Crime Appeals Court to rehear Michael Flynn case

[Cubo de Sangre]

There’s a few things in her post to address.
We need to briefly set the stage here before I tackle these, sorry if this gets wordy, but it’s important to address a key point that @IngaVovchanchyn made.
Our election was illegally interfered in by Russian nationals. This is not disputed even by AG Barr to this day. Under investigation were George Papadapoulis, Michael Flynn, Carter Page, and Paul Manafort, associates of a Trump’s. In response to election meddling, Obama put sanctions on Russia.

What you are specifically asking about is a handwritten note, allegedly by Peter Strzok. There are a few handwritten notes, in chicken scratch, allegedly taken during a convo between FBI Dir Comey, VP Biden, and Obama. One note says
“Flynn>Kislyak calls but appear legit,” which Flynn’s lawyers are alleging means the FBI thought the calls were not inappropriate. To my knowledge, neither Strzok or Comey have commented, so whether that’s what the note actually means, or whether it represented the FBI’s view, or Comey’s personal view, or whether it meant something else altogether, is yet to be determined. Now then:

@IngaVovchanchyn is correct that for this to be a crime, the lies have to be material to an investigation. So if the FBI caught Flynn lying about his favorite color, no one would give a shit. But Flynn lied about discussions he had as a private citizen with the Russian ambassador in which he persuaded Russia not to respond forcefully to Obama’s sanctions because the incoming Trump administration was planning to be more favorable to Russia. Flynn, who has ties to Russian government entities, essentially undermined the sitting President—regarding a national security issue after election meddling! It was absolutely material to an investigation. To quote former FBI official and federal attorney Chuck Rosenberg from this article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...people-who-thought-flynns-lies-were-material/
“(But) lying to the FBI about his conversation with a Russian diplomat, given his financial and other ties to Russia, in the wake of massive Russian interference in our 2016 election, and during an FBI counterintelligence investigation concerning Russia? That is material — plain and simple.
Who thought so? Well, Trump for starters, who fired Flynn for lying to him. Flynn also signed the plea deal, and a judge accepted the plea (a judge should not accept a plea if there’s no material basis for it). Clearly his lies were material and a variety of people thought so.
-Maybe Inga can elaborate on what she meant by Obama’s ordering Flynn investigated. I assume she’s referring to the same Strzok handwritten notes where Obama says “look this over and make sure we have the right people on it,” which is a pretty innocent statement. Obama also supposedly asks “Anything I shouldn’t tell the transition team?” which also makes perfect sense. There was a situation in which our election was meddled in, several Trump associates were under investigation, and it was unclear if there was conspiracy.

Thanks.

What a mess. Here's a couple things I wonder.

How exactly did Russians meddle, what's the history of them doing so since WWII, and what do they do that the USA doesn't do around the globe? I'd prefer to keep foreign interest influence to a minimum of course, but I don't believe for a second this is some new event perpetrated by Russia against Uncle Dindu Sam. Hard to believe something that unprecedented taking place, which would make this more a matter of political persecution rather than law and order.

The other curiosity is what exactly is wrong with the incoming national security advisory discussion foreign relations with another nation's ambassador? Isn't that part of the job? And what's so egregious about letting the incoming administration's intent be known? I fail to see what's nefarious about encouraging another country to not take drastic action.

 

[andnowweknow]

Libs get a couple more weeks to claim they haven’t actually lost this case but, in the end, will just get crushed by facts and the law again.

Just takes a majority to order the hearing so I’d be curious to see the roll of the vote to rehear to see if it was straight party line 7-5 liberal votes to rehear. Wilkins was obviously going to be for it since in his brain the next logical step was the DOJ would refuse to prosecute white cops for killing black people and judges would be unable to do anything about it if they aren’t able to force DOJ to prosecute Flynn here. Gave the benefit of the doubt to the remaining 6 liberals on the circuit but clearly I made the same mistake I did with Sullivan previously and overestimated their ability to separate politics from the law.

the end result is going to be the case is dismissed and they can’t charge him for perjury for withdrawing a plea (cause that is a retarded idea, which is amazing to think Sullivan thinks it’s an actual possibility). Nothing will change that. They are clearly just focusing on the “is there another less extreme way to obtain this relief” angle with respect to the Writ against Sullivan here but seems like a gigantic waste of time since the end result is going to be the same no matter what.

liberals gonna liberal. For a couple more weeks atleast.

