These itsy bitsy spiders…

The New Neo Posted on by

…do a lot more than climbing up the water spout.

They detect electrical fields and use them to – fly.

And although I’m well aware that I just used the word “fly” there to refer to the activity and not the creature, the juxtaposition of “spider” and “fly” made me think of this sweet little verse:

“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the spider to the fly;
“’Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy.
The way into my parlor is up a winding stair,
And I have many pretty things to show when you are there.”
“O no, no,” said the little fly, “to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again…”

In the end, of course, the fly is toast.

Which in turn makes me think of this far superior offering:

…O Oysters, come and walk with us!’
The Walrus did beseech.
A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each.’

The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head —
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.

But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat —
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn’t any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more —
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore…

You know the ending. We all know the ending.

The law, Judge Sullivan, and Michael Flynn: what now?

The New Neo Posted on by

You can find a really long article on the subject here. An excerpt:

So, as the Supreme Court acknowledged in Rinaldi, it is impossible to know what was meant by “with leave of court” when it was inserted into the text of the rule proposal that became Rule 48(a) without explanation.

But the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit conclusively told us what it did NOT mean — it does not mean that Judge Sullivan has the power to go behind the reasons for the decision set forth in the DOJ Motion to Dismiss, and that he does not have the authority to substitute his view of the case for the Executive Branch’s view of the case based on four words in a procedural rule.

Here is my prediction for what Judge Sullivan will eventually do if he is forced to make a decision on the motion. He will write a long long opinion that is a one-sided work of historical revision that ignores nearly all the misconduct on the part of the investigators and prosecutors, and relies greatly on the proceedings by which Gen. Flynn was led to plead guilty. He will then comb through every scrap of paper he can find to denigrate and dismiss the rationale that has been offered by DOJ, and find that all the legal arguments offered are specious.

He will conclude by excoriating Gen. Flynn for the “conduct” underlying the charges that were brought against him — and likely for uncharged conduct involving the allegations of FARA violations (but he won’t make the mistake of referencing “treason” again), and explain why Gen. Flynn’s conduct, in Judge Sullivan’s view, was a threat to the Flag, Democracy, Apple Pie, and Hot Dogs.

But in the final paragraph he will say that, notwithstanding everything he has found to be true as reflected in his opinion, he has no choice under the law but to grant DOJ’s motion and dismiss the case.

He’ll order that his opinion be published in the Federal Supplement, with the goal being that his account will be the definitive historical account of the Gen. Flynn saga.

I don’t know what will happen next in the Flynn case. But I’m thinking perhaps a writ of mandamus:

To preserve the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers, the Department of Justice has no choice now but to seek a writ of mandamus from the D.C. Circuit Court ordering the criminal charge against Flynn dismissed and reassigning the case to another judge…

What was surprising—no, unbelievable—is what Judge Sullivan did on Wednesday: He entered an order “appoint[ing] The Honorable John Gleeson (Ret.) as amicus curiae to present arguments in opposition to the government’s Motion to Dismiss.”

This order was jaw-dropping for two reasons. First, the U.S. Constitution makes clear that the judiciary has no business second-guessing prosecutorial decisions. In fact, the very case Judge Sullivan cited for the proposition that he had the inherent authority to appoint an amicus curiae—United States v. Fokker—made clear Sullivan’s order was lawless…

The Fokker court explained that while mandamus is an extraordinary remedy, it is appropriate where the petitioner: (i) has “no other adequate means to attain the relief he desires”; (ii) “show[s] that his right to the writ is ‘clear and indisputable’”; and then “(iii) the court ‘in the exercise of its discretion, must be satisfied that the writ is appropriate under the circumstances.’”…

In analyzing the propriety of the district court’s refusal to approve the agreement, the appellate court summarized controlling principles of constitutional law: “The Executive’s primacy in criminal charging decisions is long settled. That authority stems from the Constitution’s delegation of ‘take Care’ duties, U.S. Const. art. II, § 3, and the pardon power, id. § 2, to the Executive Branch. Decisions to initiate charges, or to dismiss charges once brought, ‘lie[] at the core of the Executive’s duty to see to the faithful execution of the laws.’”…

The “leave of court” requirement, the court stressed, “has been understood to be a narrow one—’to protect a defendant against prosecutorial harassment . . . when the [g]overnment moves to dismiss an indictment over the defendant’s objection.’” Such review in that case is to guard against “a scheme of ‘prosecutorial harassment’ of the defendant through repeated efforts to bring—and then dismiss—charges.”

