KARMA WINS! Today, Mike Flynn was charged with felony lying to the FBI

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KARMA WINS! Today, Mike Flynn was charged with felony lying to the FBI over his secret meetings with Russia.
 

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Why did Flynn lie about his conversations with the Russian ambassador?
Why has the White House told you so many lies about this story?
Why has Trump been exerting so much time and energy to try to get those investigating this matter to stop? CNN's Jake Tapper asks after former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn plead guilty lying to the FBI http://cnn.it/2AknzO3
 

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This is much bigger than Manafort

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Michael Flynn’s Guilty Plea: 10 Key Takeaways

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by Harry Litman | DEC. 1, 2017 |
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/opinion/michael-flynn-guilty-plea-takeaways.html



Michael Flynn’s plea on Friday to a single count of lying to the F.B.I. is a seismic event in the special counsel investigation.

For starters, it portends the likelihood of impeachable charges being brought against the president of the United States. Mr. Flynn, a former national security adviser, acknowledged that he was cooperating with the investigation. His testimony could bring into the light a scandal of historic proportions in which the not-yet-installed Trump administration, including Donald Trump personally, sought to subvert American foreign policy before taking office.

The repercussions of the plea will be months in the making, but it’s not an exaggeration to say that the events to which Mr. Flynn has agreed to testify will take their place in the history books alongside the Watergate and Iran-contra scandals.

We’re in new — and highly inflammatory — territory. Here are 10 immediate takeaways from today’s news.

This is not a meet-in-the-middle deal.
Both sides did not assess their risks and decide to hedge them with a compromise. Rather, as we’ve known for weeks, the special counsel, Robert Mueller, believed he had sufficient evidence to indict Mr. Flynn on a long list of criminal charges, including money laundering, tax offense and false statements. Mr. Mueller’s team, as is standard prosecutorial practice, presented Mr. Flynn with that list and helped him understand that his life as he knew it had ended.


This is much bigger than Paul Manafort.
Mr. Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, has been indicted, but this is a plea, and Mr. Flynn’s cooperation — the real goal of bringing criminal charges — has been secured. This puts Mr. Flynn in the same camp as George Papadopoulos, the campaign adviser who pleaded guilty to making false statements to the F.B.I. on Oct. 5 and is also cooperating with the investigation. Unlike Mr. Papadopoulos, though, Mr. Flynn was a top adviser who was at the center of communication with Russia as well as the potential obstruction of justice by President Trump in seeking to shut down the Flynn investigation itself. Mr. Flynn was considered as a running mate and reportedly stayed quite close to the president even after being forced out of the administration in February.

Mr. Flynn has just become the prosecution’s star witness.
Mr. Flynn’s plea on Friday concerned just one crime. The other charges that prosecutors threatened him with continue to hang over him. Mr. Flynn will not receive credit for his cooperation until after it has ended, at which point Mr. Mueller may — if Mr. Flynn has held up his end of the bargain — move to dismiss the other charges. In the interim, Mr. Flynn has to do anything Mr. Mueller’s team requests.

The charge Mr. Flynn is pleading guilty to is a stunning one.

He is admitting that last December, before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, he asked the Russian ambassador at the time, Sergey Kislyak, to refrain from reacting aggressively to sanctions that the Obama administration had imposed on Russia. Russia reportedly agreed and Mr. Kislyak told Mr. Flynn later that it had chosen to moderate its response to the sanctions to make nice with the Trump team.

It seems Mr. Trump himself directed Mr. Flynn to make contact with the Russians.
If Mr. Flynn testifies to this — ABC’s Brian Ross is reporting that he will — it presents another impeachable offense along with the possible obstruction of justice. Even more, it brings the whole matter well outside the purview of the criminal courts into the province of a political scandal, indicating abuses of power arguably well beyond those in the Watergate and Iran-contra affairs.

