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JOHN HINDERAKER:
“…General Michael Flynn still awaits sentencing. Meanwhile his new lawyer, Sidney Powell, is tormenting the prosecutors and the FBI, uncovering corruption in the FBI and the Department of Justice that, she credibly alleges, included the framing of General Flynn.
Is that too strong? I don’t think so. Yesterday Powell filed a reply brief in support of her motion to compel the production of more exculpating material by the prosecution, and to hold the prosecutors in contempt of court. Her recitation, which relies in part on text messages that I take it have come to light recently, makes a compelling case of FBI and prosecutorial misconduct. The reply brief is embedded below; I encourage you to read it in its entirety.
Powell’s most explosive charge is that the FBI falsified the Form 302 that recorded the content of its agents’ interview with Flynn in order to set him up for prosecution:
On February 10, 2017, the news broke—attributed to “senior intelligence officials”—that Mr. Flynn had discussed sanctions with Ambassador Kislyak, contrary to what Vice President Pence had said on television previously. Overnight, the most important substantive changes were made to the Flynn 302. Those changes added an unequivocal statement that “FLYNN stated he did not”—in response to whether Mr. Flynn had asked Kislyak to vote in a certain manner or slow down the UN vote. This is a deceptive manipulation because, as the notes of the agents show, Mr. Flynn was not even sure he had spoken to Russia/Kislyak on this issue. He had talked to dozens of countries. Exs. 9, 10, 11.
Second, they added: “or if KISLYAK described any Russian response to a request by FLYNN.” That question and answer do not appear in the notes, yet it was made into a criminal offense. The typed version of the highly unusual “deliberative” 302 by that date already included an entire section from whole cloth that also serves as a criminal charge in the Information and purported factual basis regarding “Russia’s response” to any request by Flynn. The draft also shows that the agents moved a sentence to make it seem to be an answer to a question it was not.
If this is correct, the criminal complaint against Flynn should indeed be dismissed, and various people now or formerly at the FBI should face criminal prosecution.
Many of the juicy tidbits come from texts between Peter Strzok and his illicit lover, Andrew McCabe’s Special Counsel Lisa Page. These texts have dribbled out over a considerable period of time, and I take it that at least some of the ones quoted here are new. For example:
As news of the “salacious and unverified” allegations of the “Steele dossier” dominated the media, Strzok wrote to Page: “Sitting with Bill watching CNN. A TON more out. . . We’re discussing whether, now that this is out, we can use it as a pretext to go interview some people.”
So Hillary Clinton’s fictitious campaign “dossier” was explicitly viewed by the FBI as a “pretext to go interview some people.” Including General Flynn, apparently. The rot at Obama’s FBI went very deep.
More:
In the next two weeks, there were “many meetings” between Strzok and McCabe to discuss “whether to interview [] National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and if so, what interview strategies to use.” Ex. 5.
January 23, the day before the interview, the upper echelon of the FBI met to orchestrate it all. Deputy Director McCabe, General Counsel James Baker, [redacted], Lisa Page, Strzok, David Bowdich, Trish Anderson, and Jen Boone strategized to talk with Mr. Flynn in such a way as to keep from alerting him from understanding that he was being interviewed in a criminal investigation of which he was the target. Ex.12. Knowing they had no basis for an investigation,6 they deliberately decided not to notify DOJ for fear DOJ officials would follow protocol and notify White House Counsel. They decided not to tell Flynn their true purpose nor give him 1001 warnings, so as to keep him “relaxed.” They planned not to show him the transcript of his calls to refresh his recollection, nor confront him directly if he did not remember. In short, they planned to deceive him about the entire scenario, and keep him “unguarded.”
One must ask, what was the point? The FBI had recordings of Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador, and there was nothing wrong with them. So what, exactly, were they strategizing? How to ensnare Flynn in a process crime by inducing him to say something that was false, evidently. Then, to their surprise, Flynn didn’t lie, as the agents recorded at the time. So, Flynn’s lawyer now says, they altered the Form 302 to make it appear that he did. If correct, this is just about the worst law enforcement scandal imaginable.
The agents returned from interviewing Mr. Flynn, describing their excitement over it, and with a belief contrary to what they expected, that he had been honest with them. After the interview, they briefed it three times. Strzok texted Page: “Describe the feeling, nervousness, excitement knowing we had just heard him denying it all. Knowing we’d have to pivot into asking. Puzzle round and round about it. Talk about the funny details. Remember what I said that made Andy [McCabe] laugh and ask if he really said that.”
