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Home » The release of the Flynn/Kislyak transcripts

The release of the Flynn/Kislyak transcripts

The New Neo Posted on by

The release of the Flynn/Kislyak transcripts has infuriated me even more than I thought it would.

After all, I already know the outlines and many of the details of the attempt to prevent and then overturn the 2016 election of Donald Trump by the preceding administration and its allies in government agencies. I already knew that it had been covered up and lied about by Democrats and the press with a tremendous brazenness. And I already knew that, if the transcripts were ever released, they were likely to exonerate Flynn rather than implicate him.

I even already knew that, if that were so, the Democrats and the MSM would continue to lie about the transcripts and spin and spin and spin. In this, they would be relying on several factors. The first is the monolithic nature of the message that the press would back up, in a solid phalanx. The second is the fact that most people not on the right would be inclined to either ignore the whole story as too complex and boring, and/or take the press’s word for it. After all, most people probably think it would be bizarre for newspeople to lie about something so easily refuted. And yet, the press does it all the time, relying on – among other things – the fact that most people are not news junkies and would rather be out there living their lives (COVID notwithstanding).

But still, despite its predictability, seeing it all played out has been remarkably infuriating as well as frustrating. Part of my outrage is at what it signifies for the future of the republic, due process, and the peaceful transition of power on which we in the US have relied till now, and perhaps to a certain degree taken for granted. And still another part of my outrage is less general and is about what happened to one particular person named General Flynn. He may, however, get some good news this Monday, when his nemesis Judge Sullivan will be answering to the higher court and attempting to explain his bizarre recent rulings in Flynn’s case. At this point, though, nothing would surprise me.

A few days ago Andrea Widburg wrote this at American Thinker, which expresses some thoughts I’ve had for a long time:

One of the problems with Obamagate is that it’s incredibly complicated. It began under the Obama administration and involved the alphabet agencies (the CIA, the FBI, and the DOJ), as well as President Obama, the national security adviser, the director of National Intelligence, the FISA court, and overseas intelligence agencies.

The wrongdoing included false affidavits; spying on innocent people, including the president-elect; unmasking; and set-ups, such as perjury traps and spies inveigling people into ambiguous statements that could be used against them. It then escalated to an attempt to overthrow the Trump presidency through a two-year-long investigation that destroyed several people’s lives, even though the special counsel’s office knew from Day One that neither Trump nor his team had done anything wrong.

What I stated above is just the super-simple, short version. Meanwhile, on the other side, for three years, all that the left had to do was holler “Russia! Russia! Russia! Collusion! Ukraine! Putin!,” and everyone fell in line.

The problem for the forces of justice is that it’s tough to get people excited about wrongdoing that they can’t understand. Watergate was simple: a bumbling break-in followed by a foul-mouthed president who tried to cover it up. With Obamagate, though, within a few minutes of reciting multiple dates, dozens of names, three different continents, myriad documents, endless lies and cover-ups…well, people’s eyes glaze over, and they start thinking, “This really does sound like some sort of crazy conspiracy theory. There are too many moving parts.”

Absolutely. And the Flynn/Kislyak transcripts are another part – a very important part – of this larger and complex picture.

At any rate, here’s a roundup of some things to read on the subject of the Flynn/Kislyak transcripts.

From Sean Davis at The Federalist:

The transcripts, which were declassified by former acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Ric Grenell and current DNI John Ratcliffe, were provided to Congress by Ratcliffe, who began working in the position earlier this week following full Senate confirmation of his nomination. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairmen of the Homeland Security and Finance committees, respectively, had repeatedly called for the transcripts to be declassified and provided to Congress…

According to the charging documents from Mueller, Flynn allegedly falsely claimed to Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agents that he did not ask Kislyak to “refrain from escalating” in response to U.S. expulsion of Russian diplomats and falsely claimed that he did not ask Kislyak to help defeat an anti-Israel resolution pending before the United Nations at the time. Mueller also claimed that Flynn lied when he said he didn’t remember Kislyak telling him that Russia would “moderate its response” to the expulsions.