Mr. Flynn asked Russia to intervene at the United Nations on behalf of Israel.
He is admitting that last Dec. 22, he asked Mr. Kislyak to delay or defeat a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel for its settlement policy, which the Obama administration had decided to let pass. The possible involvement or knowledge of Israel in the case will be one of many questions that congressional investigators will pursue.

The lying is bad. Conducting rogue American foreign policy is worse.

In the end, Mr. Flynn’s lies are secondary to the demonstration that the Trump administration was actively undermining American foreign policy before it took office. This will most likely prove the most abiding scandalous fact of the Mueller investigation. And it’s one that nobody on either side of the aisle could possibly defend.

Mr. Flynn’s cooperation portends extreme peril for a variety of people in the president’s orbit.
Most immediately vulnerable? Jared Kushner. Mr. Flynn was present at a Dec. 1, 2016, Trump Tower meeting where Mr. Kushner is said to have proposed to Mr. Kislyak setting up a back channel for the transition team to communicate with Moscow.

Those and related details are now front and center in the investigation. Criminal liability aside, Friday’s news — including a report that Mr. Kushner was the one who directed Mr. Flynn to contact Russia — helps cement Mr. Kushner’s reputation as a callow and arrogant freelancer, authorized by the president to act way over his head, and possibly impairing some of the most delicate and important issues of foreign policy. (A possible winner, on the other hand, is the younger Mike Flynn, about whose criminal liability his father was extremely concerned. Look to see how Mr. Mueller now chooses to treat the younger Mr. Flynn, who is being investigated over his work for his father’s lobbying business.)

Mr. Flynn’s plea raises the likelihood that he will give testimony in support of a potential obstruction of justice charge against Mr. Trump.
The basis for the possible obstruction charge against the president has been his efforts to get the F.B.I. director, James Comey, to shut down the Flynn investigation during a Feb. 14 meeting in the Oval Office, coupled with his multiple lies on the subject. Obstruction is plainly an impeachable offense: It’s the offense for which Richard Nixon was threatened with impeachment.

For months, it has seemed the possible culminating charge of the Mueller investigation, a straightforward and readily understandable high crime or misdemeanor. Such a charge, per Department of Justice policy, would not be brought in the criminal courts but would rather form the basis of a report to Congress potentially recommending impeachment. If Mr. Mueller brings that charge, it will be on the strength of Mr. Flynn’s testimony.

Mr. Trump’s defenders have fewer and fewer cards to play.
There had been a prospect that the obstruction of justice charge, if it did come, would be dismissed by die-hard Trump supporters as subject to conflicting interpretations of Mr. Trump’s state of mind, and therefore not deserving of impeachment or removal. No longer. Now Mr. Trump and his circle will stand accused by a former member of the administration with plainly unconstitutional meddling in the most sensitive of foreign policy issues. If the Congress and country believe Michael Flynn’s account, it is hard to see what even the staunchest Trump defenders can say in defense. That means that as Mr. Trump and the administration look out at the new landscape featuring a guilty Michael Flynn, it’s kill or be killed.

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BREAKING: MORE TRUMP-BARR CORRUPTION: "Attorney General William Barr is scrutinizing another case into a Trump associate: He assigned a prosecutor to review Michael Flynn’s case."


Barr Installs Outside Prosecutor to Review Case Against Michael Flynn, Ex-Trump Adviser
Amid turmoil in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, the attorney general has also sent outside prosecutors to review other politically sensitive cases.


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Michael T. Flynn was President Trump’s first national security adviser. He pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I.

