U.S. judge puts on hold Justice Dept. move to dismiss Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to hear outside gr

Tangmo · May 18, 2020

W_Heisenberg said:
When Steele was seeking information out amongst his network of contacts, he wasn't asking the Russian government for help, he was asking, effectively, for individuals to turn AGAINST the Russian government.

This is how spying works.

This is how spying has always worked.

It's clear to me you have no idea how spycraft works.

Fundamentally, if we're talking about human-sourced intelligence, what spycraft involves is talking to people in, or associated with, a foreign government, and asking them for information that that particular foreign government does not want to be revealed.

iguanaman said:
I have tried to make them understand that too but it is useless. They have been told that the Steele dossier is made up of Kremlin supplied "disinformation" because all of a sudden Putin decided to hurt Trump and incriminate himself I guess. It is as ridiculous as it comes but that never stands in the way of the cult.

Indeed and going on 20 years of internet discussion boards I have not seen such a determined and hellbent campaign as this one that specifically charges headlong trying to elevate above the Constitution and the law this crackpot Flynn, the AG Bison Barr and the unpopular wildman president Trump the helter skelter ignoramus.

Given the context it is clear Putin Trump & Rowers see this as their optimal opportunity to demolish the rule of law in the USA, to shred the Constitution and to torch ignite equal justice under law. The Rowers seem besides not to recognize they've been caught red handed trying to strangle justice using her own blindfold.

Athanasius68 · May 18, 2020

iguanaman said:
They certainly looked at the 100's of contacts with Russian operatives and the Trump campaign. That's a lot of talking and 'reaching out" don't you think? There were ZERO contacts with Russians reaching out to Hillary's campaign. Much of the Steele dossier was verified to be true and it's main assertion that Trump was being helped by the Russians was certainly backed up with other info. It fit perfectly with what others had found like the hacking of the DNC by GRU agents.

Here Are All the Times Donald Trump and His Associates Intersected With Russians | Time

All those stories have one theme running through: Russians are reaching out to the Trump campaign.
Which is what Mueller said.
That is to be expected when Russia is seeking to screw with the election.
While Russia was running around trying to plow the Trump campaign with anti-Clinton stuff, Russia was running trying to ply (and succeeding BTW) the Clinton campaign with anti-Trump stuff.
Russia targeted both campaigns to create chaos in the political system.

Athanasius68 · May 18, 2020

Re: U.S. judge puts on hold Justice Dept. move to dismiss Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to hear outs

iguanaman said:
Athanasius68 said:

Sorry can't read that. No subscription.

Click to expand...

Oh well, all I can tell you is that the article mentions that members of the Obama Admin asked the the FBI about the phone call.
The FBI responded by telling them there was no quid pro quo.

Atomic Kid · May 18, 2020

Re: U.S. judge puts on hold Justice Dept. move to dismiss Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to hear outs

OpportunityCost said:
Uh huh, they didn't detail his Western contacts. Papadopoulos was doing his job and trying to cultivate contacts in Russia to understand and know who the players were in Russia on energy. Mifsud also met all the time with people in the West. The issue is, even though the Mueller investigation laid out contacts, it never explicitly stated who was working for. Hell, he could be playing both sides.

Because his statement to Papadopoulos started everything. Who was he getting information from, who was telling him to leak it to G.Papa. (Im not spelling that over and over) with the expectation that it would go to the campaign.

Based on other information---the Crowdstrike CEO testified the information on the supposed DNC hack was circumstantial only, not conclusive. So even in this, Mifsud may have been lying, we don't know. Its odd to me that they had the guy that caused the investigation and made few efforts to really dig into what he was doing and who for. Conclusion: get the facts even if they don't serve the narrative or theory you are pursuing.

:bs Crowdstrike said it had a high degree of certainty that the Russian Intelligence groups APT 28 and APT 29 were responsible for the DNC hack. But in any event only a very limited few people in the world even knew that there had been a hack of DNC at the time Ppapadopoulos mentioned it to the Aussie diplomat. And Mifsud was not, or ever was, a source, a contact,or an agent for the CIA or FBI, or any other US intelligence or national security agency.

sanman · May 18, 2020

Tangmo said:
Indeed and going on 20 years of internet discussion boards I have not seen such a determined and hellbent campaign as this one that specifically charges headlong trying to elevate above the Constitution and the law this crackpot Flynn, the AG Bison Barr and the unpopular wildman president Trump the helter skelter ignoramus.