The transcript of the December 29 conversation, which was cited by Mueller, does not include a request from Flynn that Russia “refrain from escalating” in response to U.S. expulsions of Russian diplomats. According to the transcript, Flynn asked Kislyak for Russia’s response to be “reciprocal” so that the U.S.–not Russia–would not be forced to escalate beyond the expulsions. The transcript makes clear that Flynn fully expected Russia to respond to the situation by expelling U.S. diplomats in response to the Obama administration’s move to expel nearly three dozen Russian diplomats from the U.S., and that his primary concern was preventing a situation where the U.S. would have to escalate tensions in response to Russia…

Mueller’s operation also conflated discussions of financial sanctions levied against Russian entities and individuals via executive order on December 28, 2016 with the expulsion of Russian diplomats, which were two separate and distinct issues. In fact, the specific executive order cited by Mueller in his charging documents against Flynn pertained only to Treasury-enforced financial sanctions against nine Russian intelligence individuals and institutions, not to the separate expulsions of Russian diplomats, which were enforced by the U.S. State Department…

The transcripts show that while Kislyak obliquely raised the issue of financial sanctions against certain Russian intelligence officials, Flynn himself never discussed the financial sanctions against Russian individuals and entities levied by the Obama administration. Instead, Flynn focused on preventing U.S. “tit-for-tat” escalation following the Obama administration’s expulsion of Russian diplomats. Although Obama officials claimed via leaks to the press that Flynn, a decorated combat veteran and retired three-star Army general, was illegally operating as a secret Russian agent, the transcripts show that Flynn’s primary focus throughout his conversations with Kislyak was ensuring that Russia and the U.S. could work together to defeat Islamist terrorist and the growing influence of ISIS throughout the Middle East. Obama officials never explained how working with international partners to defeat ISIS constituted a federal crime.

Here’s a piece at Red State by Nick Aramas that has a good roundup of reactions on Twitter.

I offer a couple here:

You can find more in a series of tweets by TechoFog here.

Margot Cleveland – who has written a lot of good stuff about this entire mess over a long period of time at The Federalist – can beg all she wants. I would join her in that begging, except I have a strong belief that it will never happen. As I said earlier – too complicated, too much energy required, and people’s minds have mostly been made up. And the left counts on that.

However, there are going to be more revelations of the sort as time goes on. Maybe – maybe, although I don’t count on it – the sheer weight of the evidence will be convincing enough to enough people that it will matter.

Comments

The release of the Flynn/Kislyak transcripts — 47 Comments

  1. https://twitter.com/LeeSmithDC/status/1266521039191904263

    Well, they blew it when they thought that Obamagate would work to rid the US of Trump.

    The impeachment farces fizzled (all of them).

    COVID-19 looked like it would prove a “success” but it might just well backfire.

    Let’s try nation-wide riots.

    If burning down the country—and not just figuratively, like we tried to do via Hillary and All the President’s Men (and Women)—doesn’t work, then no one can say that we didn’t give it our best effort.

  2. I don’t think that Comey & Co. ever really claimed that the Flynn-Kislyak calls were substantively out of bounds, although there was of course the whiff of the Logan Act violation. The way they spun it is that Flynn supposedly told Pence that he did not discuss the subject of sanctions & escalation, and they wanted to nail that down as a lie — to get him fired. So the fact that the calls were substantively appropriate is not really the point in terms of the Flynn prosecution. Nothing in the Statement of Offense supports the view that DOJ thought the calls were inappropriate, although media types did spin it that way. Secondarily, we have Sally Yates & Mary McCord making the incomprehensible argument that by lying about what was said in the call, no matter how innocent it was, Flynn became vulnerable to Russian blackmail. And this, they say, justified the FBI investigation. What we still don’t have — and probably never will — is the original 302 of the FBI meeting with Flynn, to see just what it is they have him saying or denying that is crossways with the transcript.

  3. James S:

    Flynn was tried for lying. He was pressed and threatened in order to get him to plead guilty to lying to the FBI about the calls (and hopefully to falsely implicate Trump). He did not implicate Trump. He did plead guilty. But he was NOT guilty of lying to the FBI, and yet plenty of people, including Mueller’s team, the prosecutors, and the Democratic politicians – said he did.

    They also threatened him with the Logan Act, and although that was always ludicrous, the actual subject matter of these calls makes it particularly ludicrous.

  4. Flynn’s remarks in the December 29th call are measured, admirable.

    The FBI’s follow-up to the call was clearly malevolent.

    Why or how Flynn misled Pence is a mystery.