Fokker then concluded: “So understood, the ‘leave of court’ authority gives no power to a district court to deny a prosecutor’s Rule 48(a) motion to dismiss charges based on a disagreement with the prosecution’s exercise of charging authority…

The Fokker decision was a 2016 decision from the D.C. Circuit Court and, as such, establishes “mandatory precedent,” i.e., precedent that must be followed, by all D.C. district court judges—including Judge Sullivan…

The government should, as it did in Fokker, seek a writ of mandamus from the D.C. Circuit, directing the charge against Flynn be dismissed.

The government should also seek reassignment of the case on remand, meaning that when the case returns to the lower court for dismissal of the charge, it goes to a different judge. While “reassignment is warranted only in the ‘exceedingly rare circumstance,’” such as where a judge’s conduct is “so extreme as to display clear inability to render fair judgment,” Judge Sullivan’s selection of Judge Gleeson as his “friend of the court” reveals Judge Sullivan’s irretractable bias.

The same day Judge Sullivan named Judge Gleeson to serve in the amicus curiae role, the Washington Post ran an op-ed co-authored by Gleeson, entitled, “The Flynn case isn’t over until the judge says it’s over.”…

…[W]hat reeks is Judge Sullivan’s selection of a clearly biased “friend of the court” who appears to have already pre-judged the prosecutor’s motive and found it improper.

How can anyone defend Judge Sullivan’s action? Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Just keep repeating “Flynn’s a traitor” and “he lied to the FBI, which is a crime” and “Putin’s puppet” over and over, and you’ll find a vast audience among those who hate Trump and could not care less about the rule of law, except as a potent phrase to use against their enemies.

This case is sickening. Obamagate is sickening. The entire episode is proof – as thought we needed any more – of how much power the left has gotten and how determined they are to exercise it to get more power. It’s also a demonstration of the fact that the Gramscian march through education, the press, entertainment, the arts, and other institutions of our social and cultural life has proceeded to the degree that way too many people in the US are now on board with this travesty of justice.

Dire predictions for Georgia and Florida COVID deaths have so far not panned out

The New Neo Posted on by

This is extremely encouraging:

We were told that states ending their lockdowns and freeing the people were going to see widespread infections and increased deaths. We were told that bringing quarantines to an end would bring doom.

We were told wrong.

According to a graph by Axios, states ending the lockdown have either stalled in COVID-19 case numbers or are beginning a decline. This includes Georgia and Florida, which according to Axios are seeing double-digit declines.

“Florida’s new cases have actually declined by 14% compared to the previous week, and Georgia’s fell by 12%,” reported Axios…

The lockdowns are currently still in place in many states. According to the latest data, this is currently a useless gesture, and while rates a declining in states that are continuing lockdowns, these states may well be worse off in the long run due to economic collapse.

Why are some governors continuing to clamp down hard despite the fact that their states don’t seem to have experienced that much COVID or that many deaths from it? I can speculate – the love of control, the desire to shoot themselves in the foot in order to get Trump, fear that if they relax the rules that things will then spiral out of control and they will be blamed, putting too much faith in the modelers who have been proven wrong, and elitism because they themselves will continue to get haircuts and go to the gym.

Now, obviously, it’s not over yet – not for Georgia or Florida or any other state. The numbers can rise again. As time goes on, we’ll learn more. But right now, indications are that it’s time to re-open with cautions in place for the most vulnerable elderly and/or those with pre-existing conditions.

Remember the Hong Kong flu?

The New Neo Posted on by

Those of you who were alive at the time probably remember the phrase, as I do.

And that’s just about all I remember about it. I was no child, either; I was in college, going about my business, and my business regularly included large gatherings – huge classrooms, the occasional concert, meeting, a restaurant or two, and even parties.