Why does Barr and his corrupt DOJ getting dickslapped again bug you so much?

 

[Bloody Pulp]

Why does Barr and his corrupt DOJ getting dickslapped again bug you so much?

That’s one way to interpret what is happening. A completely wrong way, but a way nonetheless.

I’m not bugged at all because I’m right and the only possible outcome is going to be me still being right about pretty much everything other than how terrible some liberal judges can be. Just a few weeks and a pointless hearing or two later than it should have been.

 

[andnowweknow]

That’s one way to interpret what is happening. A completely wrong way, but a way nonetheless.

I’m not bugged at all because I’m right and the only possible outcome is going to be me still being right about pretty much everything other than how terrible some liberal judges can be. Just a few weeks and a pointless hearing or two later than it should have been.

"Judge"...the term "liberal judge" doesn't apply. And his decision matters, not your political desires.

Use this as an exercise in calmness for when January rolls around, if you thought the courts were beating conservative pussy up now...just you wait til this young woman is running the show...

 

[Bloody Pulp]

"Judge"...the term "liberal judge" doesn't apply. And his decision matters, not your political desires.

Use this as an exercise in calmness for when January rolls around, if you thought the courts were beating conservative pussy up now...just you wait til this young woman is running the show...

if you truly believe there’s no such thing as a “conservative” or “liberal” judge, you’re more of a fool than I thought.


I’ll use that as an example of “would”




Penises. Now there is something you can’t call “liberal” or “conservative”. If only judges were more like penises, the world would be a better place.

 

[andnowweknow]

if you truly believe there’s no such thing as a “conservative” or “liberal” judge, you’re more of a fool than I thought.


I’ll use that as an example of “would”




Penises. Now there is something you can’t call “liberal” or “conservative”. If only judges were more like penises, the world would be a better place.

I am going to be irritated by AG AOC too. But I won't feel responsible for it.

 

[Bloody Pulp]

I am going to be irritated by AG AOC too. But I won't feel responsible for it.

cute as she is, there is no denying she is as dumb as a box of rocks.

 

[BFoe]

Thanks.

What a mess. Here's a couple things I wonder.

How exactly did Russians meddle, what's the history of them doing so since WWII, and what do they do that the USA doesn't do around the globe? I'd prefer to keep foreign interest influence to a minimum of course, but I don't believe for a second this is some new event perpetrated by Russia against Uncle Dindu Sam. Hard to believe something that unprecedented taking place, which would make this more a matter of political persecution rather than law and order.

The other curiosity is what exactly is wrong with the incoming national security advisory discussion foreign relations with another nation's ambassador? Isn't that part of the job? And what's so egregious about letting the incoming administration's intent be known? I fail to see what's nefarious about encouraging another country to not take drastic action.