  5. “…and this, they say, justified the FBI investigation…”

    Except that “their” credibility is ZERO (and always was, for anyone paying attention.) Less than zero, actually.

    Moreover, how much would you like to bet that the REASON why “we still don’t have…the original 302 of the FBI meeting with Flynn” is simply(!) because the original 302 exonerates Flynn and implicates “Comey & Co.” (who “[never] really—really?—claimed…” or did(?) anything “substantively out of bounds”?)

    Ah, but we can’t “prove” it either way, UNLESS we find the 302, can we?

    Perfect!!

    To be sure, there do exist certain tapes wherein certain FBI investigators believe that Flynn was NOT lying, while others wondered HOW they should proceed with Flynn—i.e., whether they should try to get him caught up in a perjury trap. Maybe these, too, point to nothing that is “substantively out of bounds”….)

  7. Well at least we Reps have new claim – the Dems are too lazy to actually read the transcripts themselves.

    They rather listen to (paid) Dem liars spinning and misleading about what Flynn say, rather than read the original themself.

    “Too lazy to learn the truth”.

  8. They tried to steal my country. They nearly succeeded, and they may yet, because they don’t stop trying. I’m infuriated, too.

  9. Again, Mueller couldn’t testify in front of Congress without a minder sitting next to him and claimed to have not heard of Fusion GPS. The man is too dotty to have much agency. The malevolent character is Andrew Weissmann, along with McCabe, Sztrok, Page, Yates, the Ohrs &c.

  10. They tried to steal my country. They nearly succeeded, and they may yet, because they don’t stop trying. I’m infuriated, too.

    They may yet because about half the Democratic base is fine with abuse of power if it works to their benefit and the other half is cud-chewingly indifferent. One problem is your neighbors.

  12. I’m not too frustrated because the left is predictably playing all its tired old cards and thereby continues to blindly defeat itself. The left has been absolutely right about everything for so long that everything has turned into its opposite. I think n.n above is correct – the timing is perfect.

  13. Folks, this goes back to at least 1917 and the formation of the Communist Party USA. And no, this is not about the commies. There have always been shadowy groups in the US who try to weaken and destroy. They have had many different names and served different “causes”, but always leading to mayhem. They haven’t been exposed because they are, to a large extent, loosely affiliated (maybe not so loosely) with the Democratic Party. Note that almost all of the violence over the last 60 years has occurred in the blue parts. They get away with it, and stay hidden, because they in cahoots with the government. They are the Brown Shirts.

    I fear that we are in “end times”. The enemy, the evil ones, have decided to go all in. It started with good old Billy Jeff and reached a crescendo with with the thoroughly criminal Obama administration. The people answered with Donald Trump and the Democrats went from criminality to sedition. The current riots were fostered and aided and abetted by the same people who ran guns to Mexico and looted Haiti and spied on Carter Page.

    I pray that we get through this peaceably.

  14. The American people don’t need to understand or be upset about this. It would be nice if they were but it is not necessary. What needs to happen is conservatives and Republicans need to stop with their ritualistic expressions of disdain for Donald Trump and stop tolerating such behavior from their friends and acquaintances.

    Oh, they can still disagree with Trump’s personal, political, and policy decisions and criticize to their hearts’ content. But the belief that Trump is the real problem here is no longer tenable.

    The Right actually holds a great deal of power in our politics and culture, even if it’s only by validating it through acquiescence and participation. The Left needs to understand that the Right can withdraw that validation and what it would mean.

    In practical terms, while it would be great for people to be held legally accountable for Obamagate, they MUST be held politically accountable. That means:

    A. Trump has to be re-elected and that necessity must be considered in all areas of behavior and argument. Even if no one can be prosecuted, these wrongdoers cannot be allowed to think they got away with it.

    B. Anyone not willing to abide by the new norms that flow from A must suffer severe and long lasting repercussions. For example, there are some people who should never receive another dime or second of attention from any entity over which the Right has any influence.

    Yes, giving yourself in service to someone you may honestly find abhorrent in some respects is an exceedingly bitter pill to swallow. However, without such medicine our body politic is going to die.

    Mike

  16. “One of the problems with Obamagate is that it’s incredibly complicated.”
    See: Laundering money. Plausible deniability,
    ALSO: Fungible Foreign, and domestic, “Aid” .

