What the Flynn Plea Means
by ANDREW C. MCCARTHY December 1, 2017 12:20 PM

There’s less to the news than meets the eye. Former Trump-administration national-security adviser Michael Flynn is expected to plead guilty today to lying to the FBI regarding his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the United States. Flynn, who is reportedly cooperating with the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller, is pleading guilty in federal district court in Washington, D.C., to a one-count criminal information (which is filed by a prosecutor in cases when a defendant waives his right to be indicted by a grand jury).

The false-statement charge, brought under Section 1001 of the federal penal code, stems from Flynn’s conversation on December 29, 2016, with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak. At the time, Flynn was slated to become the national-security adviser to President-elect Donald Trump. The conversation occurred on the same day that then-president Barack Obama announced sanctions against Russia for its interference in the 2016 election. It is believed to have been recorded by the FBI because Kislyak, as an agent of a foreign power, was subject to monitoring under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Mueller has charged Flynn with falsely telling FBI agents that he did not ask the ambassador “to refrain from escalating the situation” in response to the sanctions. In being questioned by the agents on January 24, 2017, Flynn also lied when he claimed he could not recall a subsequent conversation with Kislyak, in which the ambassador told Flynn that the Putin regime had “chosen to moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of [Flynn’s] request.”

Furthermore, a week before the sanctions were imposed, Flynn had also spoken to Kislyak, asking the ambassador to delay or defeat a vote on a pending United Nations resolution. The criminal information charges that Flynn lied to the FBI by denying both that he’d made this request and that he’d spoken afterward with Kislyak about Russia’s response to it. Thus, in all, four lies are specified in the one count. The potential sentence is zero to five years’ imprisonment. Assuming Flynn cooperates fully with Mueller’s investigators, there will be little, if any, jail time.

Obviously, it was wrong of Flynn to give the FBI false information; he could, after all, have simply refused to speak with the agents in the first place. That said, as I argued early this year, it remains unclear why the Obama Justice Department chose to investigate Flynn. There was nothing wrong with the incoming national-security adviser’s having meetings with foreign counterparts or discussing such matters as the sanctions in those meetings. Plus, if the FBI had FISA recordings of Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak, there was no need to ask Flynn what the conversations entailed.

Flynn, an early backer of Donald Trump and a fierce critic of Obama’s national-security policies, was generally despised by Obama administration officials. Hence, there has always been cynical suspicion that the decision to interview him was driven by the expectation that he would provide the FBI with an account inconsistent with the recorded conversation — i.e., that Flynn was being set up for prosecution on a process crime. While initial reporting is portraying Flynn’s guilty plea as a major breakthrough in Mueller’s investigation of potential Trump campaign collusion with the Russian regime, I suspect the opposite is true.

While initial reporting is portraying Flynn’s guilty plea as a major breakthrough in Mueller’s investigation of potential Trump-campaign collusion with the Russian regime, I suspect the opposite is true. Speculation that Flynn is now cooperating in Mueller’s investigation stirred in recent days due to reports that Flynn had pulled out of a joint defense agreement (or “common interest” arrangement) to share information with other subjects of the investigation. As an ethical matter, it is inappropriate for an attorney whose client is cooperating with the government (or having negotiations toward that end) to continue strategizing with, and having quasi-privileged communications with, other subjects of the investigation and their counsel. Nevertheless, as I explained in connection with George Papadopoulos (who also pled guilty in Mueller’s investigation for lying to the FBI), when a prosecutor has a cooperator who was an accomplice in a major criminal scheme, the cooperator is made to plead guilty to the scheme. This is critical because it proves the existence of the scheme.

In his guilty-plea allocution (the part of a plea proceeding in which the defendant admits what he did that makes him guilty), the accomplice explains the scheme and the actions taken by himself and his co-conspirators to carry it out. This goes a long way toward proving the case against all of the subjects of the investigation. That is not happening in Flynn’s situation. Instead, like Papadopoulos, he is being permitted to plead guilty to a mere process crime.

A breaking report from ABC News indicates that Flynn is prepared to testify that Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians — initially to lay the groundwork for mutual efforts against ISIS in Syria. That, however, is exactly the sort of thing the incoming national-security adviser is supposed to do in a transition phase between administrations. If it were part of the basis for a “collusion” case arising out of Russia’s election meddling, then Flynn would not be pleading guilty to a process crime — he’d be pleading guilty to an espionage conspiracy.

Understand: If Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador had evinced the existence of a quid pro quo collusion arrangement — that the Trump administration would ease or eliminate sanctions on Russia as a payback for Russia’s cyber-espionage against the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic party — it would have been completely appropriate, even urgently necessary, for the Obama Justice Department to investigate Flynn. But if that had happened, Mueller would not be permitting Flynn to settle the case with a single count of lying to FBI agents. Instead, we would be looking at a major conspiracy indictment, and Flynn would be made to plead to far more serious offenses if he wanted a deal — cooperation in exchange for sentencing leniency.

