WASHINGTON — President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the F.B.I. about conversations with the Russian ambassador last December, becoming the first senior White House official to pledge cooperation in the special counsel’s wide-ranging inquiry of election meddling.

Documents released as part of Mr. Flynn’s plea agreement show that his pre-inauguration discussions with Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, about foreign policy were part of a coordinated effort by aides running Mr. Trump’s transition into the White House. In at least one instance, federal prosecutors say, Mr. Flynn was directed by a “very senior member” of Mr. Trump’s presidential transition team.

Court documents do not name the official or disclose what Mr. Trump knew about Mr. Flynn’s discussions. The transition team was led by Vice President Mike Pence, and its top aides included Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser; Reince Priebus, Mr. Trump’s first chief of staff; and K.T. McFarland, who was Mr. Flynn’s deputy and is now the ambassador to Singapore.

 

Read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/us/politics/michael-flynn-guilty-russia-investigation.html

 

 

This is still no proof that Russia interfered with the election of the Dumb One and the defeat of Hilarious Hillary... All this prove is that the FBI and the other US bananas were listening (spying) into diplomatic conversations — contrary to the letter of proper diplomacy. 

 

President Donald Trump’s short-lived national security adviser, Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Most US media jumped on the plea as proof of Trump’s collusion with Russia. Actual documents, however, tell a different story.

A court document signed by special counsel Robert Mueller, dated Thursday, specifies two instances of Flynn telling FBI investigators things that were not true. They relate to two conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, in December 2016.

In the Statement of Offense signed by Flynn at his court appearance on Friday, he admitted to acting on instructions from a senior “Presidential Transition Team” (PTT) official, prompting breathless speculation if that was Trump himself, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, or someone else altogether. The one question nobody seems to be asking is, “So what?”

Flynn's misleading of the FBI seems to stem from the Logan act. Well after the election, on Dec 29. Flynn tried to convince Russia to hold off expelling US diplomats & to not support a UN vote against Israel. His job--but also a potential Logan violation. https://t.co/4sNe5Dpq6lpic.twitter.com/hOjEYC1dHE

— Julian Assange

PBS’s Frontline series offers what it calls the “inside story of how Vladimir Putin came to see the United States as an enemy — and why he decided to target an American election.” We are publishing it here because it has to be seen to be believed.

The sinister music and Burnsian black and white photography, the gravel-voiced narrator, all trying to give gravitas to a script that is so divorced from any kind of maturity, sanity or veridical reality it will make you dizzy. 

In its quick overview of Putin’s rise to power no mention is made of the collapse of infrastructure, the soaring crime rates and the suffering of working people made destitute by Yeltsin’s “democratisation” of the economy. And no mention is made of how “anti-democratic” Putin reversed this seemingly irreversible decline. No effort is made to define what is meant by “democracy” at all. Nothing that sophisticated is even attempted. Yeltsin, the hood and destroyer, is described as “pro-democracy” because he favoured the US and its economic piracy. Putin is “anti-democratic”, because he didn’t. It’s that unsophisticated. And that absurd.

Tune in and see all the usual suspects from John Brennan to Masha Gessen tell unvarnished, awkward and easily disprovable lies with studied earnest. Marvel at the hubris and naivety required to make a two-hour documentary based on a collection of premises that can be disproved by a simple Google search. The most remarkable thing about this – and so much recent western propaganda – is how clumsy and foolish it is. 

This is what passes for high class journalism now in the fluoridated, fantasy-bewildered collective psyche of the Exceptional Nation. 

Watch it and laugh until you cry.

read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2017/11/30/pbs-frontline-putins-revenge-if-it-w...

 

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s senior advisor - and the man who allegedly ordered Gen. Michael Flynn’s “collusion” calls to Russia - has appeared at pro-Israeli donor Haim Saban’s event where he has been thanked for his lobbying on behalf of Israel.

Speaking at the three-day conference, prominent Clinton Foundation donor Saban thanked Kusher for “taking steps to try and get the UN Security Council to not go along with what ended up being an abstention by the US against a 50-year-old tradition.”

The multibillionaire was referring to Flynn’s admission that he had been told to ask Russia to delay a December 2016 UN Security Council vote on Israeli settlements. It has since been reported that Flynn was acting on Kushner’s orders, and that Israeli officials had contacted Trump’s team to ask for their help to veto the resolution, Reuters reports.

Wow, Haim Saban just thanked Kushner for trying to intervene w/ Russia against US abstention on UNSC settlements resolution. #Saban17

— Matt Duss (@mattduss) December 3, 2017

Russian foreign influence: Bad
Israeli foreign influence: Good#Saban17

— Farhan ﷺ Yusufzai (@FarhanYusufzai) December 3, 2017

Kushner allegedly told Flynn to lobby multiple countries on behalf of Israel, which included speaking to then-Russian UN Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.

