Appeals court denies Michael Flynn and Justice Department's effort to end his case

[Hamish Howl]

It appears the Deep State

:lol:

 

[pamak]

The Rice memo released earlier this year details Comey's statement that he saw nothing illegal or of a national security concern with the conversation.

The Trump campaign had a pair of former federal prosecutors (Christie and Sessions) on it. No reason not to warn them if the concern was Russian infiltration.
Indeed, the FBI agent who gave Trump his generic warning in August 2016 was the same agent who was heading up Crossfire Hurricane. The 'generic' interview wss in fact part of the investigation. Trump was under investigation for conspiracy.

The Obama admin had decided NOT to give Trump a full briefing on the Steele dossier. Comey just told him about the pee tape stuff.

You do not understand the point. Lying to Pence was not illegal but it was still a legitimate counter-intelligence concern which required investigation and interviews with Flynn! And lying during those counter-intelligence interviews is a crime!

Sorry, but the standard practice of not revealing an FBI investigation still applies and it is not based on if Christie or anybody else was in the Trump campaign And at that time nobody in the Trump campaign had any security clearance or even reason to have access to that investigation.

Trump GOT the briefing when he became president elect. Before that, he had no reason to get access to any classified information related to counter-intelligence activities about some of his staff, especially since he openly welcomed Russia to publish the Hillary emails! I will remind you that not even Obama and Hillary had prior knowledge of some of the things Comey did in the Hillary investigation.

Access Denied

Mueller's report further documents the January 2017 private discussion between Trump and Comey on the dossier. Four days later, media publications reported on Comey's briefing and BuzzFeed published the dossier in full.



Sd by the way, Obama WARNED Trump about Flynn...

Obama warned Trump about Flynn, officials say - POLITICO'


Also from the Mueller report:

https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

On January 6, 2017, as noted in Volume II, Section II.A.4, supra, intelligence officials briefed President-Elect Trump and the incoming Administration on the intelligence community’s
107
concluded, Comey spoke with the President-Elect privately to brief him on unverified, personally
assessment that Russia had interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
When the briefing
108

At that time, Obama was STILL president

 

[pamak]

Reposting the last quote because it was distorted during the copying and pasting:

On January 6, 2017, as noted in Volume II, Section II.A.4, supra, intelligence officials briefed President-Elect Trump and the incoming Administration on the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia had interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

When the briefing concluded, Comey spoke with the President-Elect privately to brief him on unverified, personally
assessment that Russia had interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

Now, unless somebody was present in that private meeting, he cannot know what exactly was mentioned or not (so the claim that Comey mentioned only the scandalous parts is just an unsupported claim) but in any case, the content of the dossier became publicly available 4 days later (that is on January 10th).

Here is the first report of the Steel dossier by buzzfeed

These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia

Posted on January 10, 2017, at 6:20 p.m. ET

Again Obama was president on January 10, 2017.

By the way the Flynn interview took place AFTER Trump became president which is weird for somebody who supposedly tries to entrap the innocent Flynn (or Trump). Normally, an Obama conspiracy would motivate the FBI agents to accomplish their plan while Obama was still president....

 

[NWRatCon]

You would be wrong. 4 were Republican appointed and 2 of those 4 agreed with majority.

The operative words are "guessing" and "wrong".

 

[NWRatCon]

Assume no one knew the bank had been robbed because the people involved in the robbery lied to investigators.

There you go again, being all reasonable and analogous.

 

[NWRatCon]

Just to catch up:
1) it's spelled "Deeeep Staaaate".
2) "counterintelligence operation," doesn't mean "about Trump's lack of intelligence" - it means they were looking to "counter" Russia's "intelligence operation", which included infiltration, disinformation, cooperation, coordination, corruption, and cooption (getting insiders to cooperate). Manafort, for example, was feeding intelligence directly to a Russian agent. Flynn was communicating directly with Russian intelligence authorities (then lied about it).
3) the "counter" in counterintelligence has nothing to do with kitchens or the process of automatic incremental integer advancement. I just thought I'd get those potential misconceptions out of the way, heaven the level of some of this discourse.
4) when the FBI conducted their interview with Flynn, they began with their standard warnings and techniques:

 

[Athanasius68]

Just to catch up:
1) it's spelled "Deeeep Staaaate".
2) "counterintelligence operation," doesn't mean "about Trump's lack of intelligence" - it means they were looking to "counter" Russia's "intelligence operation", which included infiltration, disinformation, cooperation, coordination, corruption, and cooption (getting insiders to cooperate). Manafort, for example, was feeding intelligence directly to a Russian agent. Flynn was communicating directly with Russian intelligence authorities (then lied about it).
3) the "counter" in counterintelligence has nothing to do with kitchens or the process of automatic incremental integer advancement. I just thought I'd get those potential misconceptions out of the way, heaven the level of some of this discourse.
4) when the FBI conducted their interview with Flynn, they began with their standard warnings and techniques:

To further catch up:

1. We now know the campaign was being investigated for CONSPIRING with those Russian efforts. That seems to be the fact that many people suddenly now wish to forget. Particularly since we now know there was no evidence, no facts, to have such suspicion.
The reframing of the issue as one of simply investigating a Russian intelligence operation is laughable considering that as we already know the FBI thought the Steele Dossier Russian disinformation, yet used it in anyways.

2. As there was no evidence to suspect that that the campaign was CONSPIRING with Russian espionage efforts, there was no reason to interview Flynn, thus... ect., ect., ect.

 

[Athanasius68]

Reposting the last quote because it was distorted during the copying and pasting:

On January 6, 2017, as noted in Volume II, Section II.A.4, supra, intelligence officials briefed President-Elect Trump and the incoming Administration on the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia had interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

When the briefing concluded, Comey spoke with the President-Elect privately to brief him on unverified, personally
assessment that Russia had interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

Now, unless somebody was present in that private meeting, he cannot know what exactly was mentioned or not (so the claim that Comey mentioned only the scandalous parts is just an unsupported claim) but in any case, the content of the dossier became publicly available 4 days later (that is on January 10th).

Here is the first report of the Steel dossier by buzzfeed

These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia

Posted on January 10, 2017, at 6:20 p.m. ET

Again Obama was president on January 10, 2017.

By the way the Flynn interview took place AFTER Trump became president which is weird for somebody who supposedly tries to entrap the innocent Flynn (or Trump). Normally, an Obama conspiracy would motivate the FBI agents to accomplish their plan while Obama was still president....

For the last almost four years the argument has been that Trump and/or his campaign was conspiring with the Russian intelligence operation. Now we are going to argue that the FBI was simply concerned that Russia was seeking to infiltrate the campaign? So why not tell Christie and Sessions of the concerns? Did they think those two guys were in on it as well?
We all know the answer: the investigation concerned Trump and his alleged complicity in it. And the problem with that is, as we have been learning, especially since January, is that there was no facts and evidence to think so.

 

[pamak]

For the last almost four years the argument has been that Trump and/or his campaign was conspiring with the Russian intelligence operation. Now we are going to argue that the FBI was simply concerned that Russia was seeking to infiltrate the campaign? So why not tell Christie and Sessions of the concerns? Did they think those two guys were in on it as well?
We all know the answer: the investigation concerned Trump and his alleged complicity in it. And the problem with that is, as we have been learning, especially since January, is that there was no facts and evidence to think so.

What people argue is not what the investigator argue. Comey testified under oath in Congress that Trump was not the target of the opening of the investigation and we already have many memos from the conversations among the FBI agents. So, your point is irrelevant to what I say which is that th FBI suspected that people like Manafort, Flynn and others were used by Russians to gai access to Trump!
And I already answered the question; NONE outside the federal government has clearance and there is no reason at all to inform peolle like Sessions and Christie. Sessions was not een AG at the time of Flynn's interview. Trump was president but the senate conformed Sessions a few weeks later!

 

[Athanasius68]

What people argue is not what the investigator argue. Comey testified under oath in Congress that Trump was not the target of the opening of the investigation and we already have many memos from the conversations among the FBI agents. So, your point is irrelevant to what I say which is that th FBI suspected that people like Manafort, Flynn and others were used by Russians to gai access to Trump!
And I already answered the question; NONE outside the federal government has clearance and there is no reason at all to inform peolle like Sessions and Christie. Sessions was not een AG at the time of Flynn's interview. Trump was president but the senate conformed Sessions a few weeks later!

Crossfire Hurricane was about investigating Trump for conspiring with Russia. You keep wanting to insist that it was about looking for Russian infiltration. However, notifying Trump campaign officials who had long records with the DOJ would have been of value for this end. It wasn't done because the Trump was the target. We know that because the generic briefing Trump received about foreign interference was given AFTER Crossfire Hurricane commenced by the same guy who was in charge if that operation.

 

[CaughtInThe]

Our mafia-like President should just go ahead and preemptively pardon Flynn.

We know it's going to happen anyway.