Given the context it is clear Putin Trump & Rowers see this as their optimal opportunity to demolish the rule of law in the USA, to shred the Constitution and to torch ignite equal justice under law. The Rowers seem besides not to recognize they've been caught red handed trying to strangle justice using her own blindfold.

For you, politics is a mere team sport - your only instinct is to cheer your team, and all your arguments are built from that.

You people never had anything bad to say about Flynn before he and Obama parted ways. The moment that happened, then suddenly Flynn is every kind of insult you can dream up.

Meanwhile, people who don't like Obama never liked him from the beginning - I know I didn't.
The very first time I heard his interview on 60 Minutes, I knew he was deficient in experience and in his knowledge.
He only built up more and more dislike for him - his ridiculous healthcare move was a disaster, he had no ideas for the economy, he couldn't stop ISIS or terrorist mass-murders.

Obama even talked down to Neil Armstrong - the first man on the Moon - when he rejected Armstrong's criticism on his spaceflight policy.
Hey, **** off with that, Obama - you little community organizer - you goofball who got a Nobel Peace Prize without even having done anything.
When that kind of bull**** started happening, you knew there was a weird cult adulation going on.

Athanasius68 · May 18, 2020

Atomic Kid said:
I said he would have "leverage" that most any other private citizen wouldn't have to be able to violate the act via the mere fact that he would soon be occupying a high office in close proximity to the the President-elect and therefore be perceived as being in a position to possibly be able to eventually deliver the goods in any corrupt agreement he might enter into with a foreign power. That would certainly be interfering in policy. What other private citizen could possibly have that kind of leverage? That's why transition members conducting such contacts in the dark would invite inquiry.

So Flynn would be in a position where it Could be perceived he would have the ability to leverage a possible corrupt deal?
In other words, he was the incoming NSC director of the incoming new administration and somebody might think that administration would have a different policy than the present one.
There is the seed of villainy, crime and national security danger!!
But we already know (and the FBI knew at the time as well) that there was no quid pro quo or any deals made in the phone calls. So there was no realistic or reasonable reason to be concerned.

Athanasius68 · May 18, 2020

Re: U.S. judge puts on hold Justice Dept. move to dismiss Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to hear outs

Atomic Kid said:
:bs Crowdstrike said it had a high degree of certainty that the Russian Intelligence groups APT 28 and APT 29 were responsible for the DNC hack. But in any event only a very limited few people in the world even knew that there had been a hack of DNC at the time Ppapadopoulos mentioned it to the Aussie diplomat. And Mifsud was not, or ever was, a source, a contact,or an agent for the CIA or FBI, or any other US intelligence or national security agency.

Actually no he didn't. PapaD said he was talking about the missing Clinton emails, Mifsud said that he never told PapaD that the information was in the form of emails, Downer just assumed PapaD was talking about the DNC emails.

OpportunityCost · May 18, 2020

Re: U.S. judge puts on hold Justice Dept. move to dismiss Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to hear outs

Atomic Kid said:
:bs Crowdstrike said it had a high degree of certainty that the Russian Intelligence groups APT 28 and APT 29 were responsible for the DNC hack.

This is a deliberate misinterpretation on your part based on old information that was recently replaced with released testimony that stated circumstantial evidence only.

But in any event only a very limited few people in the world even knew that there had been a hack of DNC at the time Ppapadopoulos mentioned it to the Aussie diplomat. And Mifsud was not, or ever was, a source, a contact,or an agent for the CIA or FBI, or any other US intelligence or national security agency.

Your assertion on Mifsud is unproven and never investigated.

Athanasius68 · May 18, 2020

W_Heisenberg said:
It's clear to me you have no idea how spycraft works.

Fundamentally, if we're talking about human-sourced intelligence, what spycraft involves is talking to people in, or associated with, a foreign government, and asking them for information that that particular foreign government does not want to be revealed.

Or they want false information released to achieve their objective.
I have never understood those who suddenly defend the decency and honor of Russia when it come to them disseminating anti-Trump info.

OpportunityCost · May 18, 2020

Atomic Kid said:
I said he would have "leverage" that most any other private citizen wouldn't have to be able to violate the act via the mere fact that he would soon be occupying a high office in close proximity to the the President-elect and therefore be perceived as being in a position to possibly be able to eventually deliver the goods in any corrupt agreement he might enter into with a foreign power. That would certainly be interfering in policy. What other private citizen could possibly have that kind of leverage? That's why transition members conducting such contacts in the dark would invite inquiry.