To the contrary, for all the furor, we have a small-potatoes plea in Flynn’s case — just as we did in Papadopoulos’s case, despite extensive “collusion” evidence. Meanwhile, the only major case Mueller has brought, against former Trump-campaign chairman Paul Manafort and an associate, has nothing to do with the 2016 election. It is becoming increasingly palpable that, whatever “collusion” means, there was no actionable, conspiratorial complicity by the Trump campaign in the Kremlin’s machinations.

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/...russia-investigation

Drudge is all a twitter with articles that the Flynn deal with Mueller includes Flynns agreement to testify Trump ordered him to contact the Russians and that he's going to bring down Trump, the White House, his family etc etc...

I'd link the articles but its easier to just go to drudge...

Drudge is just another never-Trumper that thinks he's going to be the one to break the news to the world that El Presidente is going to be arrested...good luck on that

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Drudge is all a twitter with articles that the Flynn deal with Mueller includes Flynns agreement to testify Trump ordered him to contact the Russians and that he's going to bring down Trump, the White House, his family etc etc...

I'd link the articles but its easier to just go to drudge...

quote:

Originally posted by lkdr1989:
Drudge is just another never-Trumper that thinks he's going to be the one to break the news to the world that El Presidente is going to be arrested...good luck on that

Drudge isn't writing the articles, they just aggregate (or aggravate ) them into a central source.

ABC, CCN, Politico are the sources, suspect of course but that's the word that is hitting the street now.

Market was down 150 points on the announcement alone.

I know that...he drives traffic to liberal news sites.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

quote:

Originally posted by lkdr1989:
Drudge is just another never-Trumper that thinks he's going to be the one to break the news to the world that El Presidente is going to be arrested...good luck on that

Drudge isn't writing the articles, they just aggregate (or aggravate ) them into a central source.

ABC, CCN, Politico are the sources, suspect of course but that's the word that is hitting the street now.

Market was down 150 points on the announcement alone.

link

It seems that if the Feebs lie to us it should be OK for us to lie to them.

Did Comey lie? Cover-up, ambiguation, sly winks, sounds like a duck quacking to me.

quote:

Originally posted by lkdr1989:
Drudge is just another never-Trumper that thinks he's going to be the one to break the news to the world that El Presidente is going to be arrested...good luck on that

Oh please.

Drudge's site has been extremely pro-Trump since the get-go.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Drudge is all a twitter with articles that the Flynn deal with Mueller includes Flynns agreement to testify Trump ordered him to contact the Russians and that he's going to bring down Trump, the White House, his family etc etc...

I'd link the articles but its easier to just go to drudge...

Remember every news outlet is in the business of getting clicks. It is how they get advertising dollars to remain in business. So, they need both dems and repubs to click bait the shit out of it.

Heres the thought process of the click:

Flynn testifying against trump!

Dems- hell ya trumps going down
Deplorables - "what? trumps not going down is he? fuckin democrats"

Both click. And there you have it.

If it was Hillary Clinton in Trump's position right now we'd still be calling for an end to this pointless investigation. So what, Flynn was nervous and misspoke. There's really nothing to see here; case closed.

Anytime something like this comes out I stop watching news. Not because I am burying my head in the sand to avoid the truth, but rather I am burying it to avoid all the ND's the lame stream media is shooting off.

The truth will settle out in a day or so. And it will not be what the LSM wants us to believe.

quote:

Originally posted by Carpentermaass84:
. . .Flynn was nervous and misspoke. There's really nothing to see here; case closed.

I disagree.

Flynn is a three-star general. Not a combat soldier like a general ought to be, but a political animal.

It is incomprehensible, totally unbelievable, that Flynn didn't know his telephone conversations with ambassadors and their staffs were being recorded (on both ends!). He knew it full well. Why, then, would he deny that those conversations occurred? It's beyond stupid.

Flynn just plain lied. We'll never know the "why" of it. Maybe it had simply been too long since he didn't have staff and a corps-sized unit between him and an adversary. Maybe he thought he could control who heard the recordings (ie: keep them out of the hands of the agents who were questioning him). Maybe for some other reason. No matter why, it was just plain stupid for him to lie.

Trump identified this problem EARLY, and axed Flynn before this kind of stupidity could do real harm to the Trump Administration's objectives.

Flynn feels he's been abandoned by Trump? Flynn did it to himself. A man with three stars ought to be able to put on his big boy pants all by himself, but apparently he feels "abandoned" (from Drudge headline this evening) because Trump didn't pull them up for him.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/...he-russians-n2416802

Here's a major "clarification" from ABC News, finally posted hours after their inaccurate report was shared far and wide. They meant to say this all happened after Trump was elected, not while he was a candidate.

Post-election contacts with foreign governments on the part of a presidential transition team is not abnormal in the least. Why did Flynn lie to the FBI about it, then? Good question.

https://twitter.com/oliverdarc...s/936746822688739329

clarification from Brian Ross

That's very different and a huge correction.

Some in the media today were saying that because Trump had Flynn contacting the Russians during the election cycle, this meant collusion and it was all over for Trump.

Again, the clarification changes and knocks that narrative down.

