The extraordinary move comes amid a sustained attack by Mr. Flynn’s lawyers on prosecutors and the F.B.I., accusing them of egregious conduct. In recent days, Mr. Flynn’s lawyers said the Justice Department had uncovered new documents that pointed to misconduct.
In a possible sign of disagreement with the Justice Department decision, Brandon L. Van Grack, an assistant United States attorney who led the prosecution of Mr. Flynn, abruptly withdrew from the case on Thursday. Mr. Flynn’s lawyers have repeatedly attacked Mr. Van Grack by name in court filings, citing his “incredible malfeasance.”
May 7, 2020
“Justice Dept. Drops Case Against Michael Flynn.”
NYT reports.
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469 comments:
1 – 200 of 469 Newer› Newest»Now, who does he sue to get his reputation and honor back (and let us not forget all the money he had to spend to defend himself)?
And he had the best legal resources possible....It took three years.
Just imagine what the federal government could do and has done to ordinary people....
Tick tock, tick tock.....Shifty Schiff is next. He lied to America about his so called proof, that he never had...the dominoes are beginning to fall, and I can hardly wait to see people frog walked out of their houses in the middle of the night like they did to Roger Stone.
The narrative runs into trouble. Words not meaning anything should be next.
But collusion! Russia! Nobody knows what Mueller knows!
I look forward to charges against Van Grack. There have to be consequences or this stuff will never end.
He's lucky he didn't create a hostile work environment for any women that we know of.
As my boss told me once, "Don't talk to women."
accusing them of egregious conduct.
Also jejune and puerile.
Flynn did not have the best legal resources until Sydney Powell took over his case after Flynn fired COVINGTON & Burling.
According to Michael Flynn’s brother Joseph : “He never felt he was guilty. He never felt he committed any crimes. We only pled guilty because he had shitty legal counsel on this.” (Covington & Burling declined to comment.)
Serious Question
Where does he go, to restore his reputation?
All of Sally Yates' work against Michael Flynn was wasted.
Yates told -- and leaked to -- everyone that Flynn had made himself vulnerable to Russian blackmail, because Russia's Ambassador Sergei Kislyak knew that Flynn had violated the USA's Logan Act.
Dropping the charges against Flynn sends a message to all future National Security Advisors that they too, with impunity, can make themselves vulnerable to Russian blackmail by violating the Logan Act.
Now, hang the bastards.
Van Grack has withdrawn from ALL the cases he is working on. He knows and the DOJ knows he is fucked.
Indecent Prosecution
But, Schiff TOLD Us, that there was More Than Circumstantial Evidence Now!
Shouldn't He (Wouldn't He) release that NOW?
The dismissal serves the purpose of protecting the wrongdoers in the FBI.
Van Grack has withdrawn from 2 cases in addition to the Flynn case—all the cases are before Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.
The corrupt Obama administration exposed.
Inga, have the sads?
Ann will vote Demtard even though they are evil. Abortion Uber Alles!
I love word “malfeasance.” You so rarely get a chance to use it in a sentence.
Guess Trump doesn't need to pardon him now...
Son of a bitch needs to be bankrupted, ruined, and sent to jail. Nothing worse in our system than a dirty prosecutor - nothing. They ruin lives lives like it's a game, and this was also motivated by treason.
MSNBC is beside itself.
Nicole Wallace is saying this whole investigation was about Flynn lying to Pence.
When will "good" people like Althouse see what is happening and actually speak/write against it?
Injustice anywhere.... Lefty civility bull shit.
Something else Trump was right about from the beginning. Stable genius.
Challenge issued by Birkel in the other thread:
"It is my belief that Ann Althouse will not and cannot admit what is plain about these prosecutions."
Well, you know, Althouse is just a "writer," "observing," "neutral."
But perhaps she'll surprise us, by writing about gross injustice as injustice, by observing that the bad guys did a bad thing, and that the bad guys are all progs attacking the right and Trump and the political system itself.
This is the most deep state of solutions. Van Grack and the media will still maintain that Flynn is guilty and that Barr is corrupt for "forcing" them to drop the case.
As evidence: Seth Abramson is calling it an end to the rule of law.
Van Grack is looking forward to his new career as a legal commentator at CNN.
I guess “sustained attack” is the new “Republicans pounce.”
So BARR I am awaiting the Van Grack, Strzok prosecutions.
Unknown: "And he had the best legal resources possible....It took three years."
False.