  17. Indeed. And one might add:
    “See also:
    ‘Transforming America’ (TM)
    ‘AUDACITY of Hope’ (TM)”

    (Wouldn’t want to forget any of those high-minded sentiments….)

    Oh, and also, the kicker: “Heh”.

  18. Flynn may not have accurately remembered the points covered in the Dec 29 call with Kislyak. The 302 dated 2/15/2017 states on p5 that, when he was asked specifically whether he requested Kislyak not to escalate, to keep the response reciprocal, and not to engage in tit-for-tat, Flynn’s response was “not really. I don’t remember. It wasn’t ‘Don’t do anything.'” Flynn also stated that he was not aware of the expulsion order released by Obama on Dec 29 at the time of this call. One can certainly believe that Flynn was not “lying,” in the sense of deliberately deceiving the FBI agents, but the Kislyak transcript reveals that all of those points were in fact mentioned. Flynn may have just been evasive, thinking he was not under investigation. There is also the information that Flynn apparently gave to Mike Pence, which misled Pence into stating in an interview on Jan 15 that Flynn had spoken to Kislyak on Dec 25 (before the sanctions of Dec 28-29) and that “I don’t believe there were more conversations.” So if we are going to say that Flynn did not lie or deliberately mislead, we also have to go with the theory that he had memory issues, even though (according to the Statement of Offense) he reported his Dec 29 call to someone with the transition team “shortly after” it took place. I want to see Flynn get out of this FBI perjury trap as much as anyone, but there’s something here that doesn’t quite fit, beginning with the monumental error in judgment in agreeing to the interview without letting anyone else in the White House know about it.

  19. James Adair:

    Thanks for the link. Very good summary, And no this isn’t something the conservatives and Republicans have caused or can fix by themselves; it was an attack on the fundamental structure of the US, a ‘slightly’ bigger problem that President Trump.

    As the author put it “treason.” Brennan and Judge Emmet Sullivan made that accusation and they were probably correct but Emmet was too confused to know the real perps and Brennan was just outing himself. Will Brennan and the others hang together or separately. Lethat injection?

  20. Interesting that as all this is coming out, the American people are distracted by riots.

    Hmmm…?

  21. The 302 dated 2/15/2017 states on p5 that, when he was asked specifically whether he requested Kislyak not to escalate, to keep the response reciprocal, and not to engage in tit-for-tat, Flynn’s response was “not really. I don’t remember. It wasn’t ‘Don ’t do anything.’”

    And you expect anyone to believe the 302s?
    It is the 21st Century and the fact that Müllers Gestapo doesn’t record interrogations is obscene. Why don’t they? Because it gives Müller’s Gestapo a LICENSE TO LIE”! Unverifiable “302s from the subjective notes of Müllers Stormtroopers ” are total bull shiite, and yet these fabrications can be used to charge someone with lying, because the FIB has SOOOOO much integrity that they’d never lie.
    It gets worse, the lying rag you cite was an adulterated 302. not the original, because Pientka felt he was being coerced to lie on it so Strzok and Page rewrote it.
    Maybe you believe in the inherent decency of german nazi Robert Müller and that FBI agents never lie, and 302s are unimpeachable, and maybe I have a bridge to sell you.
    But don’t tell me anybody lied until you show me a video of it. it is the 21st Century .

  22. but the Kislyak transcript reveals that all of those points were in fact mentioned. Flynn may have just been evasive, thinking he was not under investigation.

    (1) it was none of their business and (2) a busy man who takes scores of phone calls in a week isn’t going to precisely remember what he said on any given occasion without reviewing his notes on a call. This is true of ordinary office employees who work 9-5, much less senior administrators who make work 60 or 70 hours a week. We all know this. You’re pretending to not know this.

  23. “…the monumental error in judgment in agreeing to the interview without letting anyone else in the White House know about it.”

    Indeed, James Comey was particularly proud of that one! Not just any scalp, eh?

    But to answer your question, yes, you can be sure that from now on, NO MEMBER (or prospective member) of any incoming US administration will assume (innocently, naively, decently, humanely) that ANYONE, any member, any representative from an outgoing administration, or anyone from a government agency, is ANYTHING OTHER THAN a STEALTH STASI-like agent who is out to get him, to entrap him, to destroy him, his family, his reputation and his financial well-being, to put him in prison or otherwise NEUTRALIZE him.