I never considered changing a thing about my life because of that flu, and neither did anyone else I knew. It was something we heard about that was so far in the background as to be nearly meaningless to us. And yet the Hong Kong flu – named back in the days when it was okay to label viruses with their points of origin, although apparently this one may have been misnamed because it may have originated in China (so, what else is new?) – was quite deadly to much the same demographic groups as COVID and perhaps even in similar numbers per capita:

The Hong Kong flu (also known as 1968 flu pandemic was a flu pandemic whose outbreak in 1968 and 1969 killed an estimated one million people all over the world…

The first recorded instance of the outbreak appeared on 13 July 1968 in Hong Kong. (There is a possibility that this outbreak actually began in mainland China before spreading to Hong Kong, but this is unconfirmed.) By the end of July 1968, extensive outbreaks were reported in Vietnam and Singapore. Despite the lethality of the 1957 Asian Flu in China, little improvement had been made regarding the handling of such epidemics…

By September 1968, the flu had reached India, the Philippines, northern Australia, and Europe. That same month, the virus entered California, carried by returning troops from the Vietnam War, but did not become widespread in the United States until December 1968…

In Berlin, the excessive number of deaths led to corpses being stored in subway tunnels, and in West Germany, garbage collectors had to bury the dead due to insufficient undertakers. In total, East and West Germany registered 60,000 estimated deaths. In some areas of France, half the workforce was bedridden, and manufacturing suffered large disruptions due to absenteeism. The British postal and train services were also severely disrupted…

In comparison to other pandemics of the 20th century [meaning 1918 and 1957], the Hong Kong flu yielded a low death rate. The disease was allowed to spread through the population without restrictions on economic activity, until a vaccine became available four months after it started.

The H3N2 virus returned during the following 1969/1970 flu season, resulting in a second, deadlier wave of deaths. It remains in circulation today as a strain of the seasonal flu.

A couple of especially interesting points: (1) the virus was allowed to spread unchecked in the US (2) it is now endemic; and (3) a vaccine was available in 4 months. The latter is a reflection of the fact that flu vaccines are regularly developed, so it is ordinarily much easier to come up with a vaccine for a new strain than to make and test a vaccine for a non-flu virus. But another thing of interest – to me, anyway – is that I never learned of this vaccine at the time, never thought a thing about a vaccine or getting vaccinated, and to the best of my knowledge never had a flu shot at all until perhaps eight years ago. I would guess that today’s flu shots probably contain protection for the Hong Kong flu, among others (I know that H1N1 is in there, for example).

The US death toll for Hong Kong flu from the period from July 1968 until the winter of 1969-70 is estimated at about 100,000, with most of the dead being in the over-65 group. This was in a population numbering about 201,000,000 at the time. So corrected for today’s population, the death toll would have been the equivalent of around 163,000. This is well within the range of the expected COVID deaths, and perhaps even somewhat high, although we don’t know yet. And from the way things are looking, COVID will probably take around the same range of people with or without the sort of social controls we’ve put in place in an effort to control it, as the data from Sweden appears to show.

I know that some of my readers were alive and sentient (barring a couple of lost weekends) back in 1968-1969. Was your experience similar to mine?

Perhaps you thought the Flynn case couldn’t get any worse

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, think again.

It just got a lot, lot worse.

As the pressure builds on the higher-up perpetrators of the attempted coup against Trump – Brennan, Comey, Clapper, and even to a certain extent Obama himself – the Resistance ratchets up its game.

And it’s a very serious game indeed:

A federal judge [Sullivan] is signaling that he may pursue perjury or contempt charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn over his effort to abandon an earlier guilty plea to a charge of lying to the FBI…

Sullivan said he’s also asking [a] retired judge, John Gleeson, to recommend whether Flynn should face a criminal contempt charge for perjury–apparently for declaring under oath at two different court proceedings that he was guilty of lying to the FBI, before he reversed course in January and claimed he had never lied.

I am no expert on this subject, but I have never heard of such a thing. And in particular, if a guilty plea is coerced under threat or pressure – which often happens – it is often a lie. The same with plea bargains. And everyone knows it.

Has anyone ever been charged with perjury for such a thing before? All you lawyers out there?