Michael T. Flynn was President Trump’s first national security adviser. He pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I.Credit...Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Charlie Savage Adam Goldman Matt Apuzzo
By Charlie Savage, Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo
  • Feb. 14, 2020, 1:02 p.m. ET


    • 73
WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr has assigned an outside prosecutor to scrutinize the criminal case against President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, according to people familiar with the matter.
The review is highly unusual and could trigger more accusations of political interference by top Justice Department officials into the work of career prosecutors.
Mr. Barr has also installed a handful of outside prosecutors to broadly review the handling of other politically sensitive national-security cases in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, the people said. The team includes at least one prosecutor from the office of the United States attorney in St. Louis, Jeff Jensen, who is handling the Flynn matter, as well as prosecutors from the office of the deputy attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen.
Over the past two weeks, the outside prosecutors have begun grilling line prosecutors in the Washington office about various cases — some public, some not — including investigative steps, prosecutorial actions and why they took them, according to the people. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive internal deliberations.
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The Justice Department declined to comment.
The intervention has contributed a turbulent period for the prosecutors’ office that oversees the seat of the federal government and some of the most politically sensitive investigations and cases — some involving President Trump’s friends and allies, and some his critics and adversaries.

This week, four line prosecutors quit the case against Roger Stone Jr., Mr. Trump’s close adviser, after Mr. Barr overruled their recommendation that a judge sentence him within sentencing guidelines. Mr. Barr’s intervention was preceded by criticism of the original sentencing recommendation by Mr. Trump and praised by him afterward, and Mr. Barr on Thursday publicly asked Mr. Trump to stop commenting about the Justice Department.

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The moves amounted to imposing a secondary layer of monitoring and control over what career prosecutors have been doing in the Washington office. They are part of a broader turmoil in that office coinciding with Mr. Barr’s recent installation of a close aide, Timothy Shea, as interim United States attorney in the District of Columbia, after Mr. Barr maneuvered out the Senate-confirmed former top prosecutor in the office, Jessie K. Liu.
Mr. Flynn’s case was first brought by the special counsel’s office, who agreed to a plea deal on a charge of lying to investigators in exchange for his cooperation, before the Washington office took over the case when the special counsel shut down after concluding its investigation into Russia’s election interference.
Mr. Flynn’s case has been bogged down in recent months by his lawyers’ unfounded claims of prosecutorial misconduct; a judge has already rejected those accusations. Mr. Flynn then asked to withdraw his guilty plea, which he first entered in December 2017. His case has become a cause célèbre for Mr. Trump’s supporters.
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On Tuesday, Mr. Barr and Mr. Rosen overruled career prosecutors’ recommendation that a judge sentence Mr. Trump’s friend Roger Stone Jr. to seven to nine years in prison after a jury found him guilty of witness intimidation and several false statements charges, in accordance with standard sentencing guidelines, and insisted on a lower recommendation.
After Mr. Trump complained that the sentence for Mr. Stone — who had refused to cooperate with prosecutors by telling the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, what he knew about Mr. Trump and WikiLeaks — all four career prosecutors quit the case.
Mr. Barr on Thursday gave an interview in which he publicly called on Mr. Trump to stop commenting on the Justice Department, saying it was making it impossible for him to do his job. But Mr. Trump said on Friday he had every right to tell the Justice Department what to do in criminal cases.
President Trump had nominated Ms. Liu for a top Treasury Department position in December, and she initially told her colleagues that she would stay on until her confirmation. But Mr. Barr then asked her to leave early, and she was given a temporary role at the Treasury Department, clearing the way for him to install Mr. Shea in her place.
 

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Barr assigns outside prosecutor to review Flynn's case

Attorney General William Barr is having an outside prosecutor review the criminal case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The New York Times called it a "highly unusual" move that could "trigger more accusations of political interference by top Justice Department officials into the work of career prosecutors."

Barr has reportedly been installing outside prosecutors to review numerous politically-sensitive cases including that of the former Trump adviser, who in 2017 pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

Since then, Flynn has been trying to change his plea to not guilty. Jeff Jensen of the office of the United States attorney in St. Louis is reportedly examining the Flynn case.


Source: The New York Times
 

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This is much bigger than Manafort
. . . And How !!


Justice Department drops criminal case against Michael Flynn


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CNN
By Katelyn Polantz,
Thu May 7, 2020


Washington (CNN) The Justice Department is dropping the criminal case against President Donald Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, whose lies about his contacts with Russia prompted Trump to fire him three years ago and special counsel Robert Mueller to flip him to cooperate in the Russia investigation.