You’re welcome
I’ll try and stick to the things I’m *somewhat* knowledgeable about—how exactly the U.S. interferes in other elections isn’t one of them, although Im pretty certain we do it, and I oppose it.
There’s a long history of not wanting unauthorized persons (whether they be a random stranger or an incoming official) to undermine the government position, all the way back to the passage of the Logan Act in the late 1700s. It weakens a country when a government does something officially, and someone else goes behind the government’s back and says, “Meh, don’t worry about what they’re saying...”. But there are certain aspects here with Flynn that are more significant, which I’ll get to.
As for what type of meddling was done, it was really wide-ranging. If you’re interested, just take a quick look at the table of contents for Part 1 of the Mueller Report:
https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf
They posed as various groups and held fake rallies. They sought out and targeted Americans to act as coordinators for these fake rallies, and posted photos on their social media accounts. They had a variety of operations on Facebook and Twitter. Occasionally, people not knowing they were fake interacted with them and retweeted them—like Sean Hannity and Roger Stone. Conservatives would have me believe that these people didn’t influence anyone. Hannity of course is an anchor on Fox News, the #1 rated “news” show in the U.S. He has 5 million twitter followers. Whether the Russians influenced anyone doesn’t make what they did any less illegal, but I find it hard to believe no one was influenced. These people contacted the Trump campaign, who in turn promoted their fake materials. They engaged in malware and hacking on the DNC. It goes on and on. Here is Mueller’s indictment:
https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download
What’s nefarious about what Flynn did? Our elections being free and fair is the foundation of our republic. In 2016, we had a concerted, illegal effort by a foreign power to undermine those elections and install a candidate of their preference. Our President (Obama) responded with sanctions on that country, which the incoming National Security Advisor (National Security Advisor!) who himself is a foreign lobbyist, with ties to the Russian government, sought to undermine. And when asked by the FBI about it, he lied.
If there any doubt of Russia’s preference in 2016, the Mueller Report records the reactions of the hackers when they found out that Trump won the election. They said:
“Putin has won.”

 

[Bloody Pulp]

The Logan act was written to prevent someone boarding a boat and sailing over to Europe and presenting themselves as a representative of the US government. Which would, in turn, be quite
difficult for the European government to discern his true purpose since they couldn’t exactly E-mail The state department to confirm the dudes bona fides in the 1700’s and there would be now way for the US to hear about it in any timely matter either. And it’s probably unconstitutional, hence it never, even once, being prosecuted in its hundreds of years in existence. there’s a reason Joe Biden was the only person senile enough to bring it up.

 

[Bloody Pulp]

And there’s the pesky fact that the agents who interviewed Flynn didn’t think he lied, among other things.

“The newly public documents include notes of a Jan. 25, 2017 meeting between FBI and DOJ officials in which Deputy Assistant Attorney General Tashina Gauhar included several passages indicating that the agents who interviewed Flynn about his dealings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak saw no indication Flynn was trying to deceive them. Gauhar recounts that the agents thought Flynn was “being forthright” and “believe[d] that F. believe[d] that what he said was true.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/10/michael-flynn-doj-prosecution-documents-356503

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

@IngaVovchanchyn is correct that for this to be a crime, the lies have to be material to an investigation. So if the FBI caught Flynn lying about his favorite color, no one would give a shit. But Flynn lied about discussions he had as a private citizen with the Russian ambassador in which he persuaded Russia not to respond forcefully to Obama’s sanctions because the incoming Trump administration was planning to be more favorable to Russia. Flynn, who has ties to Russian government entities, essentially undermined the sitting President—regarding a national security issue after election meddling! It was absolutely material to an investigation. To quote former FBI official and federal attorney Chuck Rosenberg from this article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...people-who-thought-flynns-lies-were-material/
“(But) lying to the FBI about his conversation with a Russian diplomat, given his financial and other ties to Russia, in the wake of massive Russian interference in our 2016 election, and during an FBI counterintelligence investigation concerning Russia? That is material — plain and simple.
Who thought so? Well, Trump for starters, who fired Flynn for lying to him. Flynn also signed the plea deal, and a judge accepted the plea (a judge should not accept a plea if there’s no material basis for it). Clearly his lies were material and a variety of people thought so.
-Maybe Inga can elaborate on what she meant by Obama’s ordering Flynn investigated. I assume she’s referring to the same Strzok handwritten notes where Obama says “look this over and make sure we have the right people on it,” which is a pretty innocent statement. Obama also supposedly asks “Anything I shouldn’t tell the transition team?” which also makes perfect sense. There was a situation in which our election was meddled in, several Trump associates were under investigation, and it was unclear if there was conspiracy.