There is no leverage until he enters office. There can be no action on the agreement until entering office. Transition members conduct business with the idea that they will make changes to policy once they are legally able to do so. The Logan Act is a non starter because anything related would happen at a later date and with no time frame in which it is prosecutable.

Atomic Kid · May 18, 2020

Re: U.S. judge puts on hold Justice Dept. move to dismiss Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to hear outs

Athanasius68 said:
iguanaman said:

Oh well, all I can tell you is that the article mentions that members of the Obama Admin asked the the FBI about the phone call.
The FBI responded by telling them there was no quid pro quo.

Click to expand...

No, it says that "one" of the Obama officials, who is unnamed, said that the FBI had said that the subject of sanctions came up but there was no deal. That's not a direct statement by the FBI itself. So tell me, if there wasn't anything wrong with the call then why won't they declassify it, and release it, given the declassification spree Grinnell and Barr have been on lately?

Atomic Kid · May 18, 2020

OpportunityCost said:
There is no leverage until he enters office. There can be no action on the agreement until entering office. Transition members conduct business with the idea that they will make changes to policy once they are legally able to do so. The Logan Act is a non starter because anything related would happen at a later date and with no time frame in which it is prosecutable.

That's BS, and just plain wrong, and you know it. They can certainly conduct that business in above board manner and not open themselves to questions. The Logan Act is not a restriction of anyone's First Amendment Right to free speech. If they thought it prudent for Russia not retaliate, or to vote against a UN resolution, they can simply say so with no problems. It's in the dark that corrupt quid pro quos are more likely to occur. And if that deal is made before you are an authorized US government official you have violated the act even though you consummated it when you are in office.

Athanasius68 · May 18, 2020

Re: U.S. judge puts on hold Justice Dept. move to dismiss Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to hear outs

Atomic Kid said:
Athanasius68 said:

No, it says that "one" of the Obama officials, who is unnamed, said that the FBI had said that the subject of sanctions came up but there was no deal. That's not a direct statement by the FBI itself. So tell me, if there wasn't anything wrong with the call then why won't they declassify it, and release it, given the declassification spree Grinnell and Barr have been on lately?

Click to expand...

So the FBI was lying to the Obama Administration?

Mr. Mueller was also tasked to investigate whether the phone call violated the Logan Act (that was one of pieces of information that was released over the past few weeks).
Flynn was never charged. So we can assume the story is correct about what the FBI told the administration.

W_Heisenberg · May 18, 2020

Re: U.S. judge puts on hold Justice Dept. move to dismiss Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to hear outs

OpportunityCost said:
Steele was acting on behalf of the Russians because they were supplying his information.

That doesn't make any sense. How do you think the CIA gets its information from human sources? So when the CIA spies on a foreign country by bribing or manipulating agents of a foreign country they are working on behalf of the country they are spying on? How does that make any sense? Steele wasn't doing anything different than what the CIA does all the time to get the information it wants.

Steele is stupid, he tried to peddle a dossier to the English about their current elected leader just prior to this election. I accept the thought some of it was disinformation, but they depended upon it to get FISA warrants and attempted to hide how unreliable it was. You don't get to frame logic, either its internally supporting it isn't and when you take other elements into it, that logic of yours bogs down due to the disingenuous nature of how it was used. Your rebuttal is a failure on every level because you are compartmentalizing and downplaying actions done with forethought regarding employing the dossier and outright lying about its reliability, even to the point of lying on affidavits about its materiality.

Let's look it at from a high level, and then narrow it down...

I accept the FISA court's conclusion about 2 of the 4 FISA warrants to surveil Page being invalid.

Do you?

I also accept the FISA court's conclusion that 2 of the FISA warrants to surveil Page were valid.

Do you?

Do you know what was in all 4 FISA warrants?

Do you want to guess?

Atomic Kid · May 18, 2020

Re: U.S. judge puts on hold Justice Dept. move to dismiss Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to hear outs

Athanasius68 said:
Atomic Kid said:

So the FBI was lying to the Obama Administration?

Mr. Mueller was also tasked to investigate whether the phone call violated the Logan Act (that was one of pieces of information that was released over the past few weeks).
Flynn was never charged. So we can assume the story is correct about what the FBI told the administration.