Strzok urged: “Also have some faith in [redacted] and my assessment. . . . I’m finding it hard to go out on a counterintuitive yet strongly felt ledge with so many competent voices expressing what I feel too: bullsh*t – that doesn’t make sense. [] I made some joke about what F[lynn] said. Something patriotic or military.”
***
The agents did three briefings the day of the interview. They reported he had a sure demeanor, and he was telling the truth or believed he was—even though he did not remember it all. Ex. 6.
Then they tried to send him to jail for lying to them.
The anti-Trump FBI and Department of Justice had a “media leak strategy”:
April 20, 2017, Strzok texts Page: “I had literally just gone to find this phone to tell you I want to talk to you about media leak strategy with DOJ before you go.” Ex. 2.
The FBI’s jihad against Trump accelerated with the firing of James Comey:
On May 9, 2017, the day Comey was fired, Strzok texted: “We need to open the case we’ve been waiting on now while Andy [McCabe] is acting [Attorney General].” Ex. 2.
On May 10, McCabe opened the “obstruction” investigation of President Trump as suggested by Comey’s memo of February 14. Ex. 1.
Also on May 10, in an important but still wrongly redacted text, Strzok says: “We need to lock in [redacted]. In a formal chargeable way. Soon.” Page replies: “I agree. I’ve been pushing and I’ll reemphasize with Bill [Priestap].” Ex. 2. Both from the space of the redaction, its timing, and other events, the defense strongly suspects the redacted name is Flynn.
The Flynn prosecution has lifted the lid on corruption at the Department of Justice and the FBI that few could have imagined. The anti-Trump FBI conducted itself in a way we might associate with a totalitarian state, not the United States of America. For the most part, the people involved have been fired in disgrace. I am no expert in criminal law, but it seems that some of what happened here–for example, the falsification of the Form 302–must be a crime. If crimes were committed, they should be prosecuted. The prosecution of General Flynn should be dismissed, and those involved in it should be, if not prosecuted, censured…”
Regulatory overreach gravely undermines our constitutional system of government. Unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats must not be able to operate outside of the democratic system of government…imposing their own private agenda on our citizens. A permanent federal bureaucracy cannot become a fourth branch of government, unanswerable to American voters. In America, the people must always reign.
—President Donald Trump, remarks at signing of executive orders on transparency in federal guidance and enforcement, October 9, 2019
I blame the nitwit voters
Shocking photos of Congresswoman…
Naked showing off ‘Nazi-era tattoo’ while smoking bong…
I know that title is not fair, so what. Since when have Democrats been fair in anything?
This is terrible and it shows one of the effects of left-domination of our school system. The answer to offensive speech is more speech, not government enforced censorship.
I stopped watching sports years ago. You couldn’t pay me to watch an NBA game now.
ROGER L. SIMON:
“…Winter may be coming but it’s already Springtime for Lawyers in Washington, D.C. The list of people lawyering up these days would probably fill this page and lap over onto the next. It’s just been announced that the John Durham investigation into the provenance of the Russia probe has turned into a criminal investigation.
Subpoenas and grand juries are coming, real ones, not the Star Chamber counterfeits being orchestrated by the panicked Democrats and their junior league Southern California Torquemada.
To those of us who have been watching this spectacle from the beginning, this was inevitable. After all, where’d the Mueller/Russia probe come from in the first place? Since there was absolutely no there there, it makes no sense that it wasn’t a fraud from the outset. Who started it? Who are the treasonous/seditious culprits who conspired to overthrow an election? Well, we should soon be finding out, although we can make some educated guesses.
But we do know absolutely who collaborated in the crime, who were the accessories to and in some cases the instigators of this most heinous plot in American history….
… the mainstream media!…”
Alan M. Dershowitz:
Shaq always seemed like a decent guy to me.
Conrad Black:
“…all polls show Republican opinion in the country is rock solid behind the president and by any normal criteria—the economy, declining illegal immigration, and his delivery on election promises—he will be reelected easily. This, as the egregious U.S. Representative Al Green (D-Texas) says, is the problem: if Trump isn’t impeached, he will be reelected. But impeachment will be a complete failure, and he will be reelected anyway…
…Donald Trump was a total outsider politically. He pioneered a new technique of parlaying celebrity and a system of intensive branding of his name and exposure as an impresario and reality television star, into an outsider candidacy, representing the anti-elites and all who felt short-changed by the yuppie-champion Clintons and Obamas and the indistinct Bushes. Like a big cat stalking a wildebeest, Trump changed parties seven times in 13 years, polling constantly, until he saw his target clearly and within range and he charged and seized it.
