Michael Flynn vs the Deep State

Submitted by Linda Wood on Sat, 05/30/2020 - 5:32pm

Recent release of the transcripts of both General Flynn's December 29, 2016 conversation with Russian Ambassador Kislyak and FBI Director Comey's testimony to Congress of March 2, 2017 add immeasurably to our understanding of what happened with Flynn and the Ambassador and with Comey, Congress, and the public's perception.

General Flynn has earned respect, or notoriety, depending on how you feel about his position, for opposing our foreign policy in support Saudi Arabia and others who arm ISIS and Al Qaeda. As Director of Defense Information in the Obama administration, he predicted the support of a Salafist Caliphate to replace Assad in Syria would be a disaster for the region, which is probably why he was fired.

Sy Hersh has documented* that Flynn "wouldn’t shut up" about the need to work with Russia to defeat the common enemy in Syria, Islamic terrorism. But the Obama administration waffled** and undermined efforts to do so by supporting armed groups "marbleized" with Al Qaeda and by thwarting*** Russian ceasefire arrangements.

Flynn's call with Kislyak re-affirms his opposition to undermining the fight against terrorism and affirms his desire to keep the focus in the Middle East on that fight. Indeed, if you read the transcript as speaking about sanctions, he clearly urges the Russian government not to retaliate against the sanctions in a way that would harm the fight against terrorism.

Jim Comey, on the other hand, deals with the question of whether Flynn lied to 2 FBI agents about whether he spoke with Kislyak about sanctions. There is no transcript of the FBI interview of Flynn, no recording, and no contemporary notes, no official 302 report. It was lost. So we just have Jim Comey's testimony to suggest what Flynn said in the interview.

Comey outlines 2 reasons for his sending FBI agents to interview Flynn. He states that he and the intelligence community and the Obama administration were concerned and confused by the fact that the Russians didn't retaliate against the sanctions. Apparently, encouraging the Russians not to retaliate was seen as a threat. That wouldn't really warrant an investigation, though, in most people's universe, so, conveniently, the media got hold of the fact that Flynn had spoken with Kislyak, and a TV talk show host asked VP Pence if Flynn had talked with Kislyak about sanctions, and Pence said Flynn had told him he hadn't. So now, Comey says, he had a reason to investigate.

Key to Comey's testimony is the passage in which he establishes Flynn's recognition of the transcript of the call as a more reliable record of what he spoke about with Kislyak than his own memory. It is so frustrating to see Michael Flynn have to parse this out with Lockheed General Counsel Comey, whom I would describe as King Weasel of Weasel Word World. But that's apparently where we are, with Flynn being described by Pence and Comey as saying he didn't remember speaking about sanctions with Kislyak.

I will add some excerpts from the transcripts in Comments.

https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2020/05/FlynnTranscripts.pdf
DECLASSIFIED by DNI Ratcliffe on 29 May 2020
II. December 29, 2016 Call

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.191592/gov.uscourts...
FBI COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INVESTIGATIONS
Thursday, March 2, 2017

* https://geopolitics.co/2015/12/22/dempseys-pentagon-aided-assad-with-mil...

** https://2009-2017.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2016/09/261776.htm

***
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2016/09/261823.htm

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Comments

Submitted by Linda Wood on Sat, 05/30/2020 - 5:40pm

Flynn - Kislyak

key exchange.

https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2020/05/FlynnTranscripts.pdf