What makes it immaterial, is that the FBI had already investigated Flynn, and not only had found nothing derogatory, but found no basis for continuing their investigation. Their notes before the interview show that their motives for that interview are not criminal investigation, but to get him to lie so they can get him fired. Getting a person to lie so they can be prosecuted is not an adequate basis for a criminal investigation, when you've already cleared the guy of other wrongdoing. Nothing Flynn lied about in that interview, and these are alleged lies, was material to a criminal investigation.

The goal of the interview in which Flynn allegedly lied was unrelated to criminal investigation at this point. In fact, one written goal of the interviewing officers was to get Flynn to lie so they could get him fired. To say the least, that is not SOP for a criminal investigation. According to the lead agent, these political motives came from the top.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

What’s nefarious about what Flynn did? Our elections being free and fair is the foundation of our republic. In 2016, we had a concerted, illegal effort by a foreign power to undermine those elections and install a candidate of their preference. Our President (Obama) responded with sanctions on that country, which the incoming National Security Advisor (National Security Advisor!) who himself is a foreign lobbyist, with ties to the Russian government, sought to undermine. And when asked by the FBI about it, he lied.

Thanks. That Mueller report stuff is more research than I wanna do so I'll just comment on the above.

I don't think you can say asking Russians not to retaliate is undermining whatever sanctions where put in place when there's only a matter of weeks between the election and the new administration officially reversing them. And I don't think you can foist any undermining on Flynn himself if it's Trump making the decisions and Flynn acting on that behalf.

As for lying, maybe he felt it wasn't any of their business. Seemed to work out for Bill Clinton. Seriously though, it's hard not to notice that there aren't any charges related to anything but lying. By the Hilary standard, doesn't that mean he's innocent of "Russian collusion" or whatever? Or at least not guilty?

 

[BFoe]

What makes it immaterial, is that the FBI had already investigated Flynn, and not only had found nothing derogatory, but found no basis for continuing their investigation. Their notes before the interview show that their motives for that interview are not criminal investigation, but to get him to lie so they can get him fired. Getting a person to lie so they can be prosecuted is not an adequate basis for a criminal investigation, when you've already cleared the guy of other wrongdoing. Nothing Flynn lied about in that interview, and these are alleged lies, was material to a criminal investigation.

The goal of the interview in which Flynn allegedly lied was unrelated to criminal investigation at this point. In fact, one written goal of the interviewing officers was to get Flynn to lie so they could get him fired. To say the least, that is not SOP for a criminal investigation. According to the lead agent, these political motives came from the top.

The fact that they considered closing the case then didn’t doesn’t make Flynn’s lies immaterial. In fact, one reason they may (I say “may,” because we don’t know one way or the other at this point) have decided not to close the case is the discovery of the Kislyak conversations, which occurred just days earlier. Deputy FBI Director McCabe says the following, which I’ll put in spoiler tags so I don’t take up as much room as my other posts

Spoiler: McCabe on the Russian sanctions

Near the end of December, the administration and National Security Council prepared sanctions on Russia as punishment for their involvement in the election … The sanctions were announced on December 29.

The next day, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, issued an unusual and uncharacteristic statement, saying that he would take no action against the United States in retaliation for those sanctions. The PDB [Presidential Daily Brief] staff decided to write an intelligence assessment as to why Putin made the choice he did. They issued a request to the intelligence community: Anyone who had information on the topic was invited to offer it for consideration. In response to that request, the FBI queried our own holdings. We came across information indicating that General Mike Flynn, the president-elect’s nominee for the post of national security advisor, had held several conversations with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, in which the sanctions were discussed. The information was something we had from December 29. I had not been aware of it. My impression was that higher-level officials within the FBI’s counterintelligence division had not been aware of it. The PDB request brought it to our attention.