Not to mention that there was also a problem with the behavior of Flynn’s lawyers, who had a conflict of interest. And of course there’s the little detail that the DOJ is requesting that the case against Flynn be dismissed due to all the previous FBI and DOJ misconduct.

The judge seems unconcerned with all that. His Javert-like pursuit of his quarry Flynn makes Javert look compassionate in comparison.

Oh, and that retired judge Sullivan has appointed to help Sullivan out? He’s already on Sullivan’s side:

Last but absolutely not least, we now have some light shed on the somewhat puzzling statement by Obama in that purposely leaked phone call I wrote about the other day. Remember? Here’s what Obama said (among other things):

And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.

Aside from the familiar irony of Obama accusing the GOP of doing what he and his administration had in fact been doing – undermining the rule of law and “moving in those directions” – one statement that stood out was Obama’s odd accusation that Flynn had committed perjury. At the time I wrote:

Perjury? A first-year law student knows the difference between lying to the FBI – in a matter in which there is no evidence of any crime whatsoever, and the target is not allowed to have a lawyer or be read his rights or even informed he’s being interrogated as a target – and perjury. Obama knows it, too, so why did he use the word? He probably thinks it’s a good talking point because it sounds really bad, and he doesn’t think most people will care about the finer points.

Or maybe he’s just forgotten all the law he ever knew. But I go with: tactical lie.

I followed that with a very lengthy quote from this Jonathan Turley piece explaining both the fact that no perjury charge was involved and that there was ample precedent for the motion to dismiss under the circumstances.

It continued, though, to puzzle me that Obama had said “perjury,” and in particular in a recording that he then purposely leaked, or gave his approval to be leaked. Although he’s not the legal genius his followers seem to believe him to be, he certainly has a basic knowledge of the law and had to know the inappropriateness of the term in this case. But now it is difficult to escape the thought that Obama was signalling the next line of approach, which would be to charge Flynn with perjury, as Sullivan appears to be strongly contemplating.

See, I was thinking in a conventional manner. Obama and Sullivan were thinking outside the box. Such extremely creative use of the law is a leftist specialty.

I don’t know what will happen now. Flynn’s lawyer might file a write of mandamus:

A (writ of) mandamus is an order from a court to an inferior government official ordering the government official to properly fulfill their official duties or correct an abuse of discretion. (See, e.g. Cheney v. United States Dist. Court For D.C. (03-475) 542 U.S. 367 (2004) 334 F.3d 1096.) According to the U.S. Attorney Office, “Mandamus is an extraordinary remedy, which should only be used in exceptional circumstances of peculiar emergency or public importance.”

In the federal courts, these orders most frequently appear when a party to a suit wants to appeal a judge’s decision but is blocked by rules against interlocutory appeals. Instead of appealing directly, the party simply sues the judge, seeking a mandamus compelling the judge to correct his earlier mistake. Generally, this type of indirect appeal is only available if the party has no alternative means of seeking review.

Perhaps there are alternative means of seeking review. Or perhaps the whole sorry charade set in motion by Judge Sullivan has to play out first, with the MSM talking it up every step of the way.

As Ace says:

This is a private prosecution by a lawless former judge who has declared himself Tyrant — and if this is permitted to stand, the American experiment in Democracy is over.

But the actions of the Obama administration in refusing to accept a peaceful transition of power and trying to frame his successor have probably ended that experiment already, anyway. We are in deep and dangerous waters, and have been swimming there for quite some time.

Unmasking the unmaskers: Republicans pounce

The New Neo Posted on by

They told us more revelations in the Russiagate plot would be forthcoming, and they certainly didn’t lie about that.

First, a little background as to what it’s all about:

So now Grennell has released the list:

There are 16 “authorized individuals” who requested the unmasking of Flynn between November 8, 2016 and January 31, 2017. Included among that list are the following Obama administration officials:

Vice President Joe Biden
FBI Director James Comey
CIA Director John Brennan
Director for National Intelligence James Clapper
Obama’s Chief of Staff Denis McDonough

Grenell sent the list to Republican senators on Wednesday. “I declassified the enclosed document, which I am providing to you for your situational awareness,” Grenell wrote in a letter accompanying the list.