DECLASSIFIED by DNI Ratcliffe on 29 May 2020
II. December 29, 2016 Call

… FLYNN: icYeah. Yeah, yeah. I understand. Okay, um, okay. Listen, uh, a couple of things. Number one, what I would ask you guys to do - and make sure you, make sure that you convey this, okay? - do not, do not uh, allow this administration to box us in, right now, okay? Um -
KISLYAK: We have conveyed it. And -
FLYNN: Yeah.
KISLYAK: It's, uh, ifs uh, very very specifically and transparently, openly.
FLYNN: So, you know, depending on, depending on what uh, actions they take over this current issue of the cyber stuff, you know, where they're looking like they're gonna, they're gonna dismiss some number of Russians out of the country, I understand all that and I understand that~ that, you know, the information that they have and all that, but what I would ask Russia to do is to not - is - is - if anything - because I know you have to have some sort of action - to, to only make it reciprocal. Make it reciprocal. Don't - don't make it- don't go any further than you have to. Because I don't want us to get into something that has to escalate, on a, you know, on a tit for tat. You follow me, Ambassador?
KISLYAK: I understand what you're saying~ but you know, you might appreciate the sentiments that are raging now in Moscow.
9
FLYNN: I know, I - believe me, I do appreciate it, I very much appreciate it. But I really don't want us to get into a situation where we're going, you know~ where we do this and then you do something bigger, and then you know, everybody's got to go back and forth and everybody's got to be the tough guy here, you know?
fI'imestamp 07:00]
FLYNN: We don't need to, we don't need that right now, we need to- we need cool heads to prevail, and uh, and we need to be very steady about what we're going to do because we have absolutely a common uh. threat in the Middle East right now
KISLYAK: We agree.
FLYNN: We have to eliminate this common threat.
KISLYAK: We agree. One of the problems among the measures that have been announced today is that now FSB and GRU are sanctions, are sanctioned, and I ask myself, uh~ does it mean that the United States isn't willing to work on terrorist threats?
FLYNN: Yeah, yeah.
KISLYAK: Because that's the people who are exactly, uh, fighting the terrorists.
FLYNN: Yeah, yeah, yep.
KISLYAK: So that's something that we have to deal with. But rve heard what you say, and I certainly will try·-
FLYNN: Yeah.
KISLYAK: - to get the people in Moscow to understand it.
FLYNN: Yeah.
fI'imestamp 08:00]
FLYNN: And please make sure that its uh - the idea is, be - if you~ if you have to do something, do something on a reciprocal basis, meaning you know, on a sort of an even basis. Then that, then that is a good message and we'll understand that message. And, and then, we know that we're not going to escalate this thing, where we~ where because if we put out- if we send out 30 guys and you send out 60, you know, or you shut down every Embassy, rmean we have to get this to a - lefs, let's keep this at a level that uh is, is even-keeled, okay? ls even-keeled. And then what we can do is, when we come in, we can then have a better conversation about where, where we're gonna go, uh~ regarding uh, regarding our relationship. And also, basically we have to take these, these enemies on that we have. And we definitely have a common enemy. You have a problem with it, we have a problem with it in this country, and we definitely have a problem with it in the Middle East.
10
[Times/amp 09:00]
FLYNN: And we have to, we have to do something about it. So, um
KISLYAK: General, I completely agree with you.
FLYNN: Yeah, yeah. So anyway. Okay?
KfSLYAK: Thank you.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Sat, 05/30/2020 - 5:45pm

Comey on concerns

about lack of Russian retaliation.

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.191592/gov.uscourts...

FBI COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INVESTIGATIONS
Thursday, March 2, 2017

U.S. House of Representatives, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington, D.C.

… So when the President announced -- that is the completion of the [redacted] calls. When the President announced that the United States Government was going to expel Russian diplomats and take the actions to close and to impose sanctions on some of the intelligence leadership in Russia, we obviously were covering very, very closely to see what reaction we would get from the Russians; what are they going to do? ...
And then the Intelligence Community, including the FBI, was surprised when the Russians did nothing in response to the expulsion. One of the reasons we were [redacted] was to see, how far will they go in retaliating to us, and then what will we do?

And so the last couple days of December and the first couple days of January, all the Intelligence Community was trying to figure out, so what is going on here? Why is this -- why have the Russians reacted the way they did, which confused us? ...

Submitted by Linda Wood on Sat, 05/30/2020 - 5:52pm

Comey on VP Pence

and media report of Flynn call.

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.191592/gov.uscourts...

... Nothing, to my mind, happens until the 13th of January, when David Ignatius publishes a column that contains a reference to communications Michael Flynn had with the Russians. That was on the 13th of January.

And then 2 days later -- I think it is Sunday the 15th of January -- the Vice President is on the Sunday morning shows and says that Flynn had communications with the Russians, but it was
19
Case 1:17-cr-00232-EGS Document 198-6 Filed 05/07/20 Page 6 of 14

about essentially nothing about sanctions, or nothing substantive. It was about expressing condolences and -- and I forget what else he said at that point. So that is the 15th of January.
So that begins the last week of the Obama administration. And during that week, the then Acting Attorney General was urging me to tell the White House that the Vice President's statements are inaccurate and to give them a heads-up that the statements that he had made to the public were inconsistent with what we knew...

