Money isn’t the motivation. Removing President Trump from office is that the motivation so going with a public prosecutor will only play into their hands. True they are trying to destroy his and his family’s financial well-being, and threatening his son’s future, but incompetent legal representation is the worst thing in the world for Flynn and POTUS.
What Hillary gave or sold to the Russians was probably closer to 25% U.S. uranium reserves.
Donald Trump slammed President Obama Thursday on TODAY for failing to take a stronger line against President Vladimir Putin in dealing with Ukraine, saying he feared Obama would now make up for lost time with imprudent moves to "show his manhood."
The real estate mogul and reality-TV star, who has criticized Putin for sending military troops into Crimea, said Obama must now take fierce steps to prevent the situation from escalating further.
"We should definitely do sanctions and we have to show some strengths. I mean, Putin has eaten Obama's lunch, therefore our lunch, for a long period of time," Trump said. ..."
http://www.today.com/news/donald-trump-putin-has-eaten-obamas-lunch-ukraine-2D79372098
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Heres the interview w/ Matt Lauer on YouTube...
Donald Trump (2014): Vladimir Putin Has Eaten Obamas Lunch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzURUENf1ns
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Jul 6, 2017
President Trump called Russia a destabilizing influence in Europe and the Middle East, and urged it to join the community of responsible nations, in his strongest remarks yet against the regime of Vladimir Putin, whom he is scheduled to meet Friday in Hamburg for the first time.
His remarks in Warsaws Krasinski Square, which marks the 1944 Warsaw uprising against the Nazis, came after the U.S. agreed to sell Patriot missiles to Poland. The president also used the opportunity to reiterate the NATO commitment to mutual defense, a declaration he did not make during the NATO summit in May, prompting consternation among U.S. allies wary of Russias ambitions.
To those who would criticize our tough stance, I would point out that the United States has demonstratednot merely with its words but with its actionsthat we stand firmly behind Article 5, the mutual-defense commitment, Trump said Thursday. Words are easy, but actions are what matters. And for its own protection, Europe, and you know this, everybody knows this, everybody has to know this, Europe must do more.
Trump has repeatedly said NATO members must spend more on defensea position in line with past U.S. administrations. But he has been criticized because he appeared to suggest U.S. commitment to mutual defense was predicated on its allies defense spending. ...
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Mike Pence, from the Oct 5, 2016 VP debate...
When Donald Trump and I observe that, as Ive said, in Syria, in Iran, in Ukraine, that the small and bullying leader of Russia has been stronger on the world stage than this administration, thats stating painful facts. Thats not an endorsement of Vladimir Putin thats an indictment of the weak and feckless leadership of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
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"What were dealing with is the you know, theres an old proverb that says the Russian bear never dies, it just hibernates.
And the truth of the matter is, the weak and feckless foreign policy of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has awakened an aggression in Russia that first appeared a few years ago with their move in Georgia, now their move into Crimea, now their move into the wider Middle East.
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