Flynn was completely, and in secret, betrayed by his own original Covington legal team which was working with the Mueller Stasi to frame him.
Eric Holder is a partner of that firm.
They say the attack on General Flynn happened because he wanted to reform the intelligence community. At great personal cost he has created an environment where that reform might happen. He has demonstrated that abuses exist and reform is needed. They ought to create an award named after him to be given to those who like him take on and suffer personally from the abusive state. He's not the first and not the last but he's the last who could be stabbed from the shadows by the FBI or CIA without the country as a whole being able to imagine such behavior at those agencies. There's George Papadopoulos, Carter Page and of course, there's Trump. The name of this attack was Crossfire Hurricane and I've thought that that name was just the next in a list of random words. But now I think it describes the plan - catch the General and catch the President in a Crossfire from the CIA and the FBI and use the media to raise the whole to Hurricane levels. This was treason.
That seems like a good start. Now to root out the malignancy in the system; prosecute those treasonous bastards.
"At great personal cost he has created an environment where that reform might happen"
Make some more heads explode, stick it to the left: give that man the Medal of Freedom tomorrow.
Interesting how the NYT frames the story. Almost as if they feel they need to protect the government. I wonder how the story would have read if this happened under the Trump administration?
NYT: "In a possible sign of disagreement with the Justice Department decision, Brandon L. Van Grack, the department lawyer who led the prosecution of Mr. Flynn, abruptly withdrew from the case on Thursday."
Blogger Greg said..."Van Grack has withdrawn from ALL the cases he is working on. He knows and the DOJ knows he is fucked."
Not for the first time is an Althouse commenter more informative/honest (take your pick) than the NYT.
I'm glad to see this. His enemies wanted to destroy him to get to Trump. He didn't matter, his service didn't matter, his son didn't matter.
People have brought up that he was on the side of a woman accusing McCabe of impropriety. I don't think that mattered. I don't even think his leading chants of "Lock her up!" (which I thought was a really bad look for a recently retired general) mattered. That he was right in some fairly important intra-IC disputes didn't matter. No, the fact that they hated him just meant they enjoyed doing this to him, but they'd have done it anyway.
So they went after him, and Trump muses to Comey that he thinks Flynn's a decent guy and he hopes they can see their way clear to letting this go...and before we know it Comey's fired, obviously BECAUSE RUSSIA! and we've got a special prosecutor.
Famously Republican, so we all know it couldn't be fairer.
I hope the people behind this are sweating bullets right now.
The boot is off of General Flynn's neck, but it exacted a horrible price.
Where does he go to get his reputation back?
Ah Brandon Van Grack---after your Flynn case shenanigans--or apparent shenanigans, you will forever be "toast" in Judge Sullivan's courtroom. You played him for a fool--and those guys in long black dresses have memories longer than their dress. They don't get mad--but they won't get fooled twice by such as you.
I'd suggest you might want to resume your DOJ career in some place like the Eastern District of California. Fresno can be nice in the winter--but a bear in the summer. While Fresno is certainly not as blue as San Francisco or Los Angeles, the folks there are pretty tolerant, and might agree that a fellow can make an honest mistake---wait, was it really an honest mistake? Fresno might not be right for you.
The lefty scum that did this need to see Leavenworth from the inside. That or a blindfold as they stand in front of a concrete wall.
It took Andrew McCarthy years to admit what was plain.
He was a bad actor because he would not honestly digest the facts.
However, McCarthy corrected the record and redeemed himself.
Redemption is close at hand.
No qualifiers.
No buts.
Just admit the plain truth:
1. American justice was perverted in an attempt to overthrow the duly elected POTUS.
2. Laws were broken by the Deep State actors.
Boom!
Make Flynn Director of the CDC immediately!
er, I mean the CIA!
Thanks AG Barr. Keep on working the cases.
Boom!
Make Flynn Director of the CDC immediately!
er, I mean the CIA!
Oh no. Director of the FBI!
Actually, I take back my hope that Brennan, Comey, McCabe, and who knows who else are sweating bullets right now. No, I hope they're so smugly convinced they're untouchable that they're doing a Peter-Strzok-like dance in their seats, with a creepy face that says Ha-ha! You can't prove a thing!
Most of all I hope they turn out to be wrong on that. God help us if they don't.
Since the case was before Judge Sullivan, does he have to agree to the DOJ ruling?
Couldn't this ruling have been done earlier?
Asking for a non-lawyer (me).