And I should have said this at the beginning. At that point, we had an open counterintelligence investigation on Mr. Flynn, and it had been open since the summertime, and we were very close to closing it. In fact, I had -- I think I had authorized it to be closed at the end of January, beginning -- excuse me, end of December, beginning of January. And we kept it open once we became aware of these communications. And there were additional steps the investigators wanted to consider, and if we were to give a heads-up to anybody at the White House, it might step on our ability to take those steps.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Sat, 05/30/2020 - 5:56pm

Comey on Flynn

interview with FBI agents.

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.191592/gov.uscourts...

... And he met with the two agents and was interviewed in his office in the West Wing and said essentially what the Vice
21
Case 1:17-cr-00232-EGS Document 198-6 Filed 05/07/20 Page 8 of 14

President had said on television, which is: I didn't talk to the Russians about their expulsion of diplomats. I didn't talk to the Russians about their--the sanctions. I didn't talk about that at all.

And then the agents, obviously being experienced agents, start interviewing him, and not -- they didn't show him the transcripts, but they started using in their questions words that were taken directly from the transcripts: Well, did you say this, and did you say that, and did you say this?

And he obviously began to pick up that they had something else that was underlying their questions, and he said: Look, it is possible. I am guessing you guys [redacted] the Russians, but -- he said: I don't remember talking about that. I was in the Dominican Republic. I didn't get his text because I had bad coverage there. I called him back. And I don't remember talking to him about this. And I am sorry, but I didn't he said: My recollection is I did not talk to him about that.

And the agents -- and the reason I mention their experience is because I talked to them about this -- they discerned no physical indications of deception. They didn't see any change in posture, in tone, in inflection, in eye contact. They saw nothing that indicated to them that he knew he was lying to them.

And they interviewed him completely, went through it all, did not show him the transcript,[redacted] or transcripts, and then came back and drafted a 302 and reported to me and the Deputy
22
Case 1:17-cr-00232-EGS Document 198-6 Filed 05/07/20 Page 9 of 14

Director.

And I then briefed the White House on the contents of what Mr. Flynn had said. That is the 24th of January.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Sat, 05/30/2020 - 6:02pm

Comey on purpose

of FBI interview of Flynn.

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.191592/gov.uscourts...

MR.TURNER: When your agents went to go speak to Mr.Flynn~
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Case 1:17-cr-00232-EGS Document 198-6 Filed 05/07/20 Page 13 of 14

and questioned him about the conversation, you already knew the contents of the conversation. You had the transcript and the agents had access to the transcript.

MR.COMEY: Correct.

MR.TURNER: So you couldn't have sent agents to Mr.Flynn for the purposes of questioning him about the content of the conversation because you already knew what the content was. Correct?

MR. COMEY: Right. Our purpose --

MR. TURNER: Right. You had a transcript, so there was no question. So right. Thank you.
So what was the purpose of the questioning? If it wasn't to ascertain what happened in the phone conversation, of which the contents you knew, what was the purpose to ask him these questions about what happened in the conversation?

MR. COMEY: To find out whether there was something we were missing about his relationship with the Russians and whether he would -- because we had this disconnect publicly between what the Vice President was saying and what we knew. And so before we closed an investigation of Flynn, I wanted them to sit before him and say what is the deal?

MR.TURNER: By publicly, you mean statements that were made in the press.

MR. COMEY: Right. That the Vice President made on TV.

MR. TURNER: Right. Okay. But you have also made statements [redacted?]
76
Case 1:17-cr-00232-EGS Document 198-6 Filed 05/07/20 Page 14 of 14

business or government relationships, with Russia. Is that correct?

MR. COMEY: Well the context was there was an open counterintelligence investigation that had been open for months, trying to figure out is there some sort of covert relationship between Mr. Flynn and the Russian Government. And then when Mr. Flynn has a communication [redacted] with the Russian Ambassador, and that it appear -- again, from what we can see from the outside -- that he for some reason hasn't been candid with the Vice President about this, my judgment was we could not close the investigation of Mr. Flynn without asking him what is the deal here. That was the purpose.

MR. SWALWELL: And do you agree with Ms. Yates's evaluation that that made him blackmailable?

MR. COMEY: Possible. That struck me as a bit of a reach, though, honestly. [redacted, 2 paragraphs]-
-.
86

Submitted by Dr. John Carpenter on Sat, 05/30/2020 - 9:32pm

Thanks for all of this.

