Flynn's Sweetheart Deal Highlights Barr's Subversion
Flynn’s Sweetheart Deal Highlights Barr’s Subversion
https://thesoundings.com/2019/05/flynns-sweetheart-deal-highlights-barrs-subversion/
When you step back and think about it, even for a moment, it simply boggles the mind to think that Mike Flynn was the National Security Adviser (NSA) for this country for a single day, much less for the nearly four weeks he officially held that job. He was an ethical, legal, and security nightmare and both Obama and Elijah Cummings warned Trump and his transition team about Flynn’s issues. In addition, Chris Christie warned Jared and Ivanka about Flynn and Flynn himself told Don McGahn that he believed he was under investigation over his lobbying activities. And yet he was still appointed National Security Advisor.
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If I have it correctly, then, this was the legal situation facing Flynn when Robert Mueller took over the Russian investigation. Across all his potential violations, he faced over 20 years in prison, a substantial reduction in his pension, and other significant fines. Yes, some of these were “process” crimes and other violations that have rarely been prosecuted. But, guess what, FARA violations used to be in the same category and have only begun to be aggressively prosecuted in the last few years. And it is hardly unusual for prosecutors to charge as much as they can in order to force some kind of plea agreement. That happens to poorer defendants every day and, although it too often appears so, there is no exception for white collar crimes or ones with political overtones.
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Regarding the sanctions call, Mueller provides a description that practically provides no agency to anyone involved. The report states, “He [Flynn] first spoke with Michael Ledeen, a Transition Team member who advised on foreign policy and national security matters, for 20 minutes. Flynn then spoke with McFarland for almost 20 minutes to discuss what, if anything, to communicate to Kislyak about the sanctions. On that call, McFarland and Flynn discussed the sanctions, including their potential impact on the incoming Trump Administration’s foreign policy goals. McFarland and Flynn also discussed that Transition Team members in Mar-a-Lago did not want Russia to escalate the situation. They both understood that Flynn would relay a message to Kislyak in hopes of making sure the situation would not get out of hand…Multiple Transition Team members were aware that Flynn was speaking with Kislyak that day. In addition to her conversations with Bannon and Reince Priebus, McFarland sent an email to Transition Team members about the sanctions, informing the group that ‘Gen [F]lynn is talking to russian ambassador this evening.’ Less than an hour later, McFarland briefed President-Elect Trump. Bannon, Priebus, Sean Spicer, and other Transition Team members were present”. On December 30, the day after Flynn’s call with Kislyak, “Flynn sent a text message to McFarland summarizing his call with Kislyak from the day before, which she emailed to Kushner, Bannon, Priebus, and other Transition Team members. The text message and email did not include sanctions as one of the topics discussed with Kislyak. Flynn told the Office that he did not document his discussion of sanctions because it could be perceived as getting in the way of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy…Flynn recalled discussing the sanctions issue with incoming Administration official Stephen Bannon the next day. Flynn said that Bannon appeared to know about Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak, and he and Bannon agreed that they had ‘stopped the train on Russia’s response’ to the sanctions.101 On January 3, 2017, Flynn saw the President-Elect in person and thought they discussed the Russian reaction to the sanctions, but Flynn did not have a specific recollection of telling the President-Elect about the substance of his calls with Kislyak”.
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What we do know is that the judge in Flynn’s case obviously believes that Mueller has far more information from and about Flynn than is currently in the redacted version of the report put out by Barr. The judge certainly believes that redacted information is important and may be substantial. Accordingly, he has ordered the release of all the redacted material in the current report relating to Flynn as well as the full transcript of Flynn’s sanctions call and the voice mail left by Trump’s personal attorney John Dowd that is a part of the basis for an obstruction charge. Considering his apparent fury at Flynn’s actions in the earlier sentencing hearing, it is quite possible that the information that the judge is ordering released will be quite damaging, to Flynn if no one else. And the fact that Flynn was applauding attacks on Mueller while he was supposedly cooperating with Mueller will not make the judge any happier with Flynn.
There is another critical point to make regarding Flynn’s calls to Kislyak. Despite being informed that Flynn had lied to the FBI on January 24, 2017, Flynn managed to stay in his position for nearly another month before he was forced to resign, despite a number of senior members of the administration having full knowledge of those lies, not only based on what Yates reported but what they knew themselves firsthand. On February 14, before he met with Comey to ask him to let Flynn go, Trump also asked McFarland to create a memo stating that the President had not instructed Flynn regarding the sanctions call. In addition, when Trump fired McFarland and then offered her an ambassadorship, he again asked for a witness statement saying he did not instruct Flynn to make the sanctions call. In other words, almost everyone in Trump’s orbit acted as though they were just as guilty as Flynn.
Looking at Mueller’s sentencing recommendation regarding Flynn, there are only three possible conclusions. Either Mueller was entirely duped by Flynn and made an indefensible agreement with him, or the information he got from Flynn was really important but was either taken away from Mueller as part of the counterintelligence or other investigations or that Barr has redacted that information. It appears the judge in Flynn’s case believes that Barr has at least hidden some of that damaging information with his redactions.
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