The efforts failed and the UN voted to pass a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements being built on Palestinian land in which the outgoing Obama administration abstained, rather than its usual vetoing.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/411818-kushner-saban-thanks-israeli-settlement/

 

Why did General Michael Flynn lie to the FBI about his December 2016 conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak?

Why did he not tell the FBI the truth?

As national security advisor to the president-elect, Flynn had called the ambassador. Message: Tell President Putin not to overreact to President Obama’s expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats. Trump will be president in three weeks, and we are committed to a new relationship.

Not only was this initiative defensible, it proved successful.

Putin accepted the loss of his diplomats and country houses on Long Island and the Eastern Shore. Rather than expel U.S. diplomats in retaliation, he invited them and their families to the Kremlin’s New Year’s parties.

“Great move…(by V. Putin),” tweeted Trump, “I always knew he was very smart.”

This columnist concurred: “Among our Russophobes, one can hear the gnashing of teeth.”

“Clearly, Putin believes the Trump presidency offers Russia the prospect of a better relationship with the United States. He appears to want this, and most Americans seem to want the same. After all, Hillary Clinton, who accused Trump of being ‘Putin’s puppet,’ lost.”

Flynn, it now appears, was not freelancing, but following instructions. His deputy, K. T. McFarland, sent an email to six Trump advisors saying that Obama, by expelling the Russians, was trying to “box Trump in diplomatically.”

“If there is a tit-for-tat escalation,” warned McFarland, “Trump will have difficulty improving relations with Russia.” Exactly.

Flynn was trying to prevent Russian retaliation. Yet as the ex-director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, he had to know his call to Kislyak was being monitored and recorded.

So again, why would he lie to the FBI about a conversation, the contents of which were surely known to the people who sent the FBI to question him?

The other charge of lying about a call with Kislyak was Flynn’s request for Russian help in getting postponed or canceled a Security Council vote on a resolution denouncing Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

Obama’s White House was backing the anti-Israel resolution. And Bibi Netanyahu had asked Trump to weigh in to block the vote.

Bottom line: Flynn, acting on instructions, tried to prevent a U.N. condemnation of Israel, and to dissuade Russia from a mass expulsion of U.S. diplomats, lest this poison the well against a rapprochement for which the American people had voted.

In the court of public opinion, Flynn’s actions would find broad support. Rather than deny knowledge of them, Trump should have taken credit for them.

Why the general would lie to the FBI about conversations he had to know U.S. intelligence had recorded is a puzzling question, but now also an irrelevant one, water over the dam.

For Trump’s general is now the newly conscripted collaborator of the media-Mueller-Democrat-deep state conspiracy to overturn the election of 2016 and bring down the Trump presidency.

read more:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/is-michael-flynns-defection-a-death-blow/

Some Russians somewhere may have somehow meddled in the 2016 presidential election. But what Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller really has to answer, some 16 months after the voting, is whether Donald Trump knowingly worked with a foreign government to get elected in return for some quid pro quo—Russiagate. So where’s the proverbial beef?

On February 22, Mueller handed down a 32-count indictment, following a similar one in October, that charged Paul Manafort and Richard Gates with financial crimes going back eight years or more, all related to work in Ukraine, none related to Russiagate. A day after the indictment, Gates pled guilty to financial conspiracy and lying to the FBI about a meeting five years ago. Manafort’s case is more complex: no trial date has been set, and it will likely take a year or more to conclude once started.

Two weeks ago, Mueller dropped a multi-part indictment against 13 Russian citizens connected with a so-called troll farm. The indictment alleges the group bought Facebook and Twitter ads, planned small rallies, and otherwise “meddled” in the U.S. election. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made clear there was no allegation in the indictment that any American, including on the Trump campaign, “was a knowing participant in the alleged unlawful activity.”

Even if some connection to the Kremlin can be shown (it hasn’t been and since Mueller will never take this case to court—his defendants all live in Russia—it’s unlikely it ever will be), this “meddling” has no link to Trump or Russiagate. In fact, the social media campaign started when the U.S. was considering war in the Ukraine years before Trump announced his candidacy, and about half of its modest ad buys took place after the election was over. The troll farm itself was not much of a secret; the New York Times profiled the place in 2015.

Mueller has also charged former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn with a non-material lie. (The FBI already knew the truth from surveillance: Flynn stepped into a perjury trap set up by Mueller. The likely sentence will be a fine.) Flynn initially pled guilty, though he’s understood to be reconsidering and may withdraw that plea. Flynn’s lie and the other accusations against him center on his work as an unregistered foreign agent for Turkey.