Unmasking American citizens for political purposes is a criminal act.

No doubt they will say it was because of bona fide suspicions and not political reasons at all. But we already know the entire investigation was done under rigged and phony pretenses. They will deny it anyway, and the MSM will back them up, and the Democrats will cry “foul, foul, Republicans!”

More:

“Joe Biden’s limp claim that he doesn’t know anything about the railroading of Gen. Michael Flynn just got even more unbelievable,” said Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale. “Biden is listed among the Obama administration officials who requested the unmasking of Flynn. We already knew Biden was briefed on the Flynn case before President Trump took office and now we know that he wanted Flynn unmasked. Americans have a right to know the depth of Biden’s involvement in the setup of Gen. Flynn to further the Russia collusion hoax.”

Biden can also use the dementia defense. And perhaps he really doesn’t recall any of this.

Here’s the timing:

The list revealed that then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power made unmasking requests seven times between Nov. 30, 2016 and Jan. 11, 2017. The list revealed that Clapper made three requests from Dec. 2, 2016 through Jan. 7, 2017; and that Brennan made two requests, one on Dec. 14 and one on Dec. 15, 2016. Comey also made a request on Dec. 15, 2016. On Jan. 5, 2017, McDonough made one request, and on Jan. 12, 2017, Biden made one request.

The day McDonough requested the information is the same day as an Oval Office meeting that has drawn scrutiny in the wake of the Flynn developments. The meeting included Obama, Biden, Clapper, Brennan, Comey, then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice and then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

That meeting was the first time Yates learned about Flynn’s calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, according to notes from her special counsel interview which were released last week. Yates, in her interview, indicated Obama was aware of Flynn’s intercepted December 2016 phone calls with Kislyak during the presidential transition period.

Not only was Flynn unmasked, but the information was then illegally leaked. Who did it? So far everyone who’s addressed the issue has denied being the culprit. But it happened, and there is a culprit or culprits, plural.

Note also how that CBS article I just linked spins the whole thing in favor of the Democrats; it’s a good example of what’s typical in the MSM on this. Another example is this Politico article, which almost immediately gives the news a “Repubicans pounce” angle. The very second paragraph, after a brief intro stating that the names were released, is this:

The release comes amid a furious campaign by President Donald Trump and his allies to accuse former President Barack Obama and his top deputies of illegally targeting the Trump campaign and the incoming Trump administration. In recent days, the president has coined the term “Obamagate” to accuse his predecessor of seeking to undermine him and target his top associates — though he has struggled to articulate or prove any specific wrongdoing.

That tells the reader what he or she ought to think about it all: Republicans making vague and politically motivated accusations.

Judge Sullivan says the Flynn case isn’t over yet and the fat lady hasn’t sung

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s so much breaking news these days that for this story I’ll rely on someone who knows a great deal more about the legal angle than I do. So please read Professor William Jacobson’s take on it at Legal Insurrection.

ADDENDUM: More here from Andrew C. McCarthy. I really can’t do justice to it by summarizing or excerpting. So I strongly recommend you read the whole thing.

I will add, however, that although this case is about getting Flynn and always was, it is about a great deal more than Flynn and it always was. Originally, it was about bringing Trump down in addition to harming Flynn. Now it’s still about those things, but the focus this time is on the November 2020 election. To have a chance in November, it is absolutely vital to the left to preserve the somewhat-shaky facade of respectability of the Flynn prosecution, and to continue to accuse the Republicans of being the ones motivated by politics in their opposition to what happened to Flynn at the DOJ’s and FBI’s hands. To do that, the left must preserve the fiction that Flynn is guilty of something. Otherwise, the entire edifice might crumble – which not only could lead to Trump’s re-election, but to the further tarnishing of Obama’s reputation and the rise of #Obamagate as a thing.

That must be protected at all costs. I cannot emphasize that enough.

GOP does well in special elections for Congress

The New Neo Posted on by

[See UPDATE below.]

Special elections are – well – special. Turnout is often different than in the general, for example. And this year they are especially special, because of the virus, which meant that these were almost entirely mail-in in California, and about half mail-in in Wisconsin.