Click to expand...

You can assume if you want to but I'm not going to the one to make an ass out of you and me in doing so. Do you a have any link to a statement by the FBI to that effect? And no Mr Mueller was not tasked with investigating violations of the Logan Act. He was tasked with investigating the Russian interference in our election and any connections the Trump may have had with them and Flynn lied about his and that's why he was charged.

Athanasius68 · May 18, 2020

Re: U.S. judge puts on hold Justice Dept. move to dismiss Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to hear outs

Atomic Kid said:
You can assume if you want to but I'm not going to the one to make an ass out of you and me in doing so. Do you a have any link to a statement by the FBI to that effect? And no Mr Mueller was not tasked with investigating violations of the Logan Act. He was tasked with investigating the Russian interference in our election and any connections the Trump may have had with them and Flynn lied about his and that's why he was charged.

Mr. Mueller was given addition direction after his appointment. And that is because a special counsel can only be appointed for CRIMINAL investigations and Mr. Comey's effort was a COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE effort.
So Mr. Rosenstein had to give Mr. Mueller an alleged crime upon which to investigate. For Flynn, it included whether that phone call constituted a Logan Act violation.

W_Heisenberg · May 18, 2020

Re: U.S. judge puts on hold Justice Dept. move to dismiss Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to hear outs

OpportunityCost said:
After he won, the complexion of that changed because all of the leaking was about to become job threatening. A few things stand out, meeting with foreign officials between every election day and inauguration, its absolutely normal. Both sides are seeing what the goals of the other are and who can get what

No, it's not normal to engage in negotiations or to begin to implement foreign policy. And you are minimizing Flynn's actions. Flynn was not just meeting foreign officials and exchanging warm introductions.

It wasn't meant to frame Trump, it was meant to gather dirt to be used via leaks to harm his campaign.

Framing that as spy meetings and collusion should have never been acceptable to real news agencies.

Leaking, constant leaking to damage the incoming administration.

What are you talking about? In what context are these leaks occurring? Which specific leaks are you describing?

Many things were a means to an end and they were meant to get the smoking gun that would prove the collusion they thought existed, but they acted in bad faith and committed acts that damaged the integrity of the investigation itself.

So, at this point, you've completely lost me.

You went from having doubts, and being skeptical, and being irritated at the FBIs mistakes, to there this huge conspiracy against Trump, and everyone associated with the FBI is acting in bad faith.

Where are you getting this from?

But these acts served their purpose in launching the investigation and providing information that could be leaked to damage the administration.

Where are you getting this from?

Mueller was a well known bulldog of an investigator, once he started, he wouldn't stop. Weissmann and Van Grack are of similar styles. The very fact that the Mueller team could not bring proof of any of its principle charges or allegations is in itself vindication of the Trump campaign.

Well, this is true only with respect to the crime of conspiracy.

I think Trump demonstrated poor judgment and poor moral character by considering Russia's offers, and attempting to conspire with Russia's intelligence operation against the United States. Despite the fact the Special Counsel could not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government, Trump is in no way vindicated. Trump's actions demonstrated he is a man of poor moral character, poor judgment, and prone to disloyalty to the U.s.

mrjurrs · May 18, 2020

sanman said:
Turkey is a NATO ally - lots of people have lobbied for NATO allies. Bring out a full list of unregistered lobbyists for NATO allies, and you'll have to arrest nearly all of Washington DC.
Don't single out Flynn for doing what the entire Washington establishment does. You wanna name Flynn, then name everybody else too - but you won't because then your entire Obama Whitehouse would be locked up.
Selectively prosecuting your political enemies while turning a blind eye to your buddies - nah, I don't see your moral highground in that.

Flynn's lobbying for Turkey included promoting a business he would have directly benefitted from financially. He's no hero, he's a convicted felon.

sanman · May 18, 2020

mrjurrs said:
Flynn's lobbying for Turkey included promoting a business he would have directly benefitted from financially. He's no hero, he's a convicted felon.

Nothing to do with Russia, as Turkey's a NATO ally. If that kind of unregistered work needs to be prosecuted, then most of Washington DC should be behind bars - don't single out Flynn for doing something everybody else does, including plenty of Democrats.