 

[pamak]

Crossfire Hurricane was about investigating Trump for conspiring with Russia. You keep wanting to insist that it was about looking for Russian infiltration. However, notifying Trump campaign officials who had long records with the DOJ would have been of value for this end. It wasn't done because the Trump was the target. We know that because the generic briefing Trump received about foreign interference was given AFTER Crossfire Hurricane commenced by the same guy who was in charge if that operation.

Again, what True claims is not my concern. I cite facts like the fact that Comey under oath testified that Trump was not the target of investigation when the counter-intelgence investigation started. And the timing is critical because AFTER Comey was fired, then Trump was suspected for different crimes including obstruction of justice but up to the Flynn investigation, there was no such concern. Also, the behavior of the FBI officials during the Obama administration does not corroborate your claims. As I showed, the fact is that Obama actually WARNED Trump about Flynn and the FBI investigators actually arranged the interview with Flynn a few days AFTER Trump became president. People who want to entrap Flynn and Trump do not act in such way...

A counterintelligence is always about resisting the infiltration of foreign agents. If you do not know it, it is not my problem! Here is the FBI site!

Counterintelligence — FBI

Inside the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program

The FBI has been responsible for identifying and neutralizing ongoing national security threats from foreign intelligence services since 1917, nine years after the Bureau was created in 1908...

While the details of the FBI’s strategy are classified, the overall goals are as follows:

Protect the secrets of the U.S. Intelligence Community, using intelligence to focus investigative efforts, and collaborating with our government partners to reduce the risk of espionage and insider threats.
Protect the nation’s critical assets, like our advanced technologies and sensitive information in the defense, intelligence, economic, financial, public health, and science and technology sectors.
Counter the activities of foreign spies. Through proactive investigations, the Bureau identifies who they are and stops what they’re doing.



That is how it was always. The CIA is focusing on recruiting and using American agents in foreign countries and the FBI is focusing on detecting recruited foreign agents in the US.

Sorry, but you do not notify anybody who does not have a need to know and security clearance. When Trump wa briefed, he was still president-elect, Obama was still the president, had the nuclear codes and the authority to access every type of classified information. And even Obama did not have advanced warning of many things Comey did related to Hillary investigation. And as I said, Trump was WARNED about Flynn by Obama. This has been verified by Trump's spokesman in the link I posted in earlier posts. If Trump was the target, it made zero sense to try to convince Trump not to keep Flynn as his adviser.

 

[pamak]

Our mafia-like President should just go ahead and preemptively pardon Flynn.

We know it's going to happen anyway.

Indeed!

The is my expectation also if Trump losses the elections and no final legal conclusion has been reached in that case. But as a good bootlicker, Barr tries to salvage Trump's image by giving him a gift so that the president does not have to pardon a felon. And with all these convictions of Trump's advisors (Bannon may soon join the list), it is obvious that somebody needs to defend the image of a president whose closest advisers have higher conviction rates than those of inner city immigrant youth...lolol

 

[Athanasius68]

Again, what True claims is not my concern. I cite facts like the fact that Comey under oath testified that Trump was not the target of investigation when the counter-intelgence investigation started. And the timing is critical because AFTER Comey was fired, then Trump was suspected for different crimes including obstruction of justice but up to the Flynn investigation, there was no such concern. Also, the behavior of the FBI officials during the Obama administration does not corroborate your claims. As I showed, the fact is that Obama actually WARNED Trump about Flynn and the FBI investigators actually arranged the interview with Flynn a few days AFTER Trump became president. People who want to entrap Flynn and Trump do not act in such way...

A counterintelligence is always about resisting the infiltration of foreign agents. If you do not know it, it is not my problem! Here is the FBI site!

Counterintelligence — FBI

Inside the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program

The FBI has been responsible for identifying and neutralizing ongoing national security threats from foreign intelligence services since 1917, nine years after the Bureau was created in 1908...

While the details of the FBI’s strategy are classified, the overall goals are as follows:

Protect the secrets of the U.S. Intelligence Community, using intelligence to focus investigative efforts, and collaborating with our government partners to reduce the risk of espionage and insider threats.
Protect the nation’s critical assets, like our advanced technologies and sensitive information in the defense, intelligence, economic, financial, public health, and science and technology sectors.
Counter the activities of foreign spies. Through proactive investigations, the Bureau identifies who they are and stops what they’re doing.



That is how it was always. The CIA is focusing on recruiting and using American agents in foreign countries and the FBI is focusing on detecting recruited foreign agents in the US.