Flynn also admitted that he lied to the FBI about a conversation with the Russian ambassador, which was surveilled by the NSA and later leaked from the Obama White House. Critics claim the conversation is a violation of the Logan Act, a law that has never been successfully prosecuted. Soon after the FBI interview in which Flynn falsely denied the conversation, Sally Yates, an Obama-era holdover serving as acting attorney general, warned the Trump White House that Russia could blackmail Flynn over having lied. Ironically, some say Mueller is essentially blackmailing Flynn using that same lie, holding out a lighter sentence if Flynn tells all.

 

Read moe:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/russia-investigation-fbi...

Now, “Russian collusion” could be becoming the new WMDs.

The post-2016 left’s most dominant narrative is arguably their deeply held belief—with all the ferocity and piety of yesterday’s pro-war conservatives—that Russia colluded with Trump’s campaign to undermine the presidential election. Many believe that the president and anyone who supports his diplomatic efforts like Senator Rand Paul are in the pocket of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I will meet not just with our friends, but with our enemies,” said Barack Obama in 2008, and he did just that with Putin, as has every other president in recent times.

But Trump-Russia relations have been spun into far-fetched conspiracy theories on the left. New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait recently went so far as to speculate that Trump has been a Russian agent since 1987, a cockamamie idea on par with the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes’ discredited conspiracy theory that Saddam and Osama bin Laden were in cahoots.

It really was plausible that Iraq had WMDs in 2003 based on what our intelligence agencies knew, or purported to know. Today, it is feasible that American democracy really has Putin’s fingerprints on it based on things revealed by U.S. intelligence.

But isn’t it also possible that the left is reading far too much into Russiagate?

The Nation’s Aaron Maté believes liberals are overreaching, and that’s putting it mildly:

From the outset, Russiagate proponents have exhibited a blind faith in the unverified claims of US government officials and other sources, most of them unnamed. The reaction to special counsel Robert Mueller’s recent indictment of 12 Russian military-intelligence officers for hacking of Democratic party servers and voter databases is no exception. Mueller’s indictment is certainly detailed. Most significantly, it marks the first time anyone has been charged for offenses related to Russiagate’s underlying crime.

But while it is a major step forward in the investigation, we have yet to see the basis for the allegations that Mueller has lodged. As with any criminal case, from a petty offense to a cybercrime charge against a foreign government, a verdict cannot be formed in the absence of this evidence.

Then the irony kicks in. Maté continues, “The record of US intelligence, replete with lies and errors, underscores the need for caution. Mueller was a player in one of this century’s most disastrous follies when, in congressional testimony, he endorsed claims about Iraqi WMDs and warned that Saddam Hussein ‘may supply’ chemical and biological material to ‘terrorists.’”

Noting Mueller’s 2003 WMD testimony is not an attempt to undermine him or his investigation, something Maté also makes clear. But it does serve as an important reminder that “intelligence” can be flat-out wrong. It reminds us how these scenarios, which so much of Washington and the elite class fully endorse, can be looked back on as lapses of reason years later.

Mass psychology is real. Political classes and parties are not immune.

“Suppose, however, that all of the claims about Russian meddling turn out to be true,” Maté asks. “Hacking e-mails and voter databases is certainly a crime, and seeking to influence another country’s election can never be justified.”

He continues, “But the procession of elite voices falling over themselves to declare that stealing e-mails and running juvenile social-media ads amount to an ‘attack,’ even an ‘act of war,’ are escalating a panic when a sober assessment is what is most needed.”

 

Read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-if-russiagate-is-t...

 

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US President Donald Trump's former national security adviser provided so much information to the special counsel's Russia investigation that prosecutors say he should not do any prison time, according to a court filing that describes Michael Flynn's cooperation as "substantial."

Key points: 

• The memo was filed two weeks ahead of Flynn's sentencing
• Mr Trump this week lashed out at his former legal fixer, Michael Cohen, for cooperating with the Mueller probe
• As part of his plea deal, Flynn said members of Mr Trump's inner circle were involved in his actions in the weeks before Mr Trump took office

 

The filing by special counsel Robert Mueller rovides the first details of Flynn's assistance in the Russia investigation, including that he participated in 19 interviews with prosecutors. 

It was filed two weeks ahead of Flynn's sentencing and just over a year after he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about conversations he had with the Russian ambassador on Mr Trump's behalf.

Though prosecutors withheld specific details of Flynn's cooperation because of ongoing investigations, their filing nonetheless underscores the breadth of how much information Mr Mueller has obtained from people close to Mr Trump as the President increasingly vents his anger at the probe — and those who cooperate with it.

This week, Mr Trump lashed out at his former legal fixer, Michael Cohen, accusing him of making up "stories" to get a reduced prison sentence after pleading guilty to lying to Congress. 

