Plan B Forum

By pleading guilty to charges that he lied to the FBI about contacts with Russia, former national security adviser Michael Flynn has become the most senior member of President Donald Trump's administration to have been indicted..... In a statement on 1 December, Mr Flynn admitted that it had been "extraordinarily painful to endure these many months of false accusations of 'treason' and other outrageous acts...I recognise that the actions I acknowledged in court today were wrong, and, through my faith in God, I am working to set things right....My guilty plea and agreement to co-operate with the Special Counsel's Office reflect a decision I made in the best interests of my family and of our country. I accept full responsibility for my actions." Mr Flynn's short tenure as the national security adviser ended in February after just 23 days on the job....He was forced out over revelations that he had discussed lifting US sanctions on Russia with the Russian ambassador to Washington before Mr Trump took office in January, and that he lied to the US vice-president about that conversation.

liberty wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 28, 2020 4:14 am

If the FBI came to me for information, not that I have any to give, I would be very reluctant to talk to them. I might not even give them my name. I might be willing to talk to them if they agreed to do it at the sheriff’s office with the Sherriff as a witness. The agents might be ok, but they might also be liberal fascist fanatics.

I suspect the FBI has changed a lot since they interviewed my mother for my SCI clearance. I remember during Clinton's presidency of complaints the Democrats were packing federal agencies with Democrat partisans. Partisans would be more interested in what was good for the party than justice.

Darren wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 28, 2020 6:19 pm

'Greene (U.S. 1999): Held that a Brady violation occurs when: (1) evidence is favorable to exculpation or impeachment; (2) the evidence is either willfully or inadvertently withheld by the prosecution; and (3) the withholding of the evidence is prejudicial to the defendant."

The FBI wouldn't do that. Would they?

Surely Mr. Mueller wouldn't countenance that. Would he?

Econoline wrote: ↑

Fri May 01, 2020 10:17 pm

https://www.wonkette.com/michael-flynn-take-your-f-cking-pardon-and-go-away

The facts of this case are not in dispute and have never been in dispute. On December 29, 2016, after President Obama announced punitive measures against Russia for its interference in the election, Michael Flynn urged Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak not to retaliate, promising that Trump would undo Obama's directives. And when the conversation was reported by the Washington Post on January 12, both Sean Spicer and Mike Pence accused the Post of having gotten the story wrong.

"They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States' decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia," Pence said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

All of which meant Flynn was heavily compromised. Because the intel agencies were tapping Kislyak's line, so the FBI knew that the National Security Advisor had been caught on tape promising the Russians sanctions relief — the very thing Putin had gone to the trouble of hacking our election to achieve, including offering sexxxy Hillary dirts to Dumbass, Jr. — and Flynn was now in a position to be blackmailed. The NSA had placed himself smack in the middle of the Russia investigation, and FBI was fucked, because doing their jobs was going to get them crosswise with the new, lunatic president.

Which of course, it did.

Flynn later signed a plea agreement, under penalty of perjury, admitting that he'd lied to the FBI agents who came to interview him on January 24. He admitted it again in open court and under oath, swearing under penalty of perjury that he was voluntarily cooperating and not being coerced. Twice!

He even tweeted it.

But now he'd like to withdraw his guilty plea and pretend that those mean FBI agents just tricked him into saying lies. And then they forced him to admit that he'd lied under oath. So it is LOCK HER UP for the FBI!

And Attorney General Bill Barr, who is willing to burn down the entire Justice Department to curry favor with the Fox News loons, has ordered the FBI to turn over internal deliberations in an effort to obscure the fact that Flynn voluntarily pled because admitting to the false statement to law enforcement agents and helping Robert Mueller was a really good deal for him. It meant he wouldn't be charged for all the FARA fuckery and offers to black helicopter Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen out of our country in exchange for $15 million.