Think of this as the ultimate way to prevent a full release to the public of documentary proof of the arrogantly criminal operations of the FBI. Barr just saved the FBI's ass.
Covington & Burling better have refunded him his legal fees. They are hacks. Overpaid.
Wray needs to be fired.
Bridgegate and this on the same day.
The DOJ is a joke.
Would it be safe to say that every major case that Andrew Weissmann is behind ends up getting tossed out by a judge, but not before destroying multiple lives?
When does Weissmann go on trial? He seems to have a taste for putting innocent men in jail by withholding evidence.
Sydney powell dug out the documentation, like she did with Arthur Anderson, of course von grack wouldn't brush his teeth, without Weissman's say so,
what was then Nicole Devenish's job between working for jeb and the white house, press spokesman for the cia,
NYT: "Mr. Flynn’s lawyers said the Justice Department had uncovered new documents that pointed to misconduct."
I don't think this is accurate. I bet if you asked Sidney Powell she would say the DOJ/FBI hid those documents, not recently discovered them.
Congrats Flynn
Kudos to Sydney Powell
Reputation restorations to Flynn, Lokhova, et al
... waiting for the next shoes to drop from the Deep State Centipede
gilbar said...
Serious Question
Where does he go, to restore his reputation?
5/7/20, 2:05 PM
When the DOJ publicly drops the case against you, the lawyer in charge of your prosecution withdraws from most of his current cases, and his replacement states that the investigation itself was not even legal, your reputation kind of restores itself. Flynn will never be universally popular, but then the New York Elites who dominate the court system have never taken a more painful prosecution reversal. At least, so far they haven't. Rosenstein and Weissman are probably regretting most of the past four years, and they'll have cause to regret much more.
Leftists/libs/dems/LLR-leftists on these boards pronounced Flynn a russian asset treasonous traitor.
Prediction: Not a single one of them will amend their accusations. Most of them are too busy defending sexual assault and proclaiming #BelieveAllBidens.
There is every reason for Flynn to pursue further release of documents.
And every reason to believe acting DNI Grinnell will expedite the release in advance of Congressman Ratcliffe's elevation to the role.
Take heart, Americans.
Justice grinds fine.
The Flynn thing just doesn't add up. I am familiar with the story we've been told: Flynn pled guilty because of money issues and because they threatened his son with prosecution. I have a hard time believing that Flynn would stoop to a guilty plea for these reasons, although if he had financial issues, the malpractice lawsuit he should file and win against Covington should go a long way to ameliorating them. The story makes more sense to me as part of a conspiracy by Team Trump: Flynn took the plea in a "rope a dope" move, that it was some kind of trap to catch corrupt DOJ officials, expose NSA data mishandling and, perhaps, expose a conspiracy that included his attorneys at Covington. I just don't see a 3-star general tough seeming sonofabitch like Flynn pleading guilty because he was scared.
Memo to Jim Comey:
Due to the lockdown, the local Ross outlet clothing store in McLean, Virginia is closed for in-store purchases. However, they are accepting on-line bulk orders of underwear - by the dozen - if you feel the need to, you know, change those shorts now, or in the future.
daskol,
That comment was daft.
It's a daft situation. I'm just saying a nutty conspiracy is about as plausible as the explanation we've been given.
If this is the thread that begins the great unraveling of the Russia-hoaxers, will it still seem daft?
Blogger Drago said..."Leftists/libs/dems/LLR-leftists on these boards pronounced Flynn a russian asset treasonous traitor.
Prediction: Not a single one of them will amend their accusations."
Now do a hard one. Will the sun rise tomorrow?
it has been said he "Took a rubber bullet" to expose bad actors
daskol,
You may be right, but it sounds like you have read too many spy novels.
Raymond Remington would have had him dispatched Shirley,
who else worked at Covington, well Michael Chertoff who employed general clapper, who worked legal affairs for dimitro fortash, who lisa page tried to extradite from Austria,
“Think of this as the ultimate way to prevent a full release to the public of documentary proof of the arrogantly criminal operations of the FBI. Barr just saved the FBI's ass.”
Trump has a corrupt DOJ, in more ways than one.
“The story makes more sense to me as part of a conspiracy by Team Trump: Flynn took the plea in a "rope a dope" move, that it was some kind of trap to catch corrupt DOJ officials, expose NSA data mishandling and, perhaps, expose a conspiracy that included his attorneys at Covington. I just don't see a 3-star general tough seeming sonofabitch like Flynn pleading guilty because he was scared.”
