Why should I care about Michael Flynn?

Discussion in 'Politics' started by wegs, May 14, 2020.

  1. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    I’ve been loosely following the tale of this former US National Security Advisor but why is he back in the news, now? Trump seems mildly obsessed with Flynn, but why? (especially since we’re still in the middle of a pandemic)

    Can someone give me the cliff notes version? Thanks.
     
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  3. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    I guess no one cares about Flynn, either.

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  5. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Sure.

    Flynn helped Trump get elected, and Trump liked his fiery, angry style - he was one of the "lock her up!" leaders. At one point Trump considered him as a VP. After he won, he was warned by his own people not to hire him for Trump's administration due to problems he was already having; even Obama warned Trump about it. Trump of course ignored all that and hired him. Before Trump took office, Flynn participated in several secret meetings with Russians in order to sway their decisions to ones more favorable to Trump (and less favorable to Obama.)

    Those secret meetings came out pretty soon after Trump took office, and put several administration officials (including Pence) in the very awkward position of having to defend him without knowing what he did, since he had lied to them as well.

    He resigned about a month into the Trump administration after the NYT published a story documenting his secret meetings with Russians. Trump claimed instead that he had fired Flynn, saying he "had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI" and that Flynn had "pled guilty to those lies".

    At this point the FBI was investigating, and Trump tried to get them to stop. He told the head of the FBI "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go . . .he's a good guy." The head of the FBI (James Comey) later said "I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December."

    The FBI then brought him up on charges of lying to the FBI under oath. Flynn eventually pled guilty, and was going to be sentenced this summer.

    It looked like it was all over. He had pled guilty and there was plenty of evidence that he had committed the crime, and he would probably get some moderate sentence.

    In 2019 Trump appointed William Barr as Attorney General. Barr had been a vocal proponent of Trump. As one of his first acts of office he dismissed the conclusions of the Mueller report and said it did not amount to any indictment of the president. In May of this year he dismissed the charges against Flynn, saying that even though he confessed to lying to the FBI, and even though that is a crime, "people sometimes plead to things that turn out not to be crimes."

    The "big thing" is that Trump sees this as a victory against his enemies, since Flynn is "his guy" and one of over a dozen members of his administration/campaign who have been indicted (and often convicted and imprisoned) on various charges. So if he gets his AG to dismiss one or two he can claim "See? All those charges were a big HOAX!"
     
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  7. mathman Valued Senior Member

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    To me the most serious problem is the Attorney General acting as if justice can be subverted to Trump's inclinations.
     
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  8. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    Lots to give cliff notes on, but I'll take a crack at it.

    The DNC funded the largely debunked and unsupported Steele dossier that was used to smear Trump in the news and prop up the farce of Russian collusion for years, but more importantly used as a major justification for FISA warrants to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign, via people like Flynn. We now have evidence that the FBI knew the dossier was unreliable but repeatedly kept that from the FISA court to secure their warrants. The FBI form they fill out for their interview with him was altered and we have FBI notes about "getting Flynn fired" or "getting him to lie", all while he was not aware of being under investigation. Then Obama himself and other administration officials unmasked Flynn's identity in the reports, somehow before the DOJ, who was overseeing the investigation. This all boils down to the Obama administration, with the help of the DNC, weaponizing the FBI, DOJ, and duped FISA courts to target the campaign of the opposing party in an election. IOW, everything they accused Trump of doing, or threatening/wanting to do, they actually did themselves. Where there's no evidence that the Trump campaign had any hand in the hacked Hillary/Schumer emails, Obama and the DNC were actively intercepting Trump campaign communication for opposition research. Where there's no evidence that Trump colluded with anyone to alter the election, Obama's FBI has been caught expressly trying to orchestrate ways to remove Trump, even before he was elected. Flynn's rights were trampled by essentially lying to the FISA courts, which should scare anyone, that our justice system could be so readily used to destroy a person's life and possibly usurp a free and legal election.

    I'm sure there's tons I've left out, as I haven't geeked out on the details myself, and this is all off the top of my head, so please excuse any minor discrepancies, if found.
     
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  9. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Yep. Tons of spin there to try to distract from the basic facts of the case, which is that:

    -Flynn lied to the FBI, which is a crime
    -Flynn admitted he lied and acknowledged that that was a crime
    -Trump confirmed that he lied
    -His own lawyers confirmed that he lied
    -He was convicted of the crime after his confession.

    He is a confessed, convicted criminal. No wonder he is a hero of Trump supporters everywhere.
     