    IOW, from now on, that is the “new normal”. The “rules of the game”. Our “political culture”.

    So yes, you’re absolutely right about that.

    (Psst. It’s referred to as “FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMING AMERICA”.)

  24. Apparently due to pressure from the Attorney General Barr, FBI Director Wray has been forced to ask for FBI Chief Legal Counsel Dana Boente’s resignation. Boente has agreed to resign, effective June 30, and on his way out, Wray has taken the opportunity to praise his work at the FBI.

    If you read Sundance’s detailed analysis of all sorts of documents, and his placement of these documents and the DOJ and FBI officials behind them in a timeline of the attacks and attempted coup against President Trump and his Administration, Boente is one of the chief anti-Trump actors.*

    Other than current AG Barr, Durham,and former NSA head Admiral Mike Rogers, neither Wray nor any of the many other DOJ and FBI officials Sundance mentions comes across as anything other than corrupt—all their actions focused on facilitating the Obama Administration’s widespread spying on Americans and their political enemies, on promoting a Hillary win, then–when Trump unexpectedly won–on covering up the illegal things they had previously done, and protecting themselves from prosecution.

    Then, they added new goals—to hamper and sabotage the incoming Trump Administration, with the ultimate goal of getting President Trump driven/removed from office.

    * See https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/05/30/boom-dana-boente-removed-fbi-chief-legal-counsel-forced-to-resign/

  25. Regarding Flynn’s poor judgment: remember that information regarding the substance of the Dec 29 Flynn-Kislyak call had been leaked to David Ignatius of the Washington Post by a “senior U.S. government official” and was published on Jan 12. So, even as busy as he undoubtedly was, Flynn should have been on notice that he was at the center of a Trump-Russia event that was being spun as a negative for the administration he was working for. And he could not run it by anyone in the White House after McCabe said the FBI counterintelligence agents wanted to sit down with him? Not saying he deserved to be set up as he was; just saying that he didn’t show a lot of situational awareness for a national security director.

  26. “…Wray has been forced to ask for…”
    “…on his way out, Wray has taken the opportunity to praise [Boente’s] work at the FBI…”
    “…Boente is one of the chief anti-Trump actors…”

    This has the sound of a battle royale to it.
    (Full of the requisite “kicking and screaming”?)
    It seems that Barr has found—rather, forced—a crack amidst the circled Conestogas.
    Wonder what this might mean for Wray himself….
    (Unless Barr’s planning to patiently pick ’em off one by one while leaving Wray in place to “[take] the opportunity to praise [ ____ ‘s] work at the FBI…”—something that Wray seems to be fairly proficient at).

  27. MBunge write something worth reiterating again and again: “What needs to happen is conservatives and Republicans need to stop with their ritualistic expressions of disdain for Donald Trump and stop tolerating such behavior from their friends and acquaintances.

    “Oh, they can still disagree with Trump’s personal, political, and policy decisions and criticize to their hearts’ content. But the belief that Trump is the real problem here is no longer tenable.

    “The Right actually holds a great deal of power in our politics and culture, even if it’s only by validating it through acquiescence and participation. The Left needs to understand that the Right can withdraw that validation and what it would mean.
    In practical terms, while it would be great for people to be held legally accountable for Obamagate, they MUST be held politically accountable.”

    ============

    Let’s focus on the practicality of this thought: “The Left needs to understand that the Right can withdraw that validation [of our politics and culture] and what it would mean.” The party of the Left and since Obama, far Left, has refused to accept Trump as a legitimately elected president. All political authority flows from legitimacy.

    Since lawless spying and impeachment through groundless assertion has become the currency of politics, turbo-charging sedition if not treason, weaponising the one-party employees in the federal executive branch (if not all of government employees, going by the vote in DC as proxy, in which over 96% voted against Trump: even all third party candidates together got more votes than Trump did). How gain political legitimacy be restored?

    My proposed list of remedies is a package deal that cannot succeed if only pursued singly, unless the ultimate number one option becomes the sole or paramount choice. The other two don’t become powerful without the ultimate first to force cooperation by the Party of Treason.

    The first choice is to completely deny or totally contest the Left’s legitimacy. By this I mean territorial secession or civil war.

    This option becomes completely serious, and bloody-minded, when you consider that if dissenters on the Right say they are committed to one or the other goals, then we will be serious targets of persecution, prosecution, and hunted to death whenever the left regains control of the Presidency. Seriously.