Then again, mail-in at least theoretically would seem to favor the Democrats.

And yet, the GOP held into a red seat in Wisconsin and may have won a previously blue seat in California. I say “may have” because they’re still counting ballots, and even though it really isn’t close at all at the moment, we know the history of Democrats “finding” the requisite number of ballots marked “Democrat” and managing to squeak out a victory.

UPDATE 6:45 PM:

Garcia’s opponent Christy Smith concedes. I guess the Democrats couldn’t find enough car trunks with ballots in them. Or perhaps it just wasn’t worth their while, since this seat will be re-contested in November, and the House is dominated by the Democrats right now anyway.

COVID-19: making predictions

The New Neo Posted on by

I have gotten to the point where I no longer put any trust in the prognostications of scientists about COVID-19 and the comparison of various social policy tactics for dealing with it. These people have lost credibility – and I was already skeptical in the first place.

Some no doubt are well-intentioned and trying their best to do a good job. Others probably have a political agenda. But at this point I think even the first group simply doesn’t know. The country-by-country data gives us some information, to be sure – enough to bring me to the conclusion that there is no simple relationship between any of the rules and the outcomes claimed to be a result of those rules. But it doesn’t tell us what to do going forward.

Sweden is encouraging in terms of relaxing the rules, but the US is not Sweden. Georgia, likewise. But it still doesn’t tell us enough.

However, I also concluded a few weeks ago that we must go forward and open up the economy or the amount of human suffering as a result of the shutdown will be absolutely enormous, too. In fact, it already has been. Those at greater risk (like me) will have to make our own decisions about how and when we’ll venture forth. But the greater good requires that we end this stalemate.

I’m with Rand Paul who said this today to Dr. Fauci:

We need to uh, observe with an open mind what went on in Sweden, where the kids kept going to school. The mortality per capita in Sweden is actually less than France, less than Italy, less than Spain, less than Belgium, less than the Netherlands, about the same as Switzerland. But basically I don’t think there’s anybody arguing that what happened in Sweden is an unacceptable result. I think people are intrigued by it and we should be, I don’t think any of us are certain when we do all these modelings, there’ve been more people wrong with modeling than right. We’re opening up a lot of economies around the, around the U S and I hope that people who are predicting doom and gloom and saying, Oh, we can’t do this, there’s going to be, the surge will admit that they were wrong…

…We can listen to your advice, but there are people on the other side saying there’s not going to be a surge and that we can safely open the economy and the facts will bear this out.

About two months ago I wrote a post entitled “Gone are the days: assuming the risk.” In it I wrote:

Of course, I wasn’t around in 1918. I wasn’t around when smallpox and tuberculosis or the Black Death killed far far more of the people on earth than any of the plagues of my lifetime have come close to killing. I cannot even imagine how terrible those things were; I don’t even want to imagine. And I doubt that people took them in stride at all. And I think a good part of the dread and fear now is that in the back of our minds – or for some people, even the front of our minds – we know that such catastrophes are still possible. Human beings know they are intensely vulnerable.

But COVID-19 is not shaping up to be that sort of event, and there’s no reason to think it will be. However, although many measures are prudent – handwashing, increased testing, hospital preparedness, some measure of social distancing at least for a while – the degree of fear I see and hear is far greater than anything I can recall in my lifetime around a medical event.

And COVID-19 still isn’t shaping up to be that kind of event. We have a lot more information now. It seems, though, that people have become less able to assume any risks at all, and more demanding of total or nearly total safety. Meanwhile, to achieve that safety, many advocate the continuation of measures that are bound to sink this country – not to mention causing people to die of or suffer from other diseases or phenomena such as domestic abuse or suicide.

Of course, some who advocate continual shutdown have other motives than near-total safety. Some on the left would like the economy to sink and are merely using the fear sparked by COVID to achieve those aims. And there are plenty of people who would like to use all of it to destroy Trump’s and the GOP’s chances of victory in November.

The FBI’s versatile 302

The New Neo Posted on by

One of the most interesting things about the Flynn case is how the recent documents have merely repeated and/or verified things we on the right already knew or suspected. Now we have a more complete story. But it’s not as though the general outlines haven’t been fairly clear from the start – although ignored, covered up, denied, and/or lied about by the left.