The aha moment is not the aha moment after all.

Many major governments had contact with both campaigns prior to the election. It is SOP. And remember Obozo himself said that Russia was no longer our enemy.

Republicans passed a tax reform bill at 2am today.

DEMs kept introducing one amendment after another. Each got voted down on partisan votes.

Repeal of the obamacare mandate is in the senate bill. The senate bill needs to be reconciled w the House bill, but REPs are optimistic that will happen.

Some reports are out that President Trump played a significant role in convincing (and some horse trading) several of our usual asshole REP senators who screw up the very slight REP majority in the senate.

Speculation: perhaps the Virginia election where REPs got destroyed was a wake up call for McConnell to get something done.

Washington Post has a summary of what the senate passed:

https://www.washingtonpost.com...=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

The Post says "poor people" are losers in the bill. 44% of Americans who don't pay any federal income tax didn't get anything. (so what ?) The fed income tax is now used inappropriately as another welfare tool.

I watched the tax cut sausage being prepared last night on You-Tube live. What a freaking joke. It would take half an hour to take a vote on an amendment. 30 minutes to get 100 people to vote? It should have take 5 minutes At any rate I'm glad president Trump got a big win DJT was wrong about one thing, I don't and won't get tired of winning.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/1...nti-trump-texts.html

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, removed a top F.B.I. agent from his investigation into Russian election meddling after the Justice Department’s inspector general began examining whether the agent sent text messages that expressed anti-Trump political views, according to three people briefed on the matter.

The agent, Peter Strzok, is considered one of the most experienced and trusted F.B.I. counterintelligence investigators. He helped lead the investigation into whether Hillary Clinton mishandled classified information on her private email account, and then played a major role in the investigation into links between President Trump’s campaign and Russia.

But Mr. Strzok was reassigned this summer from Mr. Mueller’s investigation to the F.B.I.’s human resources department, where he has been stationed since. The people briefed on the case said the transfer followed the discovery of text messages in which Mr. Strzok and a colleague reacted to news events, like presidential debates, in ways that could appear anti-Trump.

A lawyer for Mr. Strzok declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department said that “we are aware of the allegation and are taking any and all appropriate steps.”

*******************

led the Clinton email investigation and major role in "Russia" links, but was anti-Trump
hmmmm

or is this Muellar trying to look "fair"

*************

more

https://www.washingtonpost.com...m_term=.4cd01e9a1a55

The former top FBI official assigned to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election was taken off that job this past summer after his bosses discovered he and another member of Mueller’s team had exchanged politically charged texts disparaging President Trump and supportive of Hillary Clinton, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

During the Clinton investigation, Strzok was involved in a romantic relationship with FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who worked for Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The extramarital affair was problematic, these people said, but of greater concern among senior law enforcement officials were text messages the two exchanged during the Clinton investigation and campaign season, in which they expressed anti-Trump sentiments and other comments that appeared to favor Clinton.

Officials are now reviewing the communications to see if they show evidence of political bias in their work on the cases, a review which could result in a public report, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mueller is such a scumbag. So he fires this guy because he is "concerned" about possible anti-Trump bias? Give me a break. Didn't seem to bother him when he hired every Trump hating liberal democratic operative lawyer in DC to be on his team. I can see why Comey is such a piece of shit, he gets it from Mueller. There isn't an honorable bone in either of their bodies.

Even the kids are winning

The Trump administration is ending yet another of Michelle Obama’s hated, overly strict school lunch rules by bringing chocolate milk back to school lunch menus.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday announced a new rule set to take effect on July 1 after the period of public comment. The new rule relaxes sodium limits and Obama’s whole-grain requirements. The rule will also allow milk with one percent fat back on the menu, ABC News reported.

“Schools need flexibility in menu planning so they can serve nutritious and appealing meals,” Perdue said this week. “Schools want to offer food that students actually want to eat. It doesn’t do any good to serve nutritious meals if they wind up in the trash can.”

Perdue has been dismissing Michelle Obama’s signature school lunch rules all year.

“This is not reducing the nutritional standards whatsoever,” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in May when announcing the Agriculture Department’s intention to bring chocolate milk back to schools. “I wouldn’t be as big as I am today without flavored milk.”

Perdue also slammed Obama’s rules as leading to too much waste. “If kids aren’t eating the food, and it’s ending up in the trash, they aren’t getting any nutrition — thus undermining the intent of the program,” he said.

Critics of Obama’s lunch rules pointed out that they led to higher costs for schools across the country. In the fiscal year 2015 alone, Obama’s school food requirements cost school budgets an additional $1.22 billion.

The School Nutrition Association and the School Superintendents Association have been supportive of Perdue’s efforts to scale back Obama’s rules. The groups recently noted that the “overly prescriptive regulatory requirements” of Obama’s school lunch program had forced school districts to “financially subsidize meals at the expense of educational programs.”

They also said Obama’s nutritional regulations added ten cents to the cost of every lunch and 27 cents to every breakfast, requiring local school districts to absorb $1.2 billion in additional costs in 2015 alone.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...ilk-back-lunchrooms/