No matter what your political leanings are, you should be highly concerned about how the FBI misled General Michael Flynn resulting in his taking a plea agreement with Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller for lying to the FBI. Thus, the general agreed to the fact that he committed a felony. All that is highly suspect, and every American citizen should be scared if the judge does not throw this out.
After General Flynn’s attorneys claimed that top-tier FBI personnel intentionally misled him about having legal representation present and the nature of this meeting with their personnel, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan demanded documents from Mueller’s team regarding the charges against Flynn. These are the same documents that both the FBI and Justice Department have stonewalled Congress about for over a year. Unfortunately, Mueller was given the opportunity to file the documents under seal with the Judge which would hide the truth about the behavior of our government employees in the process. Judge Sullivan should release these documents as we the people of this country deserve to know what was done.
Further damning the behavior of the FBI, fired former FBI Director James Comey was shown bragging during an interview about the way the Flynn meeting was set up without going through the White House counsel’s office as is the standard procedure. Comey stated this was “something I probably wouldn't have done or maybe gotten away with in a more … organized administration.” The fact that someone in Comey’s position tried to “get away with” circumventing normal procedure to interview the incoming National Security Advisor should scare any U.S. citizen.
The principle argument that is made about General Flynn’s lying is that he was a long-time General and Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; thus, he should know not to lie to the FBI. But let us look at the actual situation at hand. And remember it was stated by FBI agents that they believe Flynn did not lie to them. This has since been twisted around.
We will never know why Flynn plead to lying. He apparently did lie to Vice-President Pence.
The more important matter is we each have to decide whether it is more important that a citizen lied to the government or the government lied to the citizen. Particularly the heads of one of our law enforcement agencies intentional misleading a citizen than saying “You should have known better.” I fall on the side of the citizen here against the amorphous government.
Interesting the same people who are defending the lying of the government in this situation seem to be the same people chafing at every statement President Trump makes that the MSM interprets as a lie.
Flynn at the time was the incoming National Security Advisor. He was contacted by the No. 2 person at the FBI, Andrew McCabe. He was told McCabe (apparently at the direction of Comey) was sending over two agents to talk to him, but there was no need to have an attorney present. That means they never told him this was to be an official FBI interview. Sounds to me like a casual conversation. If it were you or me and the FBI told us that we do not need an attorney present, that would be against the law. Any discussion would be thrown out of court. But neither of us is one of the most powerful people in the country. Flynn was a government employee at the time and he had special legal protections that you and I don’t have with our Miranda rights, but McCabe and Comey ignored those also.
Flynn meets with these two FBI agents who are several levels lower than he is in the federal government. He has the highest level of security clearance in the country. Tell me what obligation does he have to tell these two pipsqueaks anything -- let alone the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? How did Flynn know whether these two FBI agents even had clearance to hear what he might say? By McCabe telling him he needed no attorney present, he was led to believe the conversation wasn’t part of an investigation or an official FBI interview. For some reason now, the FBI is justifying their behavior by saying any discussion with them is “official.”
The federal government has used this “not lying to the FBI” excuse far too often to ruin people’s lives. Ask Scooter Libby or Martha Stewart. Neither of these people could be convicted on the underlying crimes but were convicted on the catchall charge of “lying to the FBI.” In fact, the disgusting Peter Fitzgerald, special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame Affair, knew that someone else had released the information that led to his appointment, but he pursued the indictment of Libby for lying anyway. Talk about abuse of power. Thankfully, Trump has pardoned him and the president should pardon Stewart also.
To remind you what happens when the FBI does an “official” interview, they show up with two agents who take notes of the meeting. One of them then transcribes those notes. That becomes the official record of the interview. That may be an accurate record of what you said, it may be their view of what they think you said, or it may be what they decide to record as the official record. If the person is later interviewed and says something different than what is on the transcript it is considered lying to the FBI. That is the determination even if you say the exact same thing as before, but the FBI agents did not record it correctly.
Lying to the FBI can also occur after they have combed through your records and they ask you about an email from two years prior that they do not provide you and you can’t possibly remember because like most people you don’t remember what you ate for lunch last week.
Mueller and his minions defend this gross abuse of power as if they are omnipotent. They seem to forget our Constitution and where the true power rests in this country is with the people they deem as their inferiors. This is symptomatic of a federal government out of control that believes we are the lowly peasants while they mouth platitudes about protecting us.
This is gross abuse of power and an egregious affront to our manner of living. We need someone to put a stop to this behavior by our federal justice employees. What Judge Sullivan needs to do is throw out all the charges against Flynn and order the federal government to reimburse him for his legal costs. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be his focus at this time. But there is still time for redemption for Judge Sullivan.
You better hope he comes to his senses for your own sake. You could be next.