...We felt we needed time to do more work to understand the context of what had been found

There is nothing inappropriate about the FBI considering closing a case, then deciding, or realizing, that an interview is needed. If in the course of conducting that interview, the subject lies as Flynn did, there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with pursuing that. As I’ve already stated, what Flynn lies about was directly relevant to ongoing investigations.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/flynn-redux-what-those-fbi-documents-really-show
-Was “the goal” to get Flynn to lie? No. Strzok in fact offers the option that the brief Flynn on how the Russian govt may be using him for their own objectives, and (quote from Strzok) “seeing what he does with that.”
In fact, the documents of the FBI interview show that when Flynn lied about his calls with Kislyak, the FBI used follow up questions which used Flynn’s own words from the call, both trying to refresh his memory, and somewhat tipping their hand to Flynn that they knew what he said. And he still lied.

 

[Bloody Pulp]

Thanks. That Mueller report stuff is more research than I wanna do so I'll just comment on the above.

I don't think you can say asking Russians not to retaliate is undermining whatever sanctions where put in place when there's only a matter of weeks between the election and the new administration officially reversing them. And I don't think you can foist any undermining on Flynn himself if it's Trump making the decisions and Flynn acting on that behalf.

As for lying, maybe he felt it wasn't any of their business. Seemed to work out for Bill Clinton. Seriously though, it's hard not to notice that there aren't any charges related to anything but lying. By the Hilary standard, doesn't that mean he's innocent of "Russian collusion" or whatever? Or at least not guilty?

As for Lying. He didn’t think he lied, and neither did the agents interviewing him, they also didn’t ask him about any discrepancies (they had the call transcripts themselves, and Flynn knew they had transcripts. Flynn also told them to go ahead and review the transcripts if they wanted to be sure) they may have had to determine if he was lying or had just forgotten details. Until Strzok And Page edited Priestap’s interview notes extensively a few weeks after the fact and suddenly he was a liar. Which, as someone who has conducted numerous interviews/interrogations, I can tell you trying to edit (someone else’s!) notes from an interview 3 weeks ago is a terrible idea without audio recordings of the interview. It’s nearly impossible to recall
exact details and what was said that long after the fact.

Edited to include the bit about not only editing notes, but editing another agent’s notes.

Editing someone else’s notes, with the help of a 3rd person (Page) who wasn’t even present for the interview, and has a relationship and communications with Strzok that make it quite clear where they stand on all things Trump no less, is high up on the shade meter.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

-Was “the goal” to get Flynn to lie? No.

In the pre interview notes, the question was posed "what is our goal?"
One of the following bullet points was "get him to lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired?"

That it took so long for this to be turned over to Flynn's defense is telling.

Until Strzok And Page edited Priestap’s interview notes extensively a few weeks after the fact and suddenly he was a liar.

This. No one knows what Flynn said to these agents during the interview. There is no recording and no transcript.

The evidence we have, the 302 written by the interviewing agents, was edited extensively several weeks later. So extensively that Strzok mentions he struggled trying to retain Priestap's voice in the document. And he says he included edits by an FBI lawyer not present during the interview. The edited 302 has no value as evidence in a criminal trial, and the unedited 302 has never been presented to the court or to the defense.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

As for Lying. He didn’t think he lied, and neither did the agents interviewing him, they also didn’t ask him about any discrepancies (they had the call transcripts themselves, and Flynn knew they had transcripts. Flynn also told them to go ahead and review the transcripts if they wanted to be sure) they may have had to determine if he was lying or had just forgotten details. Until Strzok And Page edited Priestap’s interview notes extensively a few weeks after the fact and suddenly he was a liar. Which, as someone who has conducted numerous interviews/interrogations, I can tell you trying to edit notes from an interview 3 weeks ago is a terrible idea without audio recordings of the interview. It’s nearly impossible to recall
exact details and what was said that long after the fact.

Sounds pretty shady.

 

[Bloody Pulp]

Sounds pretty shady.

tip of the iceberg when it comes to shady shit done in the Flynn case. If you care to read up on it, I’d suggest going through the last couple Flynn threads. The last couple months have had a lot of documents/info released that confirmed how shady it was. It can be a bit of a rabbit hole and you’ll have to wade through partisan bickering posts but the information is out there now.