The request to drop the case, filed with a federal judge in DC District Court on Thursday, is a sudden end to a protracted legal battle that's lately been fertile ground for Trump to attack the early Russia investigation and former FBI leadership he dislikes.

The court must still formally approve the request.

Flynn twice, before two separate judges, affirmed his December 2017 agreement to plead guilty to charges that he lied to the FBI about his interactions with the then-Russian ambassador during the Trump presidential transition. But last year, he fired his original defense team and waged a campaign to try to get a judge to reverse his guilty plea.

In its filing, the department condemned the FBI's work when it interviewed Flynn in the West Wing in the first weeks of the Trump presidency. The Justice Department called the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Flynn for his contacts with Russia "a no longer justifiably predicated investigation," according to the filing.​

"After a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information appended to the defendant's supplemental pleadings, the Government has concluded that the interview of Mr. Flynn was untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn -- a no longer justifiably predicated investigation that the FBI had, in the Bureau's own words, prepared to close because it had yielded an 'absence of any derogatory information.'"

Thursday, the Justice Department also says it can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Flynn lied, nor that his lies were substantial.
"The Government is not persuaded that the January 24, 2017 interview was conducted with a legitimate investigative basis and therefore does not believe Mr. Flynn's statements were material even if untrue. Moreover, we not believe that the Government can prove either the relevant false statements or their materiality beyond a reasonable doubt," the filing states.

On April 30, Trump suggested that Flynn would be exonerated and referred to the FBI agents as "dirty, filthy cops."

"It looks like to me that Michael Flynn would be exonerated based on everything that I see," Trump said. "I'm not the judge, but I have a different type of power."​
Thursday, Trump said Flynn is "innocent."​

"I'm very happy for General Flynn, he was a great warrior, and he still is a great warrior. Now in my book is an even greater warrior," Trump said.​



Prosecutor quits
The Flynn filing was not signed by any career prosecutors at the Justice Department. Instead, the motion to dismiss was signed only by the politically appointed US Attorney Timothy Shea.

Jeff Jensen, the US attorney in St. Louis that Barr named earlier this year to review the handling of the Flynn case, said in a statement provided by the Justice Department that he recommended that the case be dismissed.

"Through the course of my review of General Flynn's case, I concluded the proper and just course was to dismiss the case. I briefed Attorney General Barr on my findings, advised him on these conclusions, and he agreed," Jensen said.

Minutes before the announcement, Brandon Van Grack, the lead Mueller prosecutor who cut the deal with Flynn, withdrew from it.
Van Grack gave no detail on the reason for his exit, writing only to the court to "please notice the withdrawal."


This story is breaking and will be updated.


 

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Trump goes on off-the-walls rant about bombshell dropping of Flynn case
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Brian Tyler Cohen
5 hours ago ·
BREAKING: Trump just went on an off-the-walls rant about the bombshell dropping of Michael Flynn’s case by the Department of Justice.

To demand Bill Barr be removed as attorney general for letting Trump’s cronies get away with crimes, sign here https://www.thepetitionsite.com/…/763/0…

Video by Occupy Democrats host Brian Tyler Cohen.

 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
This is not a meet-in-the-middle deal.

This is much bigger than Paul Manafort.

Mr. Flynn has just become the prosecution’s star witness.

The charge Mr. Flynn is pleading guilty to is a stunning one.

It seems Mr. Trump himself directed Mr. Flynn to make contact with the Russians.

Mr. Flynn asked Russia to intervene at the United Nations on behalf of Israel.

The lying is bad. Conducting rogue American foreign policy is worse.

Mr. Flynn’s cooperation portends extreme peril for a variety of people in the president’s orbit.

Mr. Trump’s defenders have fewer and fewer cards to play.

Trump Pardoned Flynn to Save Himself
The president’s act of clemency was less about mercy than self-interest.
NOVEMBER 25, 2020

Trump Pardoned Flynn to Protect Himself - The Atlantic
 
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