    The signers of the Declaration put their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honour on the line because they knew, if they lost, they would be tried for Treason, hung, then quartered and staked to the four compass points of the realm, as a warning to everyone who dares follow.

    We must be equally resolute – more so, because these evil doers are neighbours, co-workers, suppliers, and so-called public servants here – not in some far away land many have never been to.

    Second, two fold constitutional remedies.

    My preamble is that Lee Smith’s motive for Obamunists coordinated zeal amounts to saying “It’s The Iran Deal, Stupid!” While plausible, does this also amount to rendering aid and comfort to the enemy? While entirely plausible, we need more facts to make any such determination.

    But by all means we must make it before we know much more. Why? It increases the gravity of our case, the seriousness with which we are heard, as well a providing a penetrating missing motive by which our case is dealt with. Let fire meet fire!

    The first and most important Constitutional remedy for our dire, tattered Republic is post-office impeachment trials. While the range of this recourse eludes me, I Listened to a program on this in, I think, early May? Late April, on Mark Levin’s daily radio show, I think.

    Why do this, with so many now fired or leaving or gone? Because it achieves two things: if successful, then those convicted bear the stain of never being able to hold Federal office again. In other words, the most political of creatures can never throttle the victimised citizen again, ever. This is also, something that no future pardon can undo whenever a rival party gets executive control.

    If impeachment fails, nonetheless, the political process will not be completely ignored, and may even be hugely and decisively educational for the entire nation, if not the globe.

    Is this resuscitation of an uncertain option, despite even explicitely put into early state Constitutions, itself Constitutional? Then let it be adjudicated! Many heavy hitting con law scholars like Akhil Reed Amar at Yale Law are on record saying so. And if not, given the seriousness of the end of the American Experiment in popular self-rule, even if it fails, again, the effects of trying this will be salubrious.

    There’s now a second Constitutional matter, and that’s for a new Amendment to punish any party from attempting sedition of a duly elected executive leader. I haven’t though through this idea yet, nor it’s proper language. But we need a reform on the Amendment of presidential term limits from just two terms to more.

    Specifically, if a party wages sedition to a succeeding administration, if found guilty (yeah…how?), then victimised party’s candidate shall have the option for a further presidential term, ad seriatum.

    Third, federal legal reforms that can de-weaponise federal employment. These might be several reforms.

    The point is that federal civil service progressive reforms were predicated on the neutral rule of experts. Time has proved that they cannot and will not remain remain politically neutral.

    One relatively simple reform is to change the boundaries of DC. Since the Founders sought to isolate federal government from the states, and since 10 square miles or 10 x 10 miles is far too small today to contain federal government, then lets enlarge it to 100 x 100 miles, or else whatever is wholly more appropriate for the need.

    Another reform I propose seeks to rebalance the partisan voting identity of federal employment. Let’s call this the Anri-partisan Federal Employee Act. But how? To do so by adjusting partisan membership among federal employees following each presidential election. Since federal partisan ship is shown to be unsafe and to be dangerous to the people who elect our leaders, then let’s make it more representative and reflect voting.

    If I had to bet, if mate effective, this would be the single most effective political reform that could prevent politicisation of the federal bureaucracy.

    The FBI could be tasked to vet claimed voting identification by checking with family, neighbours, friends, social media. Let it be nearly proportionate to state voting. A bipartisan commission can oversee this rebalancing process, already shown to be possible in regulating the FEC and other bodies.

    Yet another regulation – admittedly more likely to need Constitutional Amendment than the others – would simply prevent federal workers, contractor, grant holders from voting in federal elections. Enforcement crosses from federal to state lines, and the Constitution gives that authority to the states. But given the extreme power of federal civil voting rights Acts over states, perhaps not?

    Well, that’s as far as I’ve come to manhandle reforms for a Republic on its deathbed from fatal perfidy of sedition and treason. How about you?

    I hope we’ll see many more such proposals in the years to come. Because otherwise, I see no resuscitation.

  28. Great to know Dana Boente got his pink slip. Give him his gold watch for his loyal service as a swamp lizard.

    I’m in agreement with James S. (5-31-20, 12:33 pm): Flynn is innocent of all charges. But it’s confounding that he didn’t understand he was in danger when the Dec 29 phone call was leaked to Ignatius.