There is far more to the Flynn story than he being scared for his son. Flynn lied to Pence, why?
"Dropping the charges against Flynn sends a message to all future National Security Advisors that they too, with impunity, can make themselves vulnerable to Russian blackmail by violating the Logan Act."
Now THAT's funny.
I bet Ben Wittes and his beta-male Lawfare. buddies are really twisting their panties in a ringer.
Is Althouse finally over pre-missing Obama?
Obama signed off on this illegal persecution.
Obama was a coup instigator.
Note that part of the filing was that we do not actually had sufficient evidence that he lied.
Heads need to roll for this.
guilty as charged on the spy novels (almost done with the Daniel silva series narciso posted about once), but this nugget comes from hanging around with conspiracy theorists/qanon types. I have no idea about what really went on with Flynn except to say that the official story of prosecutors running out his cash and threatening his son stinks.
Russia Collusion Truther Inga: "There is far more to the Flynn story than he being scared for his son. Flynn lied to Pence, why?"
LOLOLOLOLOLOL
And there you have it folks.
Inga the Lunatic Conspiracy Theorist moves seamlessly to the NEXT conspiracy based on her amazing mind-reading powers.
As if the previous 4 years never happened at all.
History began anew for her about 15 minutes ago.
Again.
of course, eric holder was senior partner when his firm represented 17 gitmo detainees,
Traditionalguy is likely right again.
Dropping the case is like plugging a leak of damaging information.
Sidney Powell turned this case into a goldmine of propaganda material to use against the establishment in the DOJ, the FBI, and the MSM.
But without the active case this leak is plugged.
This case was not about this case. Thats a much too tactical way to look at it. This had strategic implications, especially in the vital matter of reducing (further) public regard for those institutions. If your enemy is destroying his army in attacking a certain hill, you never want him to stop.
Maybe they can sic her onto some other case.
daskol,
You asked and Royal ass Inga answered.
The hoax believers did not reason themselves into their fantasies.
No amount of reason will see them out.
Now, who does he sue to get his reputation and honor back (and let us not forget all the money he had to spend to defend himself)?
Covington and Burling, although that might open up a waiver of attorney-client privilege issue.
[Vince MacMahon Reaction gif]
.
So, will every Van Grack prosecution be scrutinized by defense lawyers and be relitigated?
@daskol
Prosecutors were threatening to go after Flynn's son. Any parent would go to great lengths to protect his child.
So what investigation were Roger Stone’s lies material to?
Whole thing is a joke.
Inga said...
There is far more to the Flynn story than he being scared for his son. Flynn lied to Pence, why?
5/7/20, 2:43 PM
Inga, repeating the old lie isn't going to do much for your credibility. Mike Pence has been saying that he's deeply troubled by the investigation and increasingly believes it wasn't an intentional lie. And that's before your buddies start going to jail. I give the coup team enough credit that they didn't expect this to stay hidden forever: but those idiots clearly didn't anticipate the entire Mueller inquiry coming apart in advance of the election. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Administration start jailing a lot of prosecutors.
I know it's like shooting womprats,
http://patterico.com/2020/05/07/doj-to-drop-case-against-flynn/#comment-2353832
Covington has plenty of insurance.
Van Grack is such a villainous name.
buwaya: "Traditionalguy is likely right again.
Dropping the case is like plugging a leak of damaging information."
Barr is clearly now attempting to "square the circle" of somehow bringing some integrity back into the DOJ/FBI, purge the coup plotters and hold some accountable when able....but still salvage the institutions themselves.
Unfortunately, that will leave the framework in place for the next democrat President to simply restart all the same domestic spying, IRS targeting, CIA/FBI directed framing of domestic political opponents that we had under obama.
"Russia Collusion Truther Inga: "There is far more to the Flynn story than he being scared for his son. Flynn lied to Pence, why?""
They're beating the "Flynn lied to Pence" drum hard on MSNBC. Why?
buwaya:
Ric Grenell is a honey badger.
He don't give a fuck.
This is not about leaks.
This is about Ric Grenell publicly releasing information damaging to Schiff and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
It's a little bit personal and a lot about correcting a cosmic injustice against the duly elected POTUS.
And the voters.
A blow, frankly, to the Republic.
I have a hard time believing that Flynn would stoop to a guilty plea for these reasons
The thugs "made him an offer he couldn't refuse" -- either his brains or his signature would be on the plea agreement. And because his "lawyers" told him that he had no defense and he would spend his life in prison if he didn't cop to it.