W_Heisenberg · May 18, 2020

Re: U.S. judge puts on hold Justice Dept. move to dismiss Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to hear outs

OpportunityCost said:
I am not peddling conspiracy theories, I am peddling what actually happened. Trump is not my principle source, the investigation itself and Horowitz IG report are my principle sources, not to mention varied news sources.

Oh really? Is that so? Would you like to know what Horowitz would had to say about investigators acting in bad faith or the investigation being motivated by bias?

https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf

Read page 7 of the PDF document of the Horowitz report:

We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations.

And on page 9:

We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the FBI's decision to seek FISA authority on Carter Page.

And on page 20:

Finally, we also found no documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivations influenced the FBI's decision to use CHSs or UCEs to interact with Trump campaign officials in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation

Shall I go on?

iguanaman · May 18, 2020

Re: U.S. judge puts on hold Justice Dept. move to dismiss Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to hear outs

Athanasius68 said:
iguanaman said:

Oh well, all I can tell you is that the article mentions that members of the Obama Admin asked the the FBI about the phone call.
The FBI responded by telling them there was no quid pro quo.

Click to expand...

LOL That was the problem with the call. Flynn told them Trump would lift their sanctions with no quid pro quo. It was their reward for helping him win the election. You have to admit that was a corrupt reason and that Trump tried to do just that as soon as he took office.

Trump White House Made Secret Efforts to Remove Russia Sanctions

mrjurrs · May 18, 2020

sanman said:
Nothing to do with Russia, as Turkey's a NATO ally. If that kind of unregistered work needs to be prosecuted, then most of Washington DC should be behind bars - don't single out Flynn for doing something everybody else does, including plenty of Democrats.

The Turkey lies were not about Russia, it was about being an unregistered foreign agent. Climb off your one talking point.

iguanaman · May 18, 2020

Athanasius68 said:
All those stories have one theme running through: Russians are reaching out to the Trump campaign.
Which is what Mueller said.
That is to be expected when Russia is seeking to screw with the election.
While Russia was running around trying to plow the Trump campaign with anti-Clinton stuff, Russia was running trying to ply (and succeeding BTW) the Clinton campaign with anti-Trump stuff.
Russia targeted both campaigns to create chaos in the political system.

No that is not correct and Mueller said all the Russian efforts were to hurt Hillary and help their chosen candidate Trump and he also said that Trump also welcomed their help. Stop claiming that Putin wanted to incriminate himself by telling Steele that he was meddling in the U.S. election to help Trump win. That is not what a smart thug like Putin would do.

Atomic Kid · May 18, 2020

Re: U.S. judge puts on hold Justice Dept. move to dismiss Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to hear outs

Athanasius68 said:
Mr. Mueller was given addition direction after his appointment. And that is because a special counsel can only be appointed for CRIMINAL investigations and Mr. Comey's effort was a COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE effort.
So Mr. Rosenstein had to give Mr. Mueller an alleged crime upon which to investigate. For Flynn, it included whether that phone call constituted a Logan Act violation.

Again you're just plain wrong. Mueller's investigation had both a counterintelligence and criminal component to it. He was hired to supervise an ongoing FBI counterintelligence investigation and he was authorized to prosecute, or refer for prosecution, any criminal matters that may arise from it. Except those involving the President of course. So why you're busy looking for that FBI statement saying there was no deal with Flynn and the Russians, see if you find me one where Rosenstein had explicitly directed Mueller to investigate Logan Act matters. That should keep you busy for awhile.

W_Heisenberg · May 18, 2020

OpportunityCost said:
FFS, because I read multiple accounts of it. Don't beg the question, it doesn't support you.

Well, I'm curious. You seem to know a lot about the topic and I have never read any historical accounts referencing the decision-making process that lead the prosecutor involved in this case to decide to use Treason instead of the Logan Act. Maybe the prosecutor had a good reason to not use the Logan Act that didn't have anything to do with your criticism of it?

Because all discussion is framed in what they will do once in office after winning the election.

Have you read Flynn's guilty plea?

What limits? The legal ones which they will doing if the White House Counsel has anything to say about it.

Hrmm. It's okay if you don't want to respond to the question, but this is response is woefully insufficient.

Moving on, this is a stupid set of questions framed by bad thinking about what happens during Presidential transitions---don't argue by ignorance, it results in stupid conclusions.

I am just trying to figure out what you think is acceptable or not.

U.S. judge puts on hold Justice Dept. move to dismiss Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to hear outside gr

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