All of which brings us to the latest disclosures ferreted out by US Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri Jeffrey Jensen in Operation Destroy the DOJ to Help This Corrupt POS Because LOL Nothing Matters Anymore.

gov.uscourts.dcd.191592.188.0_8.pdf

Because in the wingnutosphere, FBI agents debating whether the goal of the interview with Michael Flynn was "Truth/Admission or get him to lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired" is tantamount to an admission of entrapment. It's very clearly not entrapment in any court of law, or in objective reality. Entrapment involves law enforcement agents coercing someone to commit a crime he would not otherwise have committed by dangling irresistible inducements in front of him. It most certainly does not involve the FBI seeing if a highly trained military officer intends to repeat a lie he has already told to half the White House. But Trumpland doesn't exist in objective reality, preferring to remain in a padded cell of Fox, OANN, and collective delusion.

In the wingnut universe, it would have been appropriate for the FBI and intelligence agencies to simply ignore the fact that the highest intelligence officer in the land was in a position to be blackmailed by the Kremlin and was smack in the middle of an investigation of Russian electoral interference with the goal of getting sanctions lifted. And because the FBI knew the answers to the questions before it asked them, it is somehow very cool and very legal that a career military man who'd had a security clearance since his balls dropped lied about a national security issue.

In fact, if you speak fluent wingnut, it is actually the FBI agents doing their job trying to protect national security who are the real criminals here.

It's all so exhaustingly stupid. You want a twitter thread from a former federal prosecutor on why this is very much not entrapment or a violation of the Brady rule? Here's one by Barb McQuade. Have one by Popehat. Hell, throw in one by Joshua Geltzer, for good measure. And while we're at it, here's some good points by Carissa Byrne Hessick on the selective outrage at overweening law enforcement tactics by people who routinely support gross Fourth Amendment violations of the rights of poor and/or brown people.

Carissa Byrne Hessick
@CBHessick
Ben’s tweet illustrates one of the major challenges for criminal justice reform in the time of Trump—the various investigations associated with this presidency have highlighted uncomfortable truths of our criminal justice system. But the political outrage complicates those truths https://twitter.com/benjaminwittes/stat ... 2234132483 …

Benjamin Wittes
@benjaminwittes
If you’re outraged by the FBI’s tactics with Flynn, keep in mind that they do these things every day against drug dealers, gang members, and terrorists. Except those people are black, Hispanic, and Middle Eastern—not “lock ‘er up” lily white.

The point is, this isn't a legal argument by Michael Flynn. It's PR, and it'll probably work. Not with the judge, of course, but with Commander Pardon Pen.

BoSoxGal wrote: ↑

Sat May 02, 2020 1:54 am

I'm bewildered as to how anyone who has been exposed to the basics of constitutionally sanctioned police tactics via television dramas from Hill Street Blues to Law & Order SVU can be confused into thinking there is any basis for Flynn to be exonerated in this so-called smoking gun document.

Tin foil hat, TDS happening here.

BoSoxGal wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 28, 2020 6:37 pm

Darren wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 28, 2020 6:19 pm

'Greene (U.S. 1999): Held that a Brady violation occurs when: (1) evidence is favorable to exculpation or impeachment; (2) the evidence is either willfully or inadvertently withheld by the prosecution; and (3) the withholding of the evidence is prejudicial to the defendant."

The FBI wouldn't do that. Would they?

Surely Mr. Mueller wouldn't countenance that. Would he?

I don’t believe Mueller would.

liberty wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 28, 2020 4:14 am

If the FBI came to me for information, not that I have any to give, I would be very reluctant to talk to them. I might not even give them my name. I might be willing to talk to them if they agreed to do it at the sheriff’s office with the Sherriff as a witness. The agents might be ok, but they might also be liberal fascist fanatics.

I suspect the FBI has changed a lot since they interviewed my mother for my SCI clearance. I remember during Clinton's presidency of complaints the Democrats were packing federal agencies with Democrat partisans. Partisans would be more interested in what was good for the party than justice.

rubato wrote: ↑

Sun May 03, 2020 4:21 am

No, he cannot be exonerated. He confessed and the facts are not in dispute. He can escape punishment for his crimes by a Trumpian perversion of justice but he can never be exonerated.

yrs,
rubato