The Flynn prosecution set the whole ball rolling against the Trump admin. And that big ball of crap kept rolling for almost 4 years and certainly helped the Dems win back the House in 2018.
that's there only note to play, se le guerre,
MSNBC is hoping Dem judge Sullivan will order DOJ to continue the case and not allow dismissal. And more, "Putin is smiling..."
So soon?
Christy: "So, will every Van Grack prosecution be scrutinized by defense lawyers and be relitigated?"
No doubt. It's why Van Grack had to withdraw from every case in which he was part of the prosecution team.
In the same way that the dems/deep staters under Mueller/DOJ/FBI have now been proven to have lied to the courts and hidden evidence and doctored evidence and framed political opponents, its going to be a defense counsel smorgasbord of opportunities to challenge the veracity of federal prosecutions.
Lori Loughlin lawyers in the College Admission case have already launched that strategy by claiming the Feds are hiding exculpatory evidence....and what are the Feds going to say? No we aren't?
Who, at this point, will ever believe that again?
Where does Flynn go to get his reputation back? Easy, Trump can hire Flynn to run the FBI.
So after 2 and 9 months we FINALLY get to see the unredecated "secret" scope memo that Rosenstein sent Mueller in August 2017. Again, I'm always amazed at how incurious everyone is about Rod Rosenstein. He was the key man in all this, even more than Comey or even Mueller.
Who is he? Why did Sessions recommend Trump appoint him? Why wasn't he fired immediately after Trump knew Mueller was about to finish his report? Why was RR so buddy, buddy, with McCable, Mueller, and Comey? Why has he skated through all of this?
I'd say based on experience that 95 percent of the time in the criminal justice system, things are on the up and up. It's that other five percent that is hinky.
A LOT of pleas are coerced in some fashion. Often by overcharging and then offering to dismiss all of the charges if the defendant pleads to just one.
I am relatively confident that Nicole Wallace earned her job from Matt Lauer.
The old fashioned way.
MSNBC is Inga-level stupid.
Has Sessions or Trump ever attack Rod Roesenstein? Not that I'm aware of.
It's funny seeing the word "deep state" explode into popular discourse after lingering among the "far right" for years. We had the intelligence community fairly reined in from its pre-Church Committee excesses. But after 9/11, the reins came off. Intelligence is one of those peculiar institutions where huge failures result in bigger budgets and even more power. And there's an incentive to over-exaggerate relatively minor threats, since bigger threats make your job even more indispensable.
We will never get rid of the deep state so long as we believe its core, justifying principle. That our security is massively threatened, and we need a gigantic, exorbitantly expensive, worldwide overt and covert security presence in order to protect ourselves. That is the foundational myth for this out-of-control Frankenstein's monster we've created.
This is great, but I look forward to even better news like when it is revealed that a sitting Senator aided staff in order to leak classified FISA records as part of the conspiracy to stage a soft coup.
Donald Trump Jr. tweet: "Now it’s time to go on the offense. I look forward to watching General Flynn take a flamethrower to these corrupted institutions."
"Possible sign of disagreement"
!
It takes a heart of stone not to laugh.
No misspellings to criticize in this tweet...
Mark,
Maybe so but I am going to nullify any case on which I am a juror if there is any doubt.
I plan to be an unreasonable juror against the government.
Defending oneself is a "sustained attack"? Is uncovering misbehavior, in the form of exculpatory evidence the prosecution failed to disclose, part of a "sustained attack"?
Legal process >>> adversarial >>>> gladiatorial
Sydney Powell has drawn first blood.
were Caesars/Emperors cruel neutral during gladiator circuses?
Daskol
Ask Conrad Black about the cost of defending yourself against the Federal Govt. they have over a 90% conviction rate because they can grind your assets to powder. They enjoy it. Tough guys go as broke as pussies in that system. So you lose your assets and you lose in court.
So, Flynn goes Free. The media doesn't care, because he was only a weapon to hurt Trump and start the Mueller investigation. When Mueller didn't pan out, they thought up Ukraine phone call and impeached Trump on that absurdity. And Traitor Romney voted to remove Trump for it.
Now the liberals and the NYT/WaPo/MSM have CV-19 and a wrecked economy to attack Trump with. So, they don't care about Flynn or Stone anymore.
Another Donald Trump Jr. tweet: "Strange I haven’t seen a sanctimonious tweet from Comey in a while. I guess he’s busy with his legal team???"