It’s important stuff that’s (at least to me) a little hard to follow in the best of times, let alone with as much going on as now.

—

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Submitted by on the cusp on Sun, 05/31/2020 - 4:16am

In another essay/comment thread here,

I was thinking back and commenting on crap that happened to me in the '80's.
There was a network to set me up for criminal charges. 2 reasons: I was getting a name as a good defense attorney that could run for office; and if I got disbarred, lots of local attorneys, all family of TPTB ,would have less competition.
If I had been charged, and if the cops the prosecutors had given me a choice of pleading guilty or prosecuting my paraplegic husband, I would not hesitated to plead guilty.
Flynn took care of his son.
I would have never, ever, put a paraplegic husband in jeopardy of being in a Texas prison.
Thanks for all this, Linda.

—

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by Raggedy Ann on Sun, 05/31/2020 - 7:18am

Very nice work, Linda.

Thanks for breaking it all down for us!

—

"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Submitted by Lookout on Sun, 05/31/2020 - 8:33am

What a set up...

Thanks for your report.

—

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by Fishtroller 02 on Sun, 05/31/2020 - 8:59am

I've got a bridge to sell anyone who does not see that

Barack Obama is directly behind all of this.

—

"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

Submitted by RantingRooster on Sun, 05/31/2020 - 10:56am

Thanks Linda for this report

To me, it all seems rather pointless to frame up Flynn like this, when considering we are not even supposed to be in Syria in the first place. The US has absolutely no legal authority what so ever to be operating in Syria.

The "BIG LIE" is we are operating in many countries without any "legal" authority to do so. The AUMF is a fig leaf of "authority", especially considering it was all based on LIES. Iraq did not have WMD's and posed no threat what so ever to the US. They did not attack us nor threaten too. Afghanistan did not attack us nor threaten too.

[video:https://youtu.be/dkamZg68jpk]

Bill Clinton, GWB, Obama, and now Trump, should all be rotting in the Hague for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. Anything less, is like appeasing Hitler. I'm just saying...

(edit to add video above)

—

C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

Submitted by Linda Wood on Sun, 05/31/2020 - 1:12pm

I hear you,

@RantingRooster .

It's a measure of how much control the Military Industrial Complex has over our entire population that Flynn is the only public figure who has spoken in opposition to our foreign policy, with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard. And Flynn has been unable to speak publicly for the years he's been under the orders of his legal case. Gabbard was marginalized, but she did make strong points.

Compared to the Vietnam years, when there was vociferous debate about the war in Congress, in the press, in our homes, in our schools, there's nothing now. There's just Michael Flynn, when he's allowed to speak.

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Sun, 05/31/2020 - 1:08pm

More of less as we anticipated.

Russia not retaliating to the sanctions came out very early, but the details about the process of the entrapment is always creepy business.

One thing I still cannot get my mind around: When we first heard about these phone calls during the transition, which are perfectly normal, I remembered thinking, "Well, the NSA has them for the historical record." I knew a lot about NSA practices and technologies from covering Ed Snowden. I assumed that everyone in DC knows their calls are collected. Anyone familiar with Intelligence knew how the system worked. The details weren't weren't a secret anymore. We even knew the name of the software that scooped this data up. So, why or how could any of them lie about a phone call to an investigator?

Thanks Linda, Great work.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Sun, 05/31/2020 - 2:08pm

Comey provides

@Pluto's Republic

the closest thing we have to what Flynn could conceivably have lied about - whether he remembered or not that he spoke with Kislyak about sanctions.

And we only have Comey's word that Flynn even said that, as there are no notes from the interview.

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.191592/gov.uscourts...

… they started using in their questions words that were taken directly from the transcripts: Well, did you say this, and did you say that, and did you say this?

And he obviously began to pick up that they had something else that was underlying their questions, and he said: Look, it is possible. I am guessing you guys [redacted] the Russians, but -- he said: I don't remember talking about that.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Sun, 05/31/2020 - 1:45pm

Jim Kunstler on Flynn's case

https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-unspooling-2/

Jim Kunstler
May 25, 2020
The Unspooling

What “the Resistance” really fears more than anything is General Michael Flynn’s mouth. He’s been under a judicial gag order since his case went before Judge Emmet Sullivan’s federal district court… Judge Sullivan’s recent shenanigans have one object: to keep that gag order in force as long as possible...