Mr Trump also praised longtime confidante Roger Stone for saying he would "never testify against Trump," adding in his tweet: "Nice to know some people still have 'guts!'"

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-05/us-special-counsel-office-files-sentencing-memo-for-michael/

 

Read from top. Still plenty of mud stirring and not a single jewel... Just a few old bottle caps... Trump and Vladimir can sleep easy...

US President Donald Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn will be sentenced in March 2019, after he confessed to lying to the FBI. Despite many conspiracy theories, his case has nothing to do with ‘Russiagate.’

Flynn, a former US Army lieutenant-general who served as Trump’s national security adviser for less than a month in early 2017, appeared before federal judge Emmett Sullivan in Washington, DC on Tuesday for his sentencing, but ended up requesting a delay. The new status hearing was set for March 13.

The decision came about a year after he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about the nature of his conversations with the former Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.

During the hearing, Flynn once again formally admitted his guilt by saying that he knew lying to the FBI was a crime. He also said that he did not want to challenge the FBI interview with him, which later became the basis for the charges against him.

Some of Flynn’s apparent supporters came to the court almost an hour and a half before the court session, calling for the lieutenant general to be acquitted. However, the long-time military veteran was not expected to get a harsh sentence anyway, as both the prosecutors and the defense asked the court to hand him down a minimum sentence.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/446803-flynn-sentenced-fbi-lying-russia/

 

 

Read from top.

 

 

Meanwhile:

 

The British ex-spy who authored the infamous dossier alleging collusion between Donald Trump and the Kremlin said one of his goals was to give Hillary Clinton legal basis to challenge the 2016 election results.

Christopher Steele’s salacious 17-page report was commissioned by Fusion GPS, a firm connected to Clinton’s campaign.

“Based on that advice, parties such as the Democratic National Committee and HFACC Inc. (also known as ‘Hillary for America’) could consider steps they would be legally entitled to take to challenge the validity of the outcome of that election,” Steele wrote in recently unsealed declaration that was published by the Washington Times.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/446776-clinton-steele-election-challenge-russia/

 

Read from top again...

President Donald Trump’s ill-fated first national security adviser Michael Flynn will twist in the wind for another three months or more, before he can face a sentence for getting caught in a FBI ambush while doing his job. 

Flynn was supposed to be sentenced on Tuesday, ending the year-long legal saga that destroyed his reputation, nearly bankrupted him, and even endangered his family. Then, in a bizarre last-minute twist, his lawyers asked for a delay. The next status hearing will be in March, with the actual sentencing who knows when.

At one point in the hearing, Judge Emmett Sullivan urged Flynn to reconsider his guilty plea, telling him that the violation he was admitting to amounted to treason – only to walk back the comments minutes later. The media, predictably, gave far more coverage to the original statement than the retraction. It’s the perfect example of the collective hysteria that has followed Flynn’s case from the very beginning.

Despite the publication of FBI documents showing that agents interviewing Flynn in January 2017 did not think he misled them, intentionally or otherwise, about the content of his conversations with Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak, Flynn chose to stand by his guilty plea from a year ago. His reasons for this are a mystery. What is not a mystery, however, is how the people involved in railroading Flynn are the same ones implicated in the institutional #Resistance to the Trump administration.

In the orgy of sensationalist reporting that has gripped the US mainstream media for the past two years, Flynn’s actual transgression has been lost to the din of shouting “treason” and “RUSSIA.” What he pleaded guilty to is lying to FBI investigators about his calls with Kislyak. The contacts themselves were right and proper, mind you: it was literally his job to reach out to foreign diplomats on behalf of the president-elect. So, why was the FBI even probing them?

That is where things get interesting. Somebody from the Obama administration – we still don’t know who – “unmasked”Flynn’s name from the classified NSA intercepts of his conversations with the Russian ambassador. This somehow got to Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who testified that she reached out to the White House with concerns about Flynn being blackmailed. It also somehow got to the Washington Post. There was talk of the Logan Act, an obscure 200-year-old law never used to prosecute anyone.

Within days of Trump’s inauguration, two FBI agents came to interview Flynn about his conversations with Kislyak. They told him he didn’t need a lawyer present. One of the agents was Peter Strzok – who would later be revealed as rabidly anti-Trump, thanks to text exchanges with FBI lawyer Lisa Page uncovered by the DOJ inspector-general.

James Comey, the FBI director at the time and now a hero of the anti-Trump #Resistance, testified on Monday that he sent Strzok to the White House without informing Yates, out of political considerations. It’s not the first time Comey has broken with procedure and assumed prerogatives of his superiors, mind you – his public exoneration of Hillary Clinton comes to mind – as the DOJ IG concluded in his report.