J Farmer,
The expansion of the IC is one reason I detest the whole Bush family.
Fuck those guys.
I doubt it was a rope a dope move. This was too damaging to Trump early on and it turned into Verdun for the deep state only lately. Trump has been running with a shoestring staff, and in many cases an untrustworthy one. There is no way all the minutiae of politico-legal warfare could have been anticipated and planned for.
daskol speculates, maybe, that someone had something else on Flynn. Thats possible, but if so it should have been charged. Official blackmail is very dirty pool. The fact that someone (someones) in authority would make private, unofficial threats is corruption. And it is very likely also criminal, one way or another.
Every day its a new weapon to attack Trump. If Trump wins in November 2020, they'll think up a new one.
The lesson I want people to learn is that it is wrong to use the power of government to achieve political objectives. For that lesson to sink in, this episode must reflect badly on the reputations of Sally Yates, James Comey, and Brandon Van Grack. And it should put an end to the groundless claim by Obama and his supporters that there were no scandals during his Presidency. I'm still waiting for some to explain to me why these actions are not worse than the actions of the Nixon Administration during Watergate.
jack carr is my new favorite action suspenser, chris pratt will do the adaptation for amazon,
OM: "They're beating the "Flynn lied to Pence" drum hard on MSNBC. Why?"
Because it takes it out of the DOJ/FBI framework and puts it into a Even Trump/Pence Believed Flynn Lied.
However, both Trump and Pence now know that Rosenstein and Yates and the FBI crooks lied to them to make them believe that when Flynn said to Pence, Hey, Nothing Wrong With That Phone Call, it was a lie.
Trump/Pence and everyone else can now see the entire exposed scam.
But that's why MSDNC and the ChiCom News Network (CNN) are pushing that angle.
It's no different than Trump/Pence now understanding fully the bill of goods they were sold by the deep state "experts" which mandated crushing our economy into another depression.
Trump/Pence will run with the Okay Okay, We Saved 2,000,000 Lives gambit all the way through November while opening up the nation to recovery, but Trump/Pence will not be falling for another ChiCom/WHO scam again.
Birkel -- even when you have a slam-dunk case, it's always a roll of the dice when it goes to the jury.
"MSNBC is hoping Dem judge Sullivan will order DOJ to continue the case and not allow dismissal."
I kinda do too, because I fear tradguy is right.
But can a judge force the DOJ to prosecute a case they don't want to. How would that work?
Flynn was too stupid to be NSA. He didn't last long and was a bad choice. but he didn't deserve to have his life Ruined because Comey/McCabe/Rosenstein hated trump.
Drago said...
Leftists/libs/dems/LLR-leftists on these boards pronounced Flynn a russian asset treasonous traitor.
Prediction: Not a single one of them will amend their accusations. Most of them are too busy defending sexual assault and proclaiming #BelieveAllBidens.
Historically, we have seen many cultures where honor was highly esteemed. The "Leftists/libs/dems/LLR-leftists" would be honor bound to an act of self-abnegation for their lies and failures. The Japanese call it seppuku, the Romans opened their veins, the Germans opferhandlung, the Russians called it "saving yourself the formality of a trial". At the very least stop polluting honest discussion of people trying to make sense of the world with your abject and utter nonsense! Don't go away mad - just go away!
It's funny seeing the word "deep state" explode into popular discourse after lingering among the "far right" for years.
Even more ironic is that it began on the left, on Bill Moyers' blog.
Maybe Judge Sullivan can try Flynn himself. Or he can play the defense team too. These judges need to be reeled in. Too many of them think they're God on Earth.
So, the Russia collusion hoax completely implodes. There’s no longer any doubt that the FBI and intel (and the Dems) conspired to try to drive Trump out of office. Conspiracies, it turns out, are sometimes real.
Next up... this pandemic, while real (but nowhere near as terrifying as advertised), is yet another Get Trump gambit. The shutdown of the economy was and remains a planned strategy to try to drive Trump out of office.
A conspiracy of the CCP, the Democratic Party and the Democratic controlled press.
But can a judge force the DOJ to prosecute a case they don't want to. How would that work?
There is nothing to prosecute. Flynn already pleaded guilty.
There are thus only two steps left -- either proceed to sentencing or dismiss.