… Gen. Flynn was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for two years (2012 – 2014) under Barack Obama, and he knows a ton about every crooked operation Mr. Obama presided over, including the Benghazi fiasco, the Ukraine regime change op, and especially Mr. Obama’s hijacking of the NSA supercomputer surveillance database known as “the Hammer,” …

Gen. Flynn became an antagonist to Obama & Co. when he objected to the nuclear deal they were cooking up with Iran and when he spoke out against the CIA’s 2013 Timber Sycamore op to arm and give money to Isis terrorists opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Mr. Obama canned Gen. Flynn in 2014. What really sealed Gen. Flynn’s fate was when he started publicly complaining about the politicization of John Brennan’s CIA. The New York Times quoted him saying, “They’ve lost sight of who they actually work for. They work for the American people. They don’t work for the president of the United States. Frankly, it’s become a very political organization.”

… And then, Lord have mercy, he was appointed to sit at Mr. Trump’s very elbow in the West Wing as National Security Advisor! Well, you can imagine the tremors that provoked. Gen. Flynn had declared his intention to completely reorganize, partially dismantle, and audit the intel community monster that had spread like a slime mold through the government…

So, John Brennan concocted the RussiaGate scam to put over the idea that General Flynn was an errand boy of Vladimir Putin… Once they embarked on that grand misadventure, and enlisted the foolish James Comey and his FBI zealots to assist, the gang found themselves involved in a dangerous game of sedition, poorly thought out and executed desperately. And finally, by all that’s holy, the improbable Mr. Trump actually won the election, ensuring that he would be privy to every dark secret moldering in the vaults of the US government.

For three years, the whole wicked scheme has been slowly but steadily unspooling. The hapless (and perhaps senile) Robert Mueller was brought in to cap what threatened to become a political nuclear meltdown. We must suppose that Mr. Mueller was just a figurehead, and yet the supposedly brightest gang of Lawfare attorneys he enlisted — Weissmann, Van Grack, Rhee, Zebley, et. al. — absolutely blew it. They came up with zilch on Russian collusion, they muffed the attempt to nail Mr. Trump on an obstruction of justice rap (and watched helplessly as the inept Schiff & Nadler flopped fecklessly at impeachment), and now, having been exposed in the malicious prosecution of Gen. Flynn, they were forced to drop the case against him.

Finally, Judge Sullivan was recruited by The Resistance in a last-ditch effort to keep Gen. Flynn silent for a couple months more by ginning up an amicus circus that would invite a zillion bogus filings of briefs to be meticulously examined and argued, a pointless exercise in sound and fury. In doing so, he contradicted 25 of his own previous rulings against amicus filings by the defendant, and also moved in violation of a Supreme Court decision (Sineneng-Smith, 2020) and a DC Circuit case (Fokker Services 2016), as well as federal court rules against the use of amicus filings in criminal proceedings.

Now he has a few days to answer a mandamus motion from the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to cut the shit and do his bound duty in the case…

… Oh, and get ready for Gen. Michael Flynn to speak. He might have a few interesting things to say. Not all of the news media will ignore him, and then those who do will have a lot to answer for about their long-running complicity in the criminal conspiracy to overthrow a president.

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Mon, 06/01/2020 - 10:12am

Unusual clarity on Jim Kunstler's part

@Linda Wood

...posted above. Most of the time I find his writing to be murky and his conclusions to be questionable. This time he had a finger on all the dominos. One little push and the Obama cartel is exposed again...

For three years, the whole wicked scheme has been slowly but steadily unspooling.

The hapless (and perhaps senile) Robert Mueller was brought in to cap what threatened to become a political nuclear meltdown. We must suppose that Mr. Mueller was just a figurehead, and yet the supposedly brightest gang of Lawfare attorneys he enlisted — Weissmann, Van Grack, Rhee, Zebley, et. al. — absolutely blew it. They came up with zilch on Russian collusion, they muffed the attempt to nail Mr. Trump on an obstruction of justice rap (and watched helplessly as the inept Schiff & Nadler flopped fecklessly at impeachment), and now, having been exposed in the malicious prosecution of Gen. Flynn, they were forced to drop the case against him.

… Oh, and get ready for Gen. Michael Flynn to speak. He might have a few interesting things to say. Not all of the news media will ignore him, and then those who do will have a lot to answer for about their long-running complicity in the criminal conspiracy to overthrow a president.

...and again.

We have a toxic dementia problem at the US Federal government.