Hounded by the media coverage of the NSA leaks and the FBI interview, Flynn resigned on February 14, 2017. That was not the end of his troubles, but only the beginning. Months later, special counsel Robert Mueller charged him with lying to Strzok and his colleague, in order to compel his cooperation with the “Russiagate” probe.

Mueller, let’s recall, was appointed by Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein after Comey was fired by Trump – on the basis of Rosenstein’s memo, no less – in May 2017, because Democrats insisted that sacking the FBI chief amid an ongoing counterintelligence investigation amounted to obstruction of justice. You can’t make this stuff up!

Yet despite two years and near-infinite resources, the best both Comey and Mueller could come up with to tie Trump to Russia has been the “salacious and unverified” (in Comey’s own words) Steele Dossier – a collection of claims bought and paid for by Clinton’s campaign, using the Democratic Party and its law firm Perkins Coie as cutouts.

Christopher Steele, a former (?) British spy, recently said in a legal filing that the dossier was commissioned so Clinton could challenge the legitimacy of the 2016 election. Before you object that Clinton never brought a court challenge, ask yourself: hasn’t she? What about Flynn, or George Papadopoulos, or Paul Manafort, or Michael Cohen, or the entire “Russiagate” probe for that matter? What about the frenzied, breathless reporting over the past two years, heralding the impending end of Donald J. Trump over each and every non-development?

Back in January 2017, top Democrat in the Senate Chuck Schumer warned Trump he should not cross the US intelligence community, as “they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

Sure enough, within days the spies released their infamous assessment claiming Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, providing a framework for “Russiagate” investigations. Since then, former CIA Director John Brennan has established himself as an outspoken foe of Trump, to the point where even former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper found it problematic.

Trump's critics have routinely accused him of being a dictator, a despot and a tyrant, a threat to “our democracy,” whatever that means. Yet in what dictatorship would a despot tolerate an ongoing vendetta by the opposition against himself and his allies, and the rampant abuse of intelligence, judiciary and law enforcement? Trump must the most incompetent tyrant ever!

What’s worse, the Washington establishment claims to stand for justice, rule of law, and democracy while trampling any semblance of them into the mud – as shown by the case of General Flynn – and continuing to blame Russia, of course.

Nebojsa Malic for RT

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/446810-flynn-trump-russiagate-spies/

 

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Does this mean that Flynn lied about having lied to the FBI?...

We now know that, before Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2017, the FBI had the ouster of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the President’s National Security Adviser, in its sights. By February 13th, Flynn was out the door.

Think about it. Why was Flynn’s removal of the utmost importance to the FBI, more vital than removal of any other cabinet officer like the Pentagon or State Department?

So crucial was it that they created a specific strategy willing to embrace prosecutorial misconduct and agency malfeasance to take Flynn down. Prosecutorial misdeeds are nothing new to the FBI as they have a well-founded history of corruption over the years with its warts now publicly displayed. 

It does not take a poli sci major to figure out that Flynn’s immediate removal from the Administration was essential to undermining Trump’s entire foreign policy initiatives including no new interventionist wars, peace with Russia and US withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan. 

In retrospect, the entire fraudulent Russiagate conspiracy makes sense when viewed from the perspective of an effort to rein in Trump’s foreign policy goals of which Flynn would have been a necessary, integral part. 

The question is where did the first glimmer of setting up Flynn originate? Who had the most to gain by disrupting Trump’s foreign policy agenda? A number of suspects come to mind including the evil Brennan/Clapper twins, a bureaucratically well-placed neocon, an interested foreign entity like Israel or somewhere deep within the dark bowels of the FBI, all of which are in sync with the Democratic leadership and its corporate media minions.

At the time, the Washington Post, a favorite CIA organ, was reporting that Flynn had ‘hinted’ to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that Trump might be willing to ‘relax’ sanctions against Russia. It was then claimed that Flynn had ‘misled’ VP Pence by denying that he had had a conversation regarding sanctions with Kislyak. None of it was true. 

With Flynn removed, Trump never regained his footing on foreign policy – which no doubt was exactly as intended; thereby opening the door for the likes of Jared Kushner to assume the role of ‘trusted adviser.” 

Let’s examine how the FBI eliminated Flynn: 

In August, 2016, an FBI ‘strategic intelligence briefing’ was conducted for candidate Trump with Flynn as his national security adviser in attendance. The briefing, which was not a traditional ‘defensive’ briefing in which a presidential candidate is alerted of a foreign government’s effort to intercede in their campaign, was led by an anonymous “experienced FBI counter intelligence agent.” According to the IG Report on FISA abuses, at that time Flynn was already a “subject in the ongoing Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”

The IG Report confirms that, after the election, top FBI officials discussed ‘interview strategies’ regarding how to set Flynn up in an ostensibly innocent conversation. Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe arranged the meeting with the goal to walk Flynn into a well-laid trap without informing him that there was a criminal investigation underway or that he was a target. 