Actually, they’re still being ignored, covered up, denied, and/or lied about by the left.

If you go back in time, you can find articles such as this one from December of 2018:

On Tuesday, attorneys for Michael Flynn filed a sentencing memorandum and letters of support for the former Army lieutenant general in federal court. The sentencing memorandum reveals for the first time concrete evidence that the FBI created multiple 302 interview summaries of Flynn’s questioning by now-former FBI agent Peter Strzok and a second unnamed agent, reported to be FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka.

Further revelations may be forthcoming soon following an order entered late yesterday by presiding judge Emmet Sullivan, directing the special counsel’s office to file with the court any 302s or memorandum relevant to Flynn’s interview.

Sound familiar? As they say, “the wheels of justice grind slow.”

More from that same 2018 article:

While Flynn’s sentencing memorandum methodically laid out the case for a low-level sentence of one-year probation, footnote 23 dropped a bomb, revealing that the agents’ 302 summary of his interview was dated August 22, 2017. As others have already noted, the August 22, 2017 date is a “striking detail” because that puts the 302 report “nearly seven months after the Flynn interview.” When added to facts already known, this revelation takes on a much greater significance…

Congress has been trying to get to the bottom of this question for months upon months…

“Did the FBI agents document their interview with Lt. Gen. Flynn in one or more FD-302s? What were the FBI agents’ conclusions about Lt. Gen. Flynn’s truthfulness, as reflected in the FD-302s? Were the FD-302s ever edited? If so, by whom? At who’s direction? How many drafts were there? Are there material differences between the final draft and the initial draft(s) or the agent’s testimony about the interview?”…

The most recent iteration of Sullivan’s standing entered in the Flynn case required Mueller’s office to produce “any evidence in its possession that is favorable to defendant and material either to defendant’s guilt or punishment.”…

Of course, this all assumes that the special counsel’s office still has copies of the initial 302s created, which might not be the case given that when Mueller’s “pitbull,” Andrew Weissmann, led the Enron Task Force, his team, among other things, systematically destroyed draft 302s.

Again – that was written in December of 2018, about a year and a half ago.

Fast forward to an interview with Devin Nunes that occurred two days ago:

BARTIROMO: Let me ask you about this…And that is the so-called Flynn 302. Now, the 302s is a reference meaning that this is notes that FBI agents took after they met with Flynn.

Explain what you think is in the 302 of Flynn. And why have we not seen the exchanges, the notes that the FBI agents took after their meeting in January 2017, when they ambushed General Flynn? Where is the Flynn 302, Congressman?

(LAUGHTER)

NUNES: Well, the 302 is still missing, Maria.

So here is what we know. This report, when it was taken down, after that report was transcribed, we had people at the highest level, the FBI, come and brief us. Plus, we have other sources that also gave us the same information that the FBI agents essentially said, look, there’s nothing to see here, Flynn wasn’t lying.

And that’s what we were told on the record. So we knew this at the beginning of 2017. So you can imagine my astonishment when it began to leak out in the press that General Flynn was being busted for lying to the FBI, and that that’s what the Mueller team, the dirty Mueller team, that’s what they were going to bust him on.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NUNES: And I told people at the highest levels of the FBI and the DOJ, I said, what are you doing here? Like, we have, on the record, from the highest-level people that he didn’t lie to the FBI…

If that’s what you’re using, if you’re going to drop the charges on Flynn’s son or whatever conspiracy theory they were pedaling against General Flynn they had no possible way to bust him or indict him for lying to the FBI, because then that means that the FBI had lied to us, OK?

Now, so what happened? What happened is that that report was doctored, Maria.

And that report, we know it was doctored, because the lovebirds, we have the text messages of them doctoring the report. But here is the problem.

BARTIROMO: That’s right.

NUNES: The original report that was used to brief the United States Congress, that report is missing. It’s gone. Poof. It’s out of — we can’t find it.

BARTIROMO: Unbelievable. And it was doctored. OK.

