Anybody else shocked ?
Technical difficulties plagued a digital hearing over the fate of onetime National Security Advisor and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn on Tuesday--but one thing was constant through the first hour of the quickly-recessed hearing: the court's iciness toward the defendant and the U.S. Department...
lawandcrime.com
DOJ’S NSL REPORT PROVES THAT WILLIAM BARNETT MISREPRESENTED THE EVIDENCE IMPLICATING MIKE FLYNN
September 29, 2020 - by
emptywheel
"Later today, DOJ will stand up before Emmet Sullivan and argue that Peter Strzok — whom, they’ll claim, had it in for Mike Flynn even though they’ve submitted evidence that Strzok protected Flynn in August 2016 and December 2016 and February 2017 and May 2017 — obtained National Security Letters targeting Mike Flynn without proper predicate.
In fact, their “evidence” to support that claim will show that in
his interview with Jeffrey Jensen, William Barnett
misrepresented the evidence when he claimed it was “astro projection” that Mike Flynn lied to hide Trump’s involvement in Flynn’s effort to blow up sanctions on Russia. Indeed, their evidence will actually affirmatively provide
more reason to think that this entire effort is an attempt to protect Flynn because
he protected the President from being charged in a quid pro quo, rewarding Russia with sanctions relief in exchange for help getting elected.
What DOJ
wants to show is that, in December 2016, Barnett and others on the Flynn investigation wanted to get NSLs targeting Flynn, but Strzok stopped them, in part because the investigation into Flynn — but not the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the Trump campaign as a whole — did not treat Flynn as an Agent of a Foreign Power. [I’ll fill this post in with links once I post it.] But then, in February and March — after DOJ said that they didn’t think Flynn was a Foreign Agent (but also said they needed to check to make sure!!!) — Strzok approved NSLs targeting Flynn. DOJ plans to claim that Strzok had no other reason to do this except to take Trump down.
The claim is amazing, in its own right, because
even making the claim suggests that FBI had reason to know at that point that an investigation into Flynn which FBI believed to involve only Flynn might bring down Trump. That is, DOJ is claiming that FBI knew precisely what they only discovered by obtaining these NSLs.
FBI didn’t know at the time — but the NSLs would reveal — that in fact, the investigation might take down Trump....."