Right-wingers are always triumphantly declaring that the Media or some D or some liberal won't apologize for being found wrong. Yeah, that's right. They don't care. What are you going to do about it?
would Flynn be the vorkosian character, Narayan or some other figure,
if Ellsberg had been convicted based on evidence drawn from his psychiatrists office,
Flynn was completely, and in secret, betrayed by his own original Covington legal team which was working with the Mueller Stasi to frame him.
I'm not a lawyer, but wouldn't that be a conspiracy to deprive Flynn of his civil rights? Shouldn't he at least be able to sue his original legal team? And shouldn't they be disbarred at the least?
Not so soon on Comey...
19 min:
James Comey
@Comey
·
20m
The DOJ has lost its way. But, career people: please stay because America needs you. The country is hungry for honest, competent leadership.
I confess that I don't know enough of federal procedure about whether the prosecutor can dismiss without leave of court.
Dem judge Emmett Sullivan was one of the "Magnificent Seven" judges who would meet in secret during the Clinton administration.
"Where does Flynn go to get his reputation back? Easy, Trump can hire Flynn to run the FBI."
I love that idea.
Sullivan was unwilling to go on a limb, after the Schulte revealed the malfeasance in the stevens case, and his suspensions were reversed by comey, if memory served, after chad joy the whistleblower of mary beth kempners fixation with lead witness William allen, was forced out,
rcocean: "So after 2 and 9 months we FINALLY get to see the unredecated "secret" scope memo that Rosenstein sent Mueller in August 2017. Again, I'm always amazed at how incurious everyone is about Rod Rosenstein. He was the key man in all this, even more than Comey or even Mueller."
No one is "incurious" about Rosenstein. He's been at the heart of this from the beginning. Including the willingness to wear a wire to advance the 25th Amendment and Mueller Hoax-vestigation gambits.
But Barr is clearly, clearly, attempting to salvage the depts and I have to believe that Rosenstein is probably assisting in some way so as to come out of this as cleanly as possible.
If you look at all the coupsters involved at all levels, Rosenstein is clearly the wormiest, slimiest, play on all sides of the game-iest of them all.
That is why I suspect Rosenstein is assisting Barr. But don't expect too much in a public way on that. Take McCabe for example: using the BS Logan Act and the already completely discredited hoax dossier (that is now recognized to be likely Russky disinformation validating illegally obtained FISA 702 Database queries run by FusionGPS and other dem firms)....but McCabe will definitely have the goods on lots and lots of others involved, including Rosenstein. So Barr is attempting to protect Rosenstein from exposure by his co-coupsters.
Inga,
You are mentally ill. Seek help
Ron Winkleheimer: "I'm not a lawyer, but wouldn't that be a conspiracy to deprive Flynn of his civil rights? Shouldn't he at least be able to sue his original legal team? And shouldn't they be disbarred at the least?"
Gee, I certainly hope so.
And kudos to Tar Heel Sidney Powell.
So, conspiracy theories, we just discovered, are sometimes true.
320Busdriver said...
20m
The DOJ has lost its way. But, career people: please stay because America needs you. The country is hungry for honest, competent leadership.
5/7/20, 3:07 PM
Hell yeah. Try to keep your jobs, bitches. Throw yourselves on the sword for goddamn Jim Comey. I want you to lose those sweet government pensions, and that won't happen if you just retire.
the stevens case as you know, allowed the victory of nick begoff (sic) enabled the 58th vote for Obamacare, franken was the 59th
Need Trump or Barr or Association of retired FBI agents to light a fire under Chris Wray. Way too passive and tentative.
Looking forward to judge setting a hearing on the government's motion. It would be good if he questioned government on its decrying in motion of FBI SOPs.
Russia Collusion Truther Inga: "There is far more to the Flynn story than he being scared for his son. Flynn lied to Pence, why?"
The story was based on the illegally recorded call to the ambassador. Supposedly Pence asked if the call concerned sanctions. Flynn supposedly said no. Is that what really happened or did the FBI give Pence bad info ?
I just hope Flynn and Powell go after Brennan and Comey and Rice and Yates. Discovery should be interesting. The House intel transcripts will be a start. The timing will also be interesting as indictments pile up in the next four months.
Inga may be on suicide watch by November 3.
Mark: "Birkel -- even when you have a slam-dunk case, it's always a roll of the dice when it goes to the jury."
DC juries, drawing from a very partisan 98% democrat base pool in the nations capital, ground zero of The Resistance, are never a "roll of the dice" when the dems need something.
Ever.