Such a procedure is called ‘entrapment’ and considered illegal. (See Clint Eastwood’s new film Richard Jewell for details on the FBI’s entrapment techniques). 

On January 24, 2017, four days after the Inaugural, Peter Strzok, former FBI Chief of counterespionage and the same unnamed SSA1 (Supervisory Special Agent) who led the August briefing met with Flynn for a friendly chat, more popularly referred to as the Ambush Interview. 

At that time, either one or both agents took handwritten notes while neither provided the usual heads-up about penalties for making a false statement – since that would have tipped their hand. Since Flynn believed this was an informal visit, he did not feel the need to have an attorney present or inquire why, if this was a friendly get-to-know chat, the need to take notes.

That conversation led to Flynn being charged with ‘lying to the FBI’ regarding his conversation with Kislyak. 

After the interview, preparation of a 302 form is normal procedure. A 302 is a summary of and a formalizing of those notes taken during the conversation. It is those original 302 notes which are in dispute and which the FBI refuses to provide to either the Senate Judiciary Committee or to Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell. 

What does that tell you? Powell believes, based on sworn witness testimony, that the final 302 is not an accurate reflection of the 302 notes or Flynn’s statements of January 24th.

It is curious that an SSA1 whose identity remained cloaked in secrecy throughout the entire IG FISA Report continues to be mentioned as a significant participant in the Bureau’s Crossfire Hurricane while his name remains redacted on official documents. Disguising his identitymay simply be attributed to activities worth concealing. 

In an unexpected turn, it was Sen. Chuck Grassley, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee who outed the SSA1 as agent Joe Pientka in his May 11, 2018 letter to the Bureau. 

Pientka remains a central figure in the FBI scam against Flynn as well as other clandestine activities identified within the Crossfire operation– and there’s more. 

According to Strzok, Pientka was “primarily responsible” as the ‘note taker’ and prepared the 302 report of the interview on which Flynn’s prosecution is based. Powell has challenged authorship since the final 302 version contains falsified statements never made in the original interview that are now being criminalized. 

In a message to his paramour Lisa Page, Strzok thanked Page for her ‘edits’ on the 302 regarding the Flynn-Kislyak conversation on sanctions that never occurred while Strzok suggested that, at some future time, they discuss a ‘media leak strategy.’ 

Soon after Flynn’s resignation, a skeptical Grassley requested unredacted transcripts of the Flynn – Kislyak conversation with the FBI repeatedly refusing to comply. 

Grassley’s May 11th letter confirms that Comey was aware that Flynn had not lied regarding the Kislyak conversation and further points out the stunning revelation that Pientka was ‘on detail’ as staff on the Judiciary Committee, presumably with the Democrats. For all his persistence, the FBI continues to rebuff Grassley’s assertions for a transcript of the Kislyak conversation as well as demanding Pientka’s presence “for a transcribed interview with Committee staff.”

In response to an ‘insufficient’ FBI reply, Grassley then let loose with a June 6th zinger detailing a compilation of FBI lies, failures and hypocrisies too numerous to be articulated (but worth reading) here. 

While a review of the FBI’s entire prosecution of Flynn raises considerable legal and ethical questions, the Bureau’s consistent refusal to turnover evidentiary material is indicative of a deceitful agency protecting its own criminal behavior. 

• Why is the FBI embedding an SSA1 with the Senate Committee that has legislative jurisdiction over its mission? Does this strike anyone else like the tactic of a totalitarian state?
• How does Flynn’s case move forward without the FBI providing the necessary exculpatory documents legally required for every defendant?
• How does a Congressional Committee provide effective oversight and accountability if they are continually stonewalled by the very agency within their legal authority? 
• How can the FBI ever be rehabilitated if Congress, fearful of a constitutional crisis, has no political will to assert its proper authority and issue a Contempt of Congress subpoena?
• With the FBI out of control, Is this any way to run a country?

 

 

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2020/02/03/did-the-fbi-sabotage-trumps-foreign-...

 

 

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Note: the FBI has always had a culture of itself before the Prez. J E Hoover began his term under the title "Director of the Bureau of Investigation" on May 10, 1924 and stayed there till he died in 1972, 46 years later... His successors were also controversial in their control "of the law"... 

New documents discovered by General Michael Flynn’s former law firm are now in the hands of his current attorneys. One such document is likely to exonerate him from the crimes he has been charged with.

According to his lawyers, this whole affair has been made possible only because the Justice Department refused to declassify a document showing that an FBI spy had illegally infiltrated an August 2016 closed-door briefing of future President Trump with the CIA.