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  10. river

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    DOJ has become blatantly corrupt .
     
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  11. mathman Valued Senior Member

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    Barr is corrupt. I think there are some honest people still there.
     
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  12. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    like most of his(vociferous) posts its all lies and bullshit.
     
  13. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks billvon and vociferous - two conflicting sets of cliff notes. I guess I should care, now. lol
     
  14. douwd20 Registered Senior Member

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    Yep. They don't even try to hide it anymore.
     
  15. river

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    That is a good thing .

    It wakes us up .
     
  16. douwd20 Registered Senior Member

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    I sure hope so. Regrettably the only voters that matters are swing state voters. The rest of us can just can just watch Netflix election day. That said yes the Senate is of vital importance.
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2020
  17. river

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    I'm not American , by the way .

    But it wakes the whole World up to what is going on in the USA .

    That is telling , meaning that Americans for the most part , don't think about ideas from the other side , of the floor .

    Which means they will be locked in thinking that never evolves into something better , for everybody , everybody .
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    You left out the part where "Obama's FBI" went out of their way to sandbag Clinton in public while giving Trump a pass for the entire campaign.

    You overlooked the part about Flynn being a paid agent of a foreign country at the same time that Trump appointed him head of the National Security Council of the United States.

    You also overlooked the part about the hotel deals Trump had made with the ruler of that country, which were being threatened unless Trump changed the US "anti-terrorism" policy in Syria. "Anti-terrorism" policy was Flynn's wheelhouse.

    That reads like a joke. It isn't.
    It also reads like treason. It is. Flynn had the time and the motive to do a fair amount of damage to the NSC during his brief sojourn - that's serious trouble to come. Flynn's friends and employers do not have American interests at heart.
    The Mueller report (which you will never read) documents otherwise. So does even the most casual perusal of the various timelines and events of Trump's campaign - we already knew what Mueller took the trouble to nail down, just by tracking Trump's behavior.
    That's just false - and tactically kind of stupid. It's the other way around in real life, and the Pee Wee Herman schtick has become transparent - self-indicting, among those who can remember the recent past.
     
    Last edited: May 21, 2020
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  19. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    He was not made aware he was under investigation, nor that the conversation was in any way an official interview.
    FBI notes indicate that they were intending to get him to lie or get him fired.
     
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  20. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    He was under oath. He lied under oath, knowing full well the consequences. Lie under oath, go to jail. Simple.

    Don't believe me? Trump said the same thing.

    Still don't believe me? Flynn said the same thing. Twice. He admitted he lied under oath and was guilty.

    And all the pro-Trump spin in the world isn't going to change that fact. I know you and your ilk absolutely hate facts, but there they are.
     
  21. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    Then simply show me evidence he was "under oath". If he was, it would be perjury, which also requires evidence of intent.
    Even a false statement, which includes unsworn statements (like in an FBI interview), requires evidence of intent to deceive ("knowingly and willfully").
    They coerced a confession, by ruining his life (like trying to "get him fired"). They never proved intent.

    Trump's not a lawyer.

    Flynn pled guilty (pleas are not done under oath) to avoid further railroading. That's how plea deals work.

    As usual, you seem pretty ignorant of the details of the facts. Just what you've skimmed from leftist rags.
     
  22. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Pleas are "done" under oath.

    Flynn pled to avoid being convicted of more serious crimes or receiving a long sentence for the crimes pled. He was being let off easy by a Republican dominated FBI and DOJ. In many places moles are executed, those in the military by firing squad.

    When pleading guilty, one must stipulate to sufficient facts to establish guilt - under oath. Judges do not have to accept guilty pleas, and sometimes will not if the facts don't support guilt in court.

    In Flynn's case the fact that the FBI (and at least two other law enforcement agencies) had documented these facts already, to such an extent that neither the defense team lawyers or the judge could imagine any likelihood of jury acquittal, made that decision easier.
    And he's very stupid?
    Maybe you haven't had the experience of seeing someone interviewed like that, but Flynn had.
    Sounds like a reasonable plan for dealing with a mole. They embarrass the powerful, so quite often government agents try to deal with them as clandestinely as possible. The FBI got him to lie without a public trial, which they assumed would jail his ass until Trump was gone, so score one for FBI competence.
     
  23. candy Valued Senior Member

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    The bottom line is that what was done was entrapment so they could file charges. There appears to be some indication that pressure was applied to force the plea bargain while witholding exculpatory evidence from the defense.
     
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