  29. “Regarding Flynn’s poor judgment”

    what bad judgement?
    there was none, but a teutonic nazi named Müller ( Robert nit Heinrich- but little difference) true to his nazi roots decided to make a charge of lying out of thin air, and since his stormtroopers don’t record interrogations , they just make it up. no different in how they’ve treated countless black males, or in Müllers altheimland , Juden.

  30. James S; LeClerc:

    I don’t find it that odd that Flynn would have talked to the two friendly, affable, FBI agents sent to talk to him in the first few days of the transition, when he was extremely busy and distracted. And I say this despite the leak to the press. Leaking was one thing and was getting quite common, but setting the brand new national security head up for a “lying to the FBI charge” was something totally unprecedented. Apparently Flynn lacked – at that point – the requisite paranoia. After all, the FBI was supposed to be working for the government, not framing him. One rogue person leaking, yes. But the entire official apparatus set to get him and to get Trump booted? I just think that would have been an odd thing to think at that particular point. I am sure the agents were purposely disarming and casual and friendly, to set him at ease. And I doubt they told him “we’re here to quiz you about that phone call.” The questions about the call were probably dropped casually into a bunch of other questions, and cloaked in a friendly “we’re just curious, in order to work with you in the most productive manner” message.

  31. Note, we have one innocuous set of phone calls as a set up for trumped up charges against Gen. Flynn, and another innocuous phone call as fodder for a phony impeachment proceeding (in which the DNI was implicated by changing the rules to allow a manufactured ‘whistle-blower’ complaint). It’s a pattern with these people. I’m hoping people the president can trust are makin’ a list and checkin’ it twice, and that if he’s re-elected the hydra gets decapitated and branded the next day with a three-digit set of dismissals.

  32. I notice that, in all these analyses of the “resistance” to the Trump administration from within the Federal government and, specifically, the coup attempt itself, people just briefly note, then breeze by the reported involvement of several of our supposed “Allies”–and especially their intelligence agencies–in helping these anti-Trump Administration actions along—the Italians, and the British prominently mentioned among them.

    These supposed “Allies” pro-Coup actions have got to have, to some extent, poisoned their relations with the Trump Administration, and I’d imagine have made these relations much less cordial and free than they would otherwise have been.

  33. Art Deco:

    The pattern had even more parts than that. And it was set very very early. Not only the Flynn phone call, which happened before the inauguration, and then the Flynn entrapment FBI interview which happened about four days after the inauguration, and then much later the phone call on which the impeachment was based – but we also had the Australian and Mexican phone calls leaked about a week into Trump’s presidency. The last two phone calls are just easier to forget than the first two, because no one was charged with anything or impeached for them.

    This is about the Australia phone call.

    This is about the Mexican phone call.

    Drip, drip, drip. I wouldn’t be surprised if they leak a few more.

  34. Art Deco “I’m hoping people the president can trust are makin’ a list and checkin’ it twice, and that if he’s re-elected the hydra gets decapitated and branded the next day with a three-digit set of dismissals.”

    No, Trump needs to take the way ObamaGate went from inference and speculation to documented fact to launch a Special Counsel criminal investigation that will live after his administration, in the event that he does not get re-elected.

    Do it this June. Framed with solid foundation, this will generate real light and prosecutions to replace the weaving of lies, deceit, and propaganda.

  36. In the case of the Italians, however, IIRC, the more recent right-of-center coalition (actually the one before the current configuration), which replaced the left-of-center coalition that governed during those golden Obama years, fired the head of the Italian security services (the exact name of which I don’t recall) who worked with Obama’s people hand in glove. (I mean, who could refuse a request by the oh-so-charming John Brennan?) Thus the former, helpful, fellow was replaced by a person more attuned to the policies of the right-of-center government and lo-and-behold, they found Joseph Mifsud hiding out (in plain-ish site) at one of the universities there (Sienna?, not sure). Not too happy—understandably, as he’s a man who guards his privacy jealously, at least when he’s not guarding it, e.g., at “university conferences”—about being forced out in the sunlight, I believe said “mysterious Russian agent” decamped for some other locale, probably where the food and drink wasn’t as good. (But where, I have no idea….)