General Michael T. Flynn, former commander of US Military Intelligence and subsequently National Security Advisor to President Trump, had become the target of prosecutor Robert Mueller during the Russiagate impeachment push, leading to his forced resignation. He was notably accused of deliberately withholding information from Vice President Mike Pence. An exemplary soldier, he did not approve of "American imperialism and exceptionalism." General Flynn came under the spotlight by denouncing the Obama administration’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda and Daesh.

 

 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article209725.html

 

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See also: 

did putin indulge in a bit of mockery of the US presidency selection process?...

As a result of the Russia probe, Flynn struck a plea deal with the FBI, confessing to willingly lying to the agency about his contacts with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergei Kislyak in 2016. He later decided to withdraw his plea and successfully fought attempts to sentence him in 2020.

The US Justice Department is dropping the case against the former White House national security advisor Michael Flynn, according to the DOJ motion filed Thursday.

The decision was made "after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information", the documents read. It was decided that the interview Flynn  had with the FBI was "conducted without any legitimate investigative basis". 

"The Government is not persuaded that the  24 January, 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 motion reads.

Hours before the motion release, Flynn's prosecutor Brandon Van Grack stepped down from the case. 

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/202005071079234372-us-justice-department-drop...

 

Would it be that the new documents (read comment above) in favour of Flynn show the shenanigans of the FBI... and the authorities do not want these exposed as they could compromise or reveal a few naughty people in that organisation?...

 

 

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The former national security adviser, Flynn, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, but later retracted his plea after evidence emerged that the FBI had entrapped and framed him absent a crime.

Michael Flynn's lawyers say newly uncovered notes from ex-FBI official Peter Strzok show that then-FBI director James Comey saw Flynn's calls with Russia's ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition in the United States as "legit".

Despite that, they say that then-President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden pushed for an investigation into Flynn.

"Yesterday, the Government produced further stunning and exculpatory evidence, previously withheld from General Flynn, showing that Director Comey himself and the highest levels of the Obama Administration had the transcripts of Flynn's phone calls with officials of other countries and knew General Flynn's calls were lawful and proper", Flynn's attorney Sidney Powell writes.

Acting US Attorney Michael Sherwin told Flynn's lawyers that the notes were penned by Strzok and were likely taken between 3 and 5 January 2017.

"Strzok's notes [...] reveal that former President Obama, James Comey, Sally Yates, Joe Biden, and apparently Susan Rice discussed the transcripts of Flynn's calls and how to proceed against him", Powell continues. "Mr Obama himself directed that 'the right people' investigate General Flynn."

Powell went on to say that Biden was apparently behind the idea of the Logan Act, which became "an admitted pretext" for the investigation against Flynn. This contradicts Biden's earlier statement that he knew nothing about Flynn's investigation.

Pictures of Strzok's notes were also shared on social media, though they are hard to read due to the rough handwriting and include shorthand instead of full names.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/202006251079714019-strzok-notes-show-obama-bi...

 

Obama and Biden should be in prison for entrapment...

General Flynn, QAnon and the US Elections

by Thierry Meyssan

The pardon granted by President Trump to his former National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn, appears to be in support of QAnon; a group he feels is connected to. Similarly, the removal of leaders from the Pentagon appears to follow General Flynn’s objectives.

Donald Trump’s brilliant granting of a presidential pardon to General Michael Flynn has caused a stir.

Certainly, this great military man is being prosecuted for lying to Russiagate investigators (and not for other crimes he himself is alleged to have committed). He was trying to protect his boss from the intrusions of the judiciary; for which the latter thanks him today.

But above all because this man has a remarkable curriculum vitae. Director of Military Intelligence, he questioned the Obama administration’s support for Al Qaeda, Daesh and their parent company, the Muslim Brotherhood. He fought to stop the war against Syria and keep President Bashar al-Assad in office. After a memorable conflict, in which he was supported by Generals Mattis and Kelly, he was forced to resign.

He then began a career in the private sector by working for Cambridge Analytica, the firm that analyzed Internet traffic mega-data to help the electoral campaigns of many current leaders, including Ted Cruz [1] and then Donald Trump in the United States. Then, he created with his son, Michael Jr, a lobbying company, of which Turkey was a client. He pleaded for it in favor of the extradition of Fetuhllah Gülen, accused of fomenting the coup d’état of 2016. At the time, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was not yet the protector of the Muslim Brotherhood and hesitated to become the leader of Turkish nationalism. It was therefore desirable to extradite the Islamist leader who had implemented the coup on the orders of the CIA.

In the end, General Flynn got closer to Donald Trump, became so involved in his campaign against the Puritans that he was selected as a possible vice-president, even Secretary of Defense or National Security Advisor. It is this last position that he would occupy for 24 days during the inauguration of President Trump until his forced resignation by the Russiagate investigation.

Since that date, he kept a low profile, exclusively occupied with his judicial defense.

