More than a year ago I wrote that it was clear General Michael Flynn should never have pleaded guilty because he did not commit a crime. Even if he lied to the FBI, his lie was not "material." For a lie to be a crime under federal law, it must be material to the investigation – meaning that the lies pertain to the issues being legitimately investigated.
The role of the FBI is to investigate past crimes, not to create new ones. Because the FBI investigators already knew the answer to the question they asked him—whether he had spoken to the Russian Ambassador—their purpose was not to elicit new information relevant to their investigation, but rather to spring a perjury trap on him. When they asked Flynn the question, they had a recording of his conversation with the Russian, of which he was presumably unaware. So his answer was not material to the investigation because they already had the information about which they were inquiring.
From a legal and policy point of view, encouraging the FBI to misuse its legitimate authority to investigate past crimes, solely to create future crimes is both immoral and illegal. That is why Congress added the word material to its statute. Because Flynn's answers were not material to what the FBI said it was investigating –- a violation of a never-used law, the Logan Act, that prohibits private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments -- they did not constitute a crime. At the time, that argument was mocked by the usual suspects: fair-weather civil libertarians who would have supported the argument if it had been made on behalf of a liberal Democrat but who rejected it when made on behalf of a Trump Republican. They claimed there was no authority supporting this argument, despite the citation of several cases by eminent judges.
Now the Justice Department has agreed that General Flynn did not, in fact, commit any crime. Among the reasons given for belatedly dropping the case against General Flynn was that his answers did not satisfy the materiality requirement of the statute. Let us hear now from the former civil libertarians for whom any violation of law is permissible, as long as it is directed at a Trump associate. (Read more.)
From Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist:
A clearer picture is emerging of the drastic steps that were taken to accomplish Obama’s goal in the following weeks and months. Shortly thereafter, high-level operatives began intensely leaking selective information supporting a supposed Russia-Trump conspiracy theory, the incoming National Security Advisor was ambushed, and the incoming Attorney General was forced to recuse himself from oversight of investigations of President Trump. At each major point in the operation, explosive media leaks were a key strategy in the operation to take down Trump.
Not only was information on Russia not fully shared with the incoming Trump team, as Obama directs, the leaks and ambushes made the transition chaotic, scared quality individuals away from working in the administration, made effective governance almost impossible, and materially damaged national security. When Comey was finally fired on May 9, in part for his duplicitousness regarding his handling of the Russia collusion theory, he orchestrated the launch of a Special Counsel probe that continued his efforts for another two years. That probe ended with Mueller finding no evidence of any American colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 election, much less Trump or anyone connected to him.
An analysis of the timeline from early 2017 shows a clear pattern of behavior from the federal officials running the collusion operation against the Trump campaign. It also shows how essential media leaks were to their strategy to sideline key law enforcement and intelligence officials and cripple the ability of the incoming Trump administration to run the country. Here’s a timeline of the key moments and news articles of the efforts, per Obama’s direction, to prevent the Trump administration from learning about the FBI’s operation against it. (Read more.)
From Breitbart:
The Justice Department’s Thursday decision to drop its case against Flynn comes after handwritten notes written by FBI officials questioned whether the “goal” was “to get [the Trump official] to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired.”Share
Ahead of the filing’s release, prosecutor Brandon Van Grack moved to withdraw from the case. In an interview with CBS News, Attorney General William Barr defended the decision, saying he was “doing the law’s bidding’
“A crime cannot be established here. They did not have a basis for a counterintelligence investigation against Flynn at that stage,” Barr said in reference to the FBI. “People sometimes plead to things that turn out not to be crimes,” he added. President Trump praised the DOJ’s decision, calling Flynn an “innocent man,” and a “great gentleman.” (Read more.)
1 comment:
I have never understood why a conversation between an ambassador and a person in an administrative level of the government is considered 'colluding with an enemy'.
Post a Comment