Posted on 07/08/2020 1:20:47 PM PDT by Red Badger
onths before they approved a prosecution of Michael Flynn, senior Justice Department officials expressed skepticism in internal notes about the FBI's continuing pursuit of the Trump national security adviser and the possibility of charging him with a crime, Just the News has learned.
The skepticism about whether Flynn intended to lie during an FBI interview or posed a national security threat was expressed in handwritten notes that were turned over Tuesday to Flynn's defense team and the judge overseeing his case under a protective order, according to multiple sources.
The documents were discovered recently by U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen, who was specially appointed by Attorney General William Barr to review the conduct of the FBI and the DOJ in the Flynn case. They are the latest exculpatory materials — evidence that Flynn could have used to prove his innocence — that were withheld from his defense and only belatedly produced more than two years after he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
The sources told Just the News the new documents included extensive notes taken by senior Justice Department official Tashina Gauhar, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, and former DOJ and FBI lawyer Dana Boente between January and March 2017, long before Flynn's case was referred to Special Counsel Robert Mueller or Flynn reached a deal to plead guilty later that year.
The notes include records of a late January 2017 meeting where Flynn's case was discussed by numerous senior FBI and DOJ officials. The meeting occurred nearly three weeks after the FBI agent who had investigated Flynn's contacts with Russia, including ambassador Sergey Kislyak, had already concluded the Trump adviser had not engaged in any wrongdoing and that the five-month-long investigation should be closed down without any further action.
FBI supervisors overruled the agent and kept the case open, pivoting instead to the idea of seeking an interview with Flynn and pursuing a prosecution under the rarely used Logan Act.
According to sources who have seen the notes, Justice officials expressed skepticism that the Logan Act could be applied to Flynn's conversations with the Russian ambassador during the transition, and were told Flynn appeared to have been forthcoming and did not intend to lie to the FBI. The notes also make clear officials had ruled out Flynn as having acted improperly as an agent of Russia, the sources said.
The notes appear to support testimony previously given to Mueller by former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and former acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord, both of whom expressed concerns about the way the FBI was pursuing Flynn. Just the News reported on their testimony earlier this year.
Yates told Mueller that the FBI advised her that "Flynn was very accommodating" and that the "interviewing agents' assessment was that Flynn showed no 'tells' of lying, and it was possible he really did not remember the substance of his calls with Ambassador Kislyak."
McCord told Mueller’s prosecutors that "upon learning of Flynn's phone calls with Ambassador Kislyak, a Logan Act prosecution seemed like a stretch to her."
By Jan. 30, 2017, the FBI sent senior DOJ officials a memo declaring the bureau did not believe Flynn was acting as an agent of Russia, according to documents Mueller's team belatedly turned over to Flynn's lawyers.
Then-Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Matthew Axelrod also was interviewed by the Mueller team about the Flynn interactions and disclosed that Strzok "provided his view that Flynn appeared truthful during the interview," an assessment "based more on Flynn's mannerisms and lack of hesitation when answering questions as opposed to what Flynn actually said," a summary of Axelrod's interview stated.
Gauhar, an Obama-era holdover, has shown up in several prominent DOJ national security cases over the years, but her work on the Russia case mostly escaped public attention until last month when Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham included her name on a list of possible witnesses he may subpoena in his ongoing probe of the Russia case investigators.
This is how they will deal with the dithering Judge Sullivan.
Just continue to leak stuff showing how outrageously bogus this case was to begin with.
judge sullivan should face military justice YESTERDAY.
how many people murdered, raped, eaten by him
and his family?
This is NOT a leak. Evidence is being turned over the Flynn defense, which is releasing material with DOJ approval.
Leak, drip, whatever. Point is the DOJ has the goods and is willing to put them out there.
It doesn’t necessarily end with this trial either. Flynn would be entitled to discovery in a civil suit alleging malicious prosecution.
We have nothing but skank after skank in the judiciary not to mention congress.
The Demwit party hack and Obama's stooge, Sullivan, is unfit for the bench, and isn't going to improve with age.
Flynn would be entitled to discovery in a civil suit alleging malicious prosecution.
Good luck with that. The coupists have had years to destroy incriminating evidence at their leisure.
This is no longer about Flynn getting out of this case. That is a done deal. This now becomes ammo in litigation, with Peter Strzock first in line.
The DOJ had that material for 3 years before their release, unless we’re to believe they’ve just been discovered.
The fact that this was not given to the defense team to begin with is criminal in and of itself.
Never talk to the feds is what this tells me.
Never cooperate.
When do we get notes tying Sullivan to DOJ and to Flynn’s original attorneys?
Yep. But EDMO keeps finding things. My point was that EDMO can continue to "find" even if Sullivan dismisses. some might be of a mind that Sullivan can short-circuit the release of further incriminating evidence.
But as you point out, DOJ and FBI and CIA and Congress are most skilled at lying for fun, power and profit. The only material that is revealed is what they want revealed. Limited modified hang-out. Still corrupt institutions at bottom, no fixing that.
“Flynn would be entitled to discovery in a civil suit alleging malicious prosecution.”
yep ...
The left don’t care about justice. They don’t care if what they do is right or wrong, legal or illegal. What they care about is doing whatever can advance their personal agenda, and whether they can get away with it.
Given that we don’t have a legitimate press in our nation anymore, the left know they can get away with almost anything in pursuit of their agenda - with no personal consequences. That would embolden anyone who isn’t bound by a conscience, and/or who is so convinced of their superior world-view such that they always feel justified.
That is the definition of a sociopath.................
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