Sorry, but you do not notify anybody who does not have a need to know and security clearance. When Trump wa briefed, he was still president-elect, Obama was still the president, had the nuclear codes and the authority to access every type of classified information. And even Obama did not have advanced warning of many things Comey did related to Hillary investigation. And as I said, Trump was WARNED about Flynn by Obama. This has been verified by Trump's spokesman in the link I posted in earlier posts. If Trump was the target, it made zero sense to try to convince Trump not to keep Flynn as his adviser.

The best way to neutralize a threat of Russian infiltration of the Trump campaign is to let the campaign know who they suspect is infiltrating the campaign. As Trump said when it was learned that the FBI had sent an agent to "surveil" the campaign (ostensibly upon the hiring of Carter Page), he would have fired Page had he known of the concern.
Problem neutralized.

But that can't happen if the campaign is not informed. And the reason why the campaign wasn't informed is because Trump himself was under investigation.

And as there has never been any factual basis presented to think Trump was in any way acting as an agent of Russia, Barr is correct to deplore what has happened.
But perhaps Durham will uncover something.

 

[Wayne Jr]

Appeals court denies Michael Flynn and Justice Department's effort to end his case

Thanks for the update but I'm not sure there's anything to debate about it.

 

[CaughtInThe]

Indeed!

The is my expectation also if Trump losses the elections and no final legal conclusion has been reached in that case. But as a good bootlicker, Barr tries to salvage Trump's image by giving him a gift so that the president does not have to pardon a felon. And with all these convictions of Trump's advisors (Bannon may soon join the list), it is obvious that somebody needs to defend the image of a president whose closest advisers have higher conviction rates than those of inner city immigrant youth...lolol

somebody needs to start a thread where we all guess how many Trump criminals Trump pardons if he loses..

 

[pamak]

The best way to neutralize a threat of Russian infiltration of the Trump campaign is to let the campaign know who they suspect is infiltrating the campaign. As Trump said when it was learned that the FBI had sent an agent to "surveil" the campaign (ostensibly upon the hiring of Carter Page), he would have fired Page had he known of the concern.
Problem neutralized.

But that can't happen if the campaign is not informed. And the reason why the campaign wasn't informed is because Trump himself was under investigation.

And as there has never been any factual basis presented to think Trump was in any way acting as an agent of Russia, Barr is correct to deplore what has happened.
But perhaps Durham will uncover something.

Nonsense because without solid evidence you will look like trying to spread lies to undermine Trump who will probably attack both the FBI and Obama.

The best thing before saying anything to Trump is to investigate the suspect. And as we know from the memos, the FBI agents themselves were clear that they were aiming at investigating Flynn, present the facts and then let the people above them present the facts and make decisions!

So, after it became clear that Flynn lied about his conversation with the Russian diplomat, Trump was informed and Flynn was fired!

 

[Athanasius68]

Nonsense because without solid evidence you will look like trying to spread lies to undermine Trump who will probably attack both the FBI and Obama.

The best thing before saying anything to Trump is to investigate the suspect. And as we know from the memos, the FBI agents themselves were clear that they were aiming at investigating Flynn, present the facts and then let the people above them present the facts and make decisions!

So, after it became clear that Flynn lied about his conversation with the Russian diplomat, Trump was informed and Flynn was fired!

Flynn had been investigated throughout 2016 and by the end of that year it wss concluded he was not a foreign intelligence threat.

But you correct in that if Trump had been informed that Flynn and his campaign in general was being investigated, he would have demanded to know the evidence. It would have been a major problem to reveal that there was nothing to back it up- indeed the accusation relied upon uncorroborated and Russian information, forged documents and mischaracterizations of conversations with a Russian ambassador. And that is being charitable.

 

[Fletch]

Indeed!

The is my expectation also if Trump losses the elections and no final legal conclusion has been reached in that case. But as a good bootlicker, Barr tries to salvage Trump's image by giving him a gift so that the president does not have to pardon a felon. And with all these convictions of Trump's advisors (Bannon may soon join the list), it is obvious that somebody needs to defend the image of a president whose closest advisers have higher conviction rates than those of inner city immigrant youth...lolol

It is completely idiotic to believe that Trump has any fear whatsoever of blowback for pardoning Flynn. You liberals will literally believe any moronic thing your masters feed you.

 

[pamak]

Flynn had been investigated throughout 2016 and by the end of that year it wss concluded he was not a foreign intelligence threat.

But you correct in that if Trump had been informed that Flynn and his campaign in general was being investigated, he would have demanded to know the evidence. It would have been a major problem to reveal that there was nothing to back it up- indeed the accusation relied upon uncorroborated and Russian information, forged documents and mischaracterizations of conversations with a Russian ambassador. And that is being charitable.

Sorry, but the opening of the investigation about the Russian intervention started mid 2016 and the lying of Flynn to Pence happened in the first half of Jabuary 2017.