You may also recall that the public became more widely aware of the FBI’s method of “recording” interrogations, the 302, back during the “investigation” of Hillary Clinton’s emails. It was a shock to many of us who previously had been unfamiliar with the FBI’s use of the 302, which relies on the agents’ words. In this day and age of recordings of ordinary police interrogations, it is stunning that the FBI continues to employ the 302 instead, but it is exceptionally useful if the agency wants to retain the ability to exonerate someone like Hillary Clinton and frame someone like General Flynn.

In July of 2016 I wrote a lengthy post about 302s in the context of the Hillary investigation. In it, I quoted this article from June of 2011 which described the way the 302 works:

FBI procedure calls for agents to take notes during interviews and use them as the basis for a typewritten summary report, called a form 302. These 302s become exhibits at trial. Along with an agent’s own testimony, they serve as the primary record of an interviewee’s statement.

Because the substance of the reports is so important — and because the reports are inherently subjective — defense lawyers often seek to pick them apart. putting the agent on the defensive. This is particularly the case when defendants are charged with obstruction or lying to FBI agents…

The FBI’s policy allows for statements to be recorded on a limited, highly selective basis; such recordings must have prior approval from bureau chiefs. Former agents say this is extremely rare…

Those in favor of the current FBI approach to audiotapes allege that any blanket, one-size-fits-all policy would be a logistical nightmare for the already-taxed agency. Furthermore, recordings could reveal FBI interview tactics or strategies.

That last sentence takes on special significance in the light of the Flynn interrogation and subsequent coverup of documents, doesn’t it?

The Flynn case: ask a liberal friend

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been thinking about talking to some of my liberal friends about the Flynn case revelations. I’m wondering if they’re even familiar with them, since their news source is the usual MSM. And if they are aware of the latest disclosures, I wonder what they think of them. Do they dismiss them as lies? Do they shrug them off as unimportant? Do they approve of them as justified? Or are they disturbed by the excesses and violations that occurred?

If I do get around to finding someone willing to talk about it in a relatively calm manner, I’m also going to try to explain how the MSM has been deceptive in its coverage in order to protect the Obama administration. And then I plan to ask the following question: During Watergate, what would you have thought if the press had been part of the coverup?

If any of you decide to do something similar, I’d be curious what responses you get.

China, China, and more China

The New Neo Posted on by

From Richard Fernandez:

We are learning more and more about how many people, countries, and institutions are sympathetic to China for political and/or financial reasons. For example, please see this chilling article about how beholden Italy is becoming to China, and about China’s plans for the rest of Europe, particularly its southern tier.

And then there’s this [much more at the link]:

While it remains unclear what proof the FBI and DHS possess, it does seem extremely likely that Beijing is using cyber espionage to snoop on U.S. efforts against the coronavirus. Furthermore, it would fall in line with Beijing’s notorious lies and malfeasance during the coronavirus crisis.

The British think tank the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), which claimed that the G7 countries should sue China for damages in excess of $4 trillion over the coronavirus crisis, laid out a digestible timeline of the virus’s spread and China’s lies about the disease and failure to contain the spread…

According to unpublished, unconfirmed Chinese government reports seen by the South China Morning Post, the first recorded case of the coronavirus dates to November 17, 2019, weeks before The Lancet‘s claim that the first recorded case came on December 1.

Or was it earlier, perhaps back in October? I have no trouble believing that’s possible.

Plus, we have a story from Germany that the Chinese wanted WHO to delay announcement of a global warning on COVID.

Speaking of COVID and China, see this:

The San Antonio City Council passed a resolution that designated the terms “Chinese Virus” and “Kung Fu Virus” as hate speech in response to the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.

No doubt calling Lyme disease “hate speech” is next on the San Antonio agenda.

By the way, I always use COVID-19 or COVID or coronavirus to refer to the illness. It’s my preference to use the more scientific neutral terms whenever possible. But that’s my preference. The idea that using a place name to refer to a disease’s origins is some form of hate speech is a leftist absurdity. If people attack Asians in this country because of it, that’s a crime, but it’s not because of the labeling. The truth is that the disease originated in China and China has behaved absolutely abominably. And that’s not hate speech.

[ADDENDUM: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is now referring to COVID as the “European virus.” I kid you not.]