As Trump was running against all factions of both parties, the adaptation of the congressional Republicans in Washington to the Trump era was sluggish and is still not complete. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senators Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) have left and John McCain died, having killed health care reform and ordained that he have an anti-Trump funeral. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a sly old Kentuckian, has made the cut, as he assimilates to all changes in Washington.
But whatever the Republican congressional delegations think of Trump—and Flake may be right that privately many Republican senators would like to see the back of him—he has the rank-and-file Republican public behind him as only a few Republican presidents have: Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon at his strongest, and Reagan. Apart from a few ostentatiously pseudo-conscientious senators such as Mitt Romney (R-Utah), the Republican senators can’t desert him in the absence of serious evidence of his wrongdoing, and there is none.
The principal lesson of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation in 2018 was that there are enough sane and honest people in the Senate who will notice the absence of any believable incriminating evidence to produce a just decision. No serious person could make a crime out of the Ukraine “facts”; only rabid, witless, blood and publicity hounds (of whom the Democrats have no shortage), can claim that. But that is no longer the point. There was no believable evidence against Kavanaugh either, but only a balance of probabilities was required, at a time when any female denunciation from the past against a prominent man was accorded great credence…
…The Democrats and their Republican kindred spirits in the Washington establishment, having completely failed to see Trump coming, and after complacently assuming they could jettison him on the Russian scam, relying on the slavish allies in the national political media, now realize their backs are to the wall and this is their last play.
It won’t work, and while they are trying to execute it, prominent figures of the previous administration will be arraigned for cooking up the Russian collusion fiction and inflicting it on the country by corrupting the FBI and intelligence services…
…The second notable development in the last week that has altered the political landscape is the outrageous, defamatory, and possibly insane charge by Hillary Clinton that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and the 2016 Green candidate for president Jill Stein, are “Russian assets” being “groomed” by the Russians for third party candidacies. This is the former first lady, U.S. senator from New York and secretary of state. This is the same mentality that in its deranged perversity commissioned the fraudulent Steele Dossier, and gave us the Trump-Russia “treason” myth, on which she blamed her loss of the election. It didn’t work in 2016. The fervent efforts of the Mueller special counsel staff to produce something remotely indictable against Trump failed, and this final effort to remove the president will be a disaster.
But Clinton has given us a hint of what the world was spared when she was defeated. The Democrats are being led by a coalition of constitutional renegades, spavined political tricksters, and would-be socialist tyrants. They are speeding over a political cliff. The force of gravity will assert itself…”
Couldn’t happen to nicer guy!
Eric Felten:
“…Rudolph Giuliani didn’t hide the fact that he was investigating whether Ukraine interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential race. Yet most media have treated Giuliani’s efforts as sneaky and suspect because he acted at the personal behest of the president and not as an official representative of the bureaucracy. The New York Times, for example, claimed Giuliani was conducting “a shadow foreign policy campaign.”
In fact, presidents since George Washington have turned to individuals without formal government positions to pursue foreign policy interests and objectives. Private citizens, often acting as special envoys, have helped negotiate issues ranging from trade to war. While critics deride such efforts as “back-door,” “secret,” or “shadow” undertakings, many presidents have found it useful to dispatch people they trust, who can think and operate outside the constraints of official channels in handling delicate matters…”
Bonchie:
“…While it’s hard to keep up with all the freak-outs constantly percolating within our media establishment, one of the latest involves Donald Trump using the term “lynch” to describe the secret impeachment investigation they are carrying out. This came as part of his frustration with the Democrats refusing to take a vote and shutting off all minority rights for Republicans, something that’s unprecedented…
…This of course led to all manner of gnashing of teeth. How could the President use such a historically charged word!
Of course, a little digging has turned up the reality that Democrats have used the term “lynch” in its various forms (lynch mob, lynching, etc.) many times. It’s pretty laughable just how prevalent their use of the word has been throughout the years. Worse, they did so specifically decrying impeachment, the very thing Trump is decrying. You can’t make this stuff up…”