Hence the question: what was this master spy doing so close to Donald Trump?

On September 14, 2019, he was announced as a speaker, along with George Papadopoulos, at a conference on "Soldiers of the Digital Age" in Atlanta. This was the first public manifestation of the QAnon movement. But in the face of press interest, he cancelled his participation.

The conference was organized by Richard Granville, the founder of the Yippy search engine. But we know precisely nothing about QAnon. Just that by this signature, it is posing as a senior defense functionary with "Q" level secrecy and that it intends to remain Anonymous. Messages that have been widely relayed attribute to it the task of investigating a pedophile ring within the puritanical upper middle class, in the continuity of Pizzagate, including many personalities from Hollywood and the Democratic Party, including the Podesta brothers.

John Podesta served as White House Secretary under President Bill Clinton and as Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager. In the middle of Russiagate, he implicated the Voltaire Network as a Kremlin front after Michael Flynn Jr. relayed one of my articles revealing his father’s plan to reform US Intelligence [2].

Prior to the November 3 presidential election, "Q" broadcast messages warning of an impending operation against conspirators who would rig the election. Since then, it has revealed the search in Germany of the premises of the Dominion group involved in the U.S. election counts. However, while this police intervention did take place, it is not possible to verify who ordered it, nor why, much less what was found.

Donald Trump’s personal attorney and former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, spoke of several forms of election rigging: voter registration, the ballot boxes themselves, mail-in ballots, automatic ballot counts, and the transmission of machine results. This is where Dominion’s software would come in. It would count fewer votes for Donald Trump and more for Biden on a pro rata basis. It is believed to have been used in several countries to rig elections, including Venezuela.

President Hugo Chávez, it so happens, has often requested election observers from the Voltaire Network. One of them had discovered in advance and denounced a rigging of the ballot. The country was using electoral machines that issued a receipt for each vote. Dominion had established in advance a list of its voting machines that should be checked, comparing electronic results with receipts. From that point on, it was known that the other machines could be tampered with without risk. It is not President Chávez who wanted to falsify the results, but the Dominion company, on behalf of who knows who. The general who had organized the elections had been arrested beforehand for corruption and high treason.

General Flynn’s lawyer, Sidney Powell, joined Rudy Giuilani’s team at a press conference. A former federal prosecutor in North Carolina, she has made a name for herself against the mob and corruption. As a lawyer, she demonstrated the abusive nature of the Flynn investigation and had it quashed. She has just announced with Giuilani that she is finishing a new complaint against Dominion for massive fraud.

The dismissal of five of the Pentagon’s top leaders [3] bears General Flynn’s signature: all of them were involved in supporting the Secret Muslim Brotherhood and their terrorist organizations, al-Qaeda and Daesh.

Is Donald Trump bluffing or is he catching the fraudsters red-handed? If so, will he fight them or negotiate with them?

Thierry Meyssan
Translation 
Roger Lagassé

 

 

1 DECEMBER 2020

 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article211793.html

 

 

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Several US media outlets earlier reported that Trump purportedly invited his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, to discussions on how to overturn the result of the election, after the former official during a Newsmax interview, weighed in on the option to use martial law and the US military as a means of forcing a new election.

US President Donald Trump lambasted media reports claiming that he was considering the use of martial law to change the results of the November 3 US presidential election, calling the allegations deliberate "fake news".

Martial law = Fake News. Just more knowingly bad reporting!

— Donald J. Trump December 20, 2020

POTUS took a swipe at another of his former national security advisers, John Bolton, who recently described as "appalling" allegations that Trump was consideration the use of martial law and the US military to "rerun" the election. Bolton said he had no doubt that Trump engaged in these discussions, calling it "another day at the Oval Office".

What would Bolton, one of the dumbest people in Washington, know? Wasn’t he the person who so stupidly said, on television, “Libyan solution”, when describing what the U.S. was going to do for North Korea? I’ve got plenty of other Bolton “stupid stories”.

— Donald J. Trump December 20, 2020

Trump stated that Bolton was "one of the dumbest people in Washington". The president recalled Bolton's claims of the White House planning to go with a "Libyan solution" in negotiations with North Korea, something that POTUS claimed was responsible for tanking prospective talks with Pyongyang.

White House Officials Reportedly Concerned With Trump's Talks With "Conspiracy Nuts"

The president's criticism of media reports come in the wake of an Axios claim based on accounts of anonymous officials that some loyal White House figures fear that POTUS is attempting to abuse his powers to overturn the election. According to the media, that fear is connected with Trump's extensive communications with people whom media sources describe as "conspiracy nuts" who support the voter fraud claims.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/202012201081520774-trump-slams-reports-about-him-considering-martial-law-to-overturn-election-as-fake-news/