 

[BFoe]

Thanks. That Mueller report stuff is more research than I wanna do so I'll just comment on the above.

I don't think you can say asking Russians not to retaliate is undermining whatever sanctions where put in place when there's only a matter of weeks between the election and the new administration officially reversing them. And I don't think you can foist any undermining on Flynn himself if it's Trump making the decisions and Flynn acting on that behalf.

As for lying, maybe he felt it wasn't any of their business. Seemed to work out for Bill Clinton. Seriously though, it's hard not to notice that there aren't any charges related to anything but lying. By the Hilary standard, doesn't that mean he's innocent of "Russian collusion" or whatever? Or at least not guilty?

A few quick points.
—There were only charges about lying because Flynn signed—voluntarily—a plea deal. There were other potential charges of illegal foreign lobbying, and Flynn and his son were potentially in some shit as well (I can elaborate if needed). Flynn was offered a plea deal to plead guilty to lying to the FBI, in exchange for his cooperation in the investigation, and the other charges would not be pursued. If Flynn gets out of this plea deal, there’s nothing to stop him from being prosecuted on the other charges—although I doubt the DOJ under Barr would do it, sadly. And even if they did, Trump could pardon him.
—Having an incoming National Security Advisor who is a foreign agent (Flynn did have to retroactively register as a foreign agent) is itself a big deal. When an administration tries to punish a country for illegally interfering in an election, in which they tried to get a candidate elected, succeeded, and that candidate’s associate who has ties to the Russian government undermines the administration’s response to that illegal interference, that is absolutely a big deal. I can’t stress this enough. Russia illegally meddled to install an administration who then worked to negate any punishment for Russia’s crimes. All Americans should be outraged.
—Please read the Mueller Report.
It’s not the most exciting document all the time, but any of us who care about our country have a duty to do so.

 

[Bloody Pulp]

The FARA issues were for his work with a Turkish firm. Turkey, not Russia. He was not an “agent” for Russia lol...

And his great “undermining” of Obama policy was asking the Russian ambassador to try to avoid throwing out a higher number of US diplomats in a tit for tat retaliation as doing so would effectively shutdown the US embassy in Russia. The horror.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

A few quick points.
—There were only charges about lying because Flynn signed—voluntarily—a plea deal. There were other potential charges of illegal foreign lobbying, and Flynn and his son were potentially in some shit as well (I can elaborate if needed). Flynn was offered a plea deal to plead guilty to lying to the FBI, in exchange for his cooperation in the investigation, and the other charges would not be pursued. If Flynn gets out of this plea deal, there’s nothing to stop him from being prosecuted on the other charges—although I doubt the DOJ under Barr would do it, sadly. And even if they did, Trump could pardon him.
—Having an incoming National Security Advisor who is a foreign agent (Flynn did have to retroactively register as a foreign agent) is itself a big deal. When an administration tries to punish a country for illegally interfering in an election, in which they tried to get a candidate elected, succeeded, and that candidate’s associate who has ties to the Russian government undermines the administration’s response to that illegal interference, that is absolutely a big deal. I can’t stress this enough. Russia illegally meddled to install an administration who then worked to negate any punishment for Russia’s crimes. All Americans should be outraged.
—Please read the Mueller Report.
It’s not the most exiting document all the time, but any of us who care about our country have a duty to do so.

Thanks again, bro.

All this is way too complex and beyond my base of knowledge to hold my attention. As always, I'm hoping corruption is prosecuted and will rely on the professionals. I'm sure as usual I'll be disappointed. One thing's for sure, if it's legal for incoming administrations to communicate with foreign diplomats then this reeks more of political persecution than any identifiable wrongdoing by the Trump administration.

Flynn not disclosing his ties doesn't sound any worse than the Clinton Foundation failing to disclose foreign donors. As I recall, they simply went "oops" and refiled some paperwork.