    Proving—sort of—that “things” can and do change… (at least before they change back?)…

  37. “The 302 dated 2/15/2017 states on p5”

    You mean the one written three weeks after the interview? Maybe it wasn’t Flynn who had memory issues. Or was just making stuff up.

  38. Joining this late, but regarding the complexity: There’s got to be a way to give a simple one or two sentence summary that gets at the gist of what happened. Something like “The Obama administration conspired with the FBI to lie about Trump administration officials in order to trigger an impeachment investigation.” Or make it more personal: “Obama and his senior officials conspired….”

  39. Barry Meislin–Then, there was also the sudden and unexpected January 23, 2017 resignation of Robert Hannigan, the head of Britain’s surveillance agency, GCHQ, supposedly to “spend more time with his family.”

    As in this country, what about all those below these leaders who facilitated these foreign intelligence operations and those political leaders who were above the leaders of these organizations?

  40. I don’t know why anyone is taking anything on any of these 302s as true, since the 302 written supposedly immediately after the ambush interview with Flynn at the White House–as FBI SOP required it to be–has “gone missing,” and as we’ve seen from the Stzok-Page messages thus far released, the 302’s that have been offered up by the FBI have been extensively edited and rewritten long after the fact.

    Thus, these 302s are worthless as to what Flynn might have actually said, but useful in showing how the actors involved were phonying up a 302 meant to indict Flynn.

  41. Not just with the FBI, though. One must give John Brennan the credit that is his due.

    As for “conspired”, how about:

    “….conspired to blow the Trump administration out of the water at its inception.”

    “…conspired to destroy the Constitution and the rule of law.”

    “…conspired to obliterate every last vestige of accountability and trust in the US government and its institutions.”

    “…conspired to utterly pervert the Fourth Estate (albeit with that body’s enthusiastic participation).”

    “…conspired to annihilate the United States of America.”

    What we have witnessed ever since Obamagate proved to be not quite up to its exquisitely convoluted, elegantly-conceived task—whether because of some “bad breaks”, a recalcitrant “Lady Luck” or the “Hand of Providence”?—was a further campaign of lies and bad faith was unleashed, starting with Hillary Clinton’s hysterical claims of being cheated out of a Presidency that was rightfully hers, and the manufactured dossier that she bought to prove her claim, resulting along the way in several attempts at impeachment along with a multi-pronged, prolonged campaign of demonization and delegitimization, amplified by a rabid media to make the country ungovernable and tear the body politic apart at the seams.

    The results of these crazed, if highly focused, never-ending efforts are the extreme polarization of the country, the rampant factionalism (Madison’s worst nightmare), and the cultivation of extreme hatred for the Trump government and, ultimately the country—as long as that country was being governed by “the wrong people”; all of which has create a powder keg, concocted by the assiduous efforts of the Democratic Party and the corrupt media that pushes that party’s dishonest Narrative, the results of which combustibility have been the convulsions, violence and insanity that we are currently witnessing.

  42. Should conclude(!) by saying that all of the above points to a tremendous Democratic Party “success”, one that they fervently—and fervidly—hope to capitalize on in November.

  43. Jimmy:

    Oh, there’s a simple way to say it, all right.

    But there’s no simple way to prove it; to show the evidence takes a long long time and many details. And everyone who isn’t on the right will reject the simple statement as a right-wing lie, without those details. (Many will reject it even WITH those details, of course.)

  44. I don’t see how Obama is going to escape being revealed as the mastermind… oops, sorry wrong word! Obama will never “mastermind” anything unless it involves snatching candy from baby strollers.

    But he is going to be revealed as the one who stirred the pot to get Flynn, overtly because Flynn knew where the bodies were buried in the Iran deal, but more fundamentally because Obama is a thin-skinned narcissist with even less love for America than his wife has.

  45. Ray Van Dune

    What happens when Hussein is dead and gone, who are you going to blame for all the problems facilitated by yourself and others?

  46. Oh, there’s a simple way to say it, all right.

    But there’s no simple way to prove it

    Yes, but the messaging is important for the political side of it, especially if the actual investigations drag on. Trump does some of this in his tweets, but the small sliver of the media that is not hard left/DNC mouthpieces has to push the simple message so it resonates with the public–or at least the 60% of voters who might be open to it.

  47. Yammer:

    Ponder glass houses and stones, glass houses and stones, or motes and planks. There is a message there for you.

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