Dementia liars do not know they are lying. This is the root of many of the current problems we have in the US, and it stretches all the way back to the beginning of US history. Modern history was hopelessly twisted by the deep dementia of the Reagan administration, and institutional dementia is built into the Supreme Court, which is rife with it. (Justices do not write their own opinions, remember that. The Court is artificially divided and it always maintains a few switch hitters. Decisions are fluidly situational and unpredictable. So are presidential elections, for that matter.)

If you read at this blog then you know that half of the dumb assholes who conspired to overthrow the US government in 2016 are either demented or psychopaths. You've seen them lie to Congress. They lie in the books they write. They lie on television. The other half of the co-conspirators are using them as intelligence assets! This half includes Barack Obama.

The only people with the credibility to harness this democracy-killer are older people who still possess their critical faculties, and who insist on putting upper age limits on political offices. Just as important, they should insist on brain scans and other mental health screening to eliminate the sociopaths and psychopaths from holding political office. They pose a threat to all of us. They have brought us unspeakable damage.

I'm looking at you Readers for this kind of courage and conviction. One day soon, you will find it and use it.

https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-unspooling-2/

Jim Kunstler
May 25, 2020
The Unspooling

What “the Resistance” really fears more than anything is General Michael Flynn’s mouth. He’s been under a judicial gag order since his case went before Judge Emmet Sullivan’s federal district court… Judge Sullivan’s recent shenanigans have one object: to keep that gag order in force as long as possible...

… Gen. Flynn was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for two years (2012 – 2014) under Barack Obama, and he knows a ton about every crooked operation Mr. Obama presided over, including the Benghazi fiasco, the Ukraine regime change op, and especially Mr. Obama’s hijacking of the NSA supercomputer surveillance database known as “the Hammer,” …

Gen. Flynn became an antagonist to Obama & Co. when he objected to the nuclear deal they were cooking up with Iran and when he spoke out against the CIA’s 2013 Timber Sycamore op to arm and give money to Isis terrorists opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Mr. Obama canned Gen. Flynn in 2014. What really sealed Gen. Flynn’s fate was when he started publicly complaining about the politicization of John Brennan’s CIA. The New York Times quoted him saying, “They’ve lost sight of who they actually work for. They work for the American people. They don’t work for the president of the United States. Frankly, it’s become a very political organization.”

… And then, Lord have mercy, he was appointed to sit at Mr. Trump’s very elbow in the West Wing as National Security Advisor! Well, you can imagine the tremors that provoked. Gen. Flynn had declared his intention to completely reorganize, partially dismantle, and audit the intel community monster that had spread like a slime mold through the government…

So, John Brennan concocted the RussiaGate scam to put over the idea that General Flynn was an errand boy of Vladimir Putin… Once they embarked on that grand misadventure, and enlisted the foolish James Comey and his FBI zealots to assist, the gang found themselves involved in a dangerous game of sedition, poorly thought out and executed desperately. And finally, by all that’s holy, the improbable Mr. Trump actually won the election, ensuring that he would be privy to every dark secret moldering in the vaults of the US government.

For three years, the whole wicked scheme has been slowly but steadily unspooling. The hapless (and perhaps senile) Robert Mueller was brought in to cap what threatened to become a political nuclear meltdown. We must suppose that Mr. Mueller was just a figurehead, and yet the supposedly brightest gang of Lawfare attorneys he enlisted — Weissmann, Van Grack, Rhee, Zebley, et. al. — absolutely blew it. They came up with zilch on Russian collusion, they muffed the attempt to nail Mr. Trump on an obstruction of justice rap (and watched helplessly as the inept Schiff & Nadler flopped fecklessly at impeachment), and now, having been exposed in the malicious prosecution of Gen. Flynn, they were forced to drop the case against him.

Finally, Judge Sullivan was recruited by The Resistance in a last-ditch effort to keep Gen. Flynn silent for a couple months more by ginning up an amicus circus that would invite a zillion bogus filings of briefs to be meticulously examined and argued, a pointless exercise in sound and fury. In doing so, he contradicted 25 of his own previous rulings against amicus filings by the defendant, and also moved in violation of a Supreme Court decision (Sineneng-Smith, 2020) and a DC Circuit case (Fokker Services 2016), as well as federal court rules against the use of amicus filings in criminal proceedings.