A candidate and president-elect cannot demand yet anything because he does not operate yet in a safe (from intelligence point of view) environment. Everything from his advisors (who have no securty clearance) to his residence to his cell-phone do not meet the standards of handling every federal classified information. We also know that even when Trump- the candidate- became aware of other evidence regarding the Russian meddling, he chose to talk about "hoaxes" and deny reality. So, it is obvious that the FBI had to first be sure that it had a veryyy strong case to convince Trump that Flynn may be a security risk. Flynn's lying to Pence and his interview with the FBI agents accomplished that. So, when even Pence was aware of what Flynn told him, it was difficult for Trump to ignore it and think that this was just a sting FBI operation to eliminate Flynn based on allegations from the Steele dossier or other sources. By the way, at that time, the FBI also invetigated the credibility of the Steele dossier...

 

[pamak]

It is completely idiotic to believe that Trump has any fear whatsoever of blowback for pardoning Flynn. You liberals will literally believe any moronic thing your masters feed you.

it is not about fear. It is about defending Trump's public image during an election and for posterity..

 

[pamak]

By the way, Flynn was engaged in many different suspicous activities, which includes his failure to register as a lobbyst for Turkish interests...

 

[Athanasius68]

Sorry, but the opening of the investigation about the Russian intervention started mid 2016 and the lying of Flynn to Pence happened in the first half of Jabuary 2017.

A candidate and president-elect cannot demand yet anything because he does not operate yet in a safe (from intelligence point of view) environment. Everything from his advisors (who have no securty clearance) to his residence to his cell-phone do not meet the standards of handling every federal classified information. We also know that even when Trump- the candidate- became aware of other evidence regarding the Russian meddling, he chose to talk about "hoaxes" and deny reality. So, it is obvious that the FBI had to first be sure that it had a veryyy strong case to convince Trump that Flynn may be a security risk. Flynn's lying to Pence and his interview with the FBI agents accomplished that. So, when even Pence was aware of what Flynn told him, it was difficult for Trump to ignore it and think that this was just a sting FBI operation to eliminate Flynn based on allegations from the Steele dossier or other sources. By the way, at that time, the FBI also invetigated the credibility of the Steele dossier...

The issue, as it has been, is that there was no case against Flynn for being a Russian agent.
Or against Page.
Or against Trump.
Yet they were all investigated.

 

[pamak]

The issue, as it has been, is that there was no case against Flynn for being a Russian agent.
Or against Page.
Or against Trump.
Yet they were all investigated.

Sorry but you confuse evidence that can stand in criminal court and evidence that can make someone suspect of a counter-intelligence threat.

Just the lying to VP-president elect about a talk with Russian diplomats is enough by itself to raise concerns about a counterintelligence threat.

And sorry, but your claims that Trump was the a target of the counter-intelligence operation before the firing of Comey (which was the time of the Flynn interview) require proof. Give me the FISA application or the internal memos of the FBI agents (that are available) that discuss the targeting of Trump. There is not any, so stop spreading lies you sallow from right wing sources!

 

[Athanasius68]

Sorry but you confuse evidence that can stand in criminal court and evidence that can make someone suspect of a counter-intelligence threat.

The difference is objective-- the purpose of a criminal investigation is to gather evidence to present to a court of for prosecution.
The purpose of a counter-intelligence investigation is to find out what foreign powers are up to and to stop it. The purpose is not to gather evidence for a criminal prosecution.
But there still needs to be evidence of a counter-intelligence threat--- an existence of a fact.

Just the lying to VP-president elect about a talk with Russian diplomats is enough by itself to raise concerns about a counterintelligence threat.

Not really-- because the FBI had the transcript and knew what was discussed (which btw was not about sanctions).

And sorry, but your claims that Trump was the a target of the counter-intelligence operation before the firing of Comey (which was the time of the Flynn interview) require proof. Give me the FISA application or the internal memos of the FBI agents (that are available) that discuss the targeting of Trump. There is not any, so stop spreading lies you sallow from right wing sources!

Already did-- the lack of a defensive briefing to the campaign after starting Crossfire Hurricane. If it was just Carter Page the FBI was worried about, you tell a Christie or a Sessions or a Flynn. Then the campaign knows and the campaign can deal with the problem (hopefully by firing him-- which eliminates the the threat and this achieves the counter-intelligence objective). Instead, mum was the word because had they told Christie or Sessions, those guys would have told Trump.
Thus Trump was the target. Can't tell the target he is subject of an investigation. And of course the campaign couldn't very well fire Trump.