Now he has a few days to answer a mandamus motion from the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to cut the shit and do his bound duty in the case…

… Oh, and get ready for Gen. Michael Flynn to speak. He might have a few interesting things to say. Not all of the news media will ignore him, and then those who do will have a lot to answer for about their long-running complicity in the criminal conspiracy to overthrow a president.

Submitted by Marie on Sun, 05/31/2020 - 4:30pm

Flynn -- like many in DC -- is dirty;

just not on the one matter that they found a dirty way to hang him on.

At a larger level what should concern us is that during the lame duck weeks of the Obama Administration, they chose to escalate international friction based on no verifiable new factors. I'm not aware of any US administration that has ever done anything similar during a transition. No Democrat will have any right to complain when the outgoing Trump administration pulls any horrible stunt during its last few days.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Sun, 05/31/2020 - 5:43pm

I am

@Marie

a lifelong pacifist. I believe the industry of war is treasonous, that profiting by war is a threat to our national security.

Michael Flynn is not a pacifist, obviously. He's career military. He was at Abu Ghraib. He was squarely in the middle of the Obama administration's military intelligence and strategic planning. He spoke out when he saw that it was counter-productive. In his interview with Al Jazeera he said that "history will not be kind" when examining what "we" including himself had done in Iraq. He admits he has been part of the problem. He's trying to bring about a solution.

Is Flynn's role in our psychotic foreign policy what you are refering to when you say he is dirty? Are you saying the matter that they found a dirty way to hang him on, lying to FBI agents, is not what he is guilty of, but that he is guilty of a different crime? If so, specifically what?

Submitted by Marie on Sun, 05/31/2020 - 8:22pm

Other than opposing the insane

@Linda Wood Obama administration (along with McCain and the GOP) support for Islamic terrorists in Syria, what other US MIC/Intel violence has Flynn opposed? In real time when it mattered and not after the fact when it didn't work out. His opposition to the Iran nuclear agreement (one of the few things that Obama got right) is well known. He loathes Obama for firing him (possibly for the one reason he shouldn't have been fired) and politicized his loathing -- screaming "lock her up" at the RNC convention.

What was his money deal with the Turkish government? (He's got lots of company on that one.)

What charges did his son face that led Flynn to cop a deal to protect his son? If the charges against his son were trumped up, why not hire an attorney. If the charges were legitimate, let the kid deal with it.

Personally, I think Flynn is a rightwing, warmongering racist who only drew a line at supporting jihadis against the rather white appearing and western educated Assad.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Mon, 06/01/2020 - 12:29am

Flynn's DIA report

@Marie

against our support of Al Qaeda and an Islamic Caliphate was made in 2012, before the situation became the disaster he predicted it would become, and before the United States overtly entered the war in Syria.

I disagree with him about Iran in general, but I also think all nuclear power development is mainly an excuse to increase nuclear weapons proliferation. So I might actually agree with some criticism of the Iran deal.

I agree with him about HRC. He has repeatedly differentiated between Islam and Salafist Islamic terrorism, if that is where you see him as racist. And the FBI investigated him for 6 months and didn't find anything derogatory, illegal, or questionable, so his consulting work passed their scrutiny. There were no charges against his son, and your question about why he wouldn't hire an attorney and just deal with it has been written about a lot recently, as Flynn spent millions of dollars and had to sell his house in dealing with this plea agreement misrepresented by his first legal team.

You go up against the Deep State, they have six ways from Sunday to get back at you, or so we hear on good authority. Sometimes they harrass you to death.

I think your impression of Michael Flynn, that he is a rightwing, warmongering racist who only drew a line at supporting jihadis against the rather white appearing and western educated Assad, reflects a media produced image rather than an actual reading of what he has said. With respect, I hope you will read his statements on our war policy.

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Mon, 06/01/2020 - 8:33am

^^^ These are considered and excellent points.

@Linda Wood

They are consistent with the facts presented, upon which you base your argument throughout.

Your logic is clean in my judgement. Interestingly, you touch upon the one logic flaw that troubles me in both Flynn's narrative, and in Obama's narrative. This flaw simply will not go away, no matter how hard we try to make it fit:

I disagree with him about Iran in general, but I also think all nuclear power development is mainly an excuse to increase nuclear weapons proliferation. So I might actually agree with some criticism of the Iran deal.

Opposition to the Iran agreement does not fit with what we know about Flynn.
Support for the Iran agreement does not fit with what we know about Obama.

Iran's narrative of the agreement has never made much sense, either, even though they are the only party to the agreement that has honored its terms consistently and publicly.

My interpretation of the agreement, which I believe is faithfully consistent with all the evidence ever presented to the public is this:

In order to sign the agreement, Iran had to pretend that it was making nuclear weapons — in order to pretend that they would stop making these non-existent weapons — in order to continue to develop the self-sustainable nuclear power plants they have been actively developing for over 60 years to provide a power source to replace the burning of their oil, which they prefer to sell for their own economic survival.

This is the only TRUTH that I believe exists logically, until someone can produce evidence that it is not.

Yet, even the truth about the agreement — which should bury both Obama and Flynn in shame for being such simpletons — does not explain their actions and opinions toward the Iran agreement.

We are all missing something fundamental about the Agreement and what it really meant.

That mystery aside:

The only thing that matters in the Flynn case is CORRUPT INJUSTICE pertaining to the attempted OVERTHROW THE NEWLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

The only thing that mattered in the Russia Hoax was CORRUPT INJUSTICE pertaining to the attempted OVERTHROW THE NEWLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

The Democratic Party's involvement is a matter of CORRUPT INJUSTICE pertaining to the attempted OVERTHROW THE NEWLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

This is now, and it has always been, the History We Are Living Through. **

Nothing else we discuss really means anything until this is addressed.

____________________________
** The Epidemic that traps us may or may not be related to the Overthrow Attempt, which is loudly signaling to the world that the United States is a failed state.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Mon, 06/01/2020 - 12:01pm

Brilliant!

@Pluto's Republic

and stunning. I think you have just solved the Iran agreement enigma and so many others that prop up a military industrial crisis of never ending emptiness. Hot air, indeed.

And I agree with you also about the attempt to overthrow the newly elected government. One of the most interesting things about Susan Rice's email to herself about the Flynn meeting is that it was sent just as Trump was sworn in, and you can't help but feel she and others actually thought they could have prevented the inauguration from happening.

#15.1.1.1

They are consistent with the facts presented, upon which you base your argument throughout.

Your logic is clean in my judgement. Interestingly, you touch upon the one logic flaw that troubles me in both Flynn's narrative, and in Obama's narrative. This flaw simply will not go away, no matter how hard we try to make it fit:

I disagree with him about Iran in general, but I also think all nuclear power development is mainly an excuse to increase nuclear weapons proliferation. So I might actually agree with some criticism of the Iran deal.

.

Opposition to the Iran agreement does not fit with what we know about Flynn.
Support for the Iran agreement does not fit with what we know about Obama.

Iran's narrative of the agreement has never made much sense, either, even though they are the only party to the agreement that has honored its terms consistently and publicly.

My interpretation of the agreement, which I believe is faithfully consistent with all the evidence ever presented to the public is this:

In order to sign the agreement, Iran had to pretend that it was making nuclear weapons — in order to pretend that they would stop making these non-existent weapons — in order to continue to develop the self-sustainable nuclear power plants they have been actively developing for over 60 years to provide a power source to replace the burning of their oil, which they prefer to sell for their own economic survival.

This is the only TRUTH that I believe exists logically, until someone can produce evidence that it is not.

Yet, even the truth about the agreement — which should bury both Obama and Flynn in shame for being such simpletons — does not explain their actions and opinions toward the Iran agreement.

We are all missing something fundamental about the Agreement and what it really meant.

That mystery aside:

The only thing that matters in the Flynn case is CORRUPT INJUSTICE pertaining to the attempted OVERTHROW THE NEWLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

The only thing that mattered in the Russia Hoax was CORRUPT INJUSTICE pertaining to the attempted OVERTHROW THE NEWLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

The Democratic Party's involvement is a matter of CORRUPT INJUSTICE pertaining to the attempted OVERTHROW THE NEWLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

This is now, and it has always been, the History We Are Living Through. **

Nothing else we discuss really means anything until this is addressed.

____________________________
** The Epidemic that traps us may or may not be related to the Overthrow Attempt, which is loudly signaling to the world that the United States is a failed state.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Mon, 06/01/2020 - 12:56pm

I apologize

@Marie ,

for seeming adversarial or hostile in my response. I'm on edge. There's so much going on. I also failed to acknowledge your great point about the Obama administration increasing tension with the Russians at the last minute based on what they knew to be nothing. Your point is worth a serious discussion. Stay well.