Flynn was too stupid to be NSA. He didn't last long and was a bad choice. but he didn't deserve to have his life Ruined because Comey/McCabe/Rosenstein hated trump.
Flynn is stupid? Then why was Obama warning Trump about Flynn, because Obama thought Flynn was stupid? I thought it was because Flynn was dangerous: to the JCPOA, to intelligence/counterintelligence swamp creatures and to every doctrine held dear by establishment types in this field. Trump was the ultimate target, but Flynn was also a target himself, not just a means to damage Trump. There's always more to the story, but this narrative of Flynn's fall makes no sense to me. That's why I speculate that they had either other damaging stuff on him, or he was laying a trap with his plea and ingenuous treatment of the FBI early on: assume he's not stupid, and it just doesn't add up.
I think he should be appointed to a high lvl position in the Intelligence community and have him do again what he was trying to do. reform them.
Make them now have to work FOR him again after fucking him over.
'bring me the head of alfredo Garcia, I mean Stefan halper, he planted more breadcrumbs in the press,
Covington has plenty of insurance.
Your insurance company isn't going to pay out a judgement if it resulted from you engaging in blatantly illegal acts.
No Jim, the country is hungry to see pompous piece of shit corrupt peacocks like yourself get exactly what you deserve.
The lawsuits, by Flynn and fils, be a'coming.
Unless there are consequences - serious consequences - to the thugs who did this, they'll simply do it again.
No one is "incurious" about Rosenstein. He's been at the heart of this from the beginning. Including the willingness to wear a wire to advance the 25th Amendment and Mueller Hoax-vestigation gambits.
His sister disappeared from the CDC team in a hurry.
Which 'conspiracy theory' is nuttier?
1. The Trump campaign conspired with the Russians.
2. The bribees had their flying monkeys do the smear.
rcocean: "Flynn was too stupid to be NSA. He didn't last long and was a bad choice."
Flynn is a brilliant intel strategist who effectively analyzed what was happening with obambi's ME tactics/strategies and Flynn was committed to massively overhauling intel gathering and analysis.
For you to say he was too stupid to be NSA simply opens you up to charges of stupidity.
slandered Svetlana lokova, who was a whistleblower against sberbank, which was curiously flacked by john podesta, quelle surprise,
"In a possible sign of disagreement with the Justice Department decision, Brandon L. Van Grack, an assistant United States attorney who led the prosecution of Mr. Flynn, abruptly withdrew from the case on Thursday. Mr. Flynn’s lawyers have repeatedly attacked Mr. Van Grack by name in court filings, citing his “incredible malfeasance.”"
The liberal media continues to spin, hopefully to no avail. It's looking bad for the crooks, aka the Democrats and their liberal media co-conspirators.
Jim at: "Unless there are consequences - serious consequences - to the thugs who did this, they'll simply do it again."
And next time they won't be so overconfident and will make sure there are no records to document what they are up to.
Trump was the ultimate target, but Flynn was also a target himself, not just a means to damage Trump
I agree completely,
The Russia hoax was aimed at Michael Flynn and his role as a Trump advisor.
It was all about General Flynn. I think it began on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, when Flynn changed the way we did intelligence against the likes of Zarqawi, bin Laden, the Taliban, and their allies.
General Flynn saw that our battlefield intelligence was too slow.
He was a reformer who was after rice bowls and had to be stopped.
The outer layer of the coup is laid bare. IF we had a real investigative media, a functioning 4th branch of government, this would be the story of the century. Any kind of journalist with any kind of enthusiasm about their work, any interest in the truth, or a STORY, would be all over this.
Instead, we'll hear how Cuomo didn't get 40,000 ventilators when he wanted them. They will literally wait for their instructions from the DNC on how to frame this story. You know it and I know it. I'm so disgusted with our press it'll last me the rest of my life.
in point of fact, almost all members of the deep state gang, halper, vindman, et al, were as much deep in borscht and Stolichnaya, then anybody in the docket,
So it begins! YES. YES. YES. YES. YES. YES.
A gigantic shout out for Sydney Powell! She knew the enemy and showed incredible courage attacking them. She has shown that the FBI/Intelligence community can be wounded, weakened and ultimately overcome. If I were Barr I would enlist her to go after the Mueller crew ; she has already written a book about what an incredible schmuck Weissman is.
Everything is a conspiracy.
But no particular conspiracy theory (that has been aired in public) is correct, entirely, even if it is just incomplete, as this one is.
And most of these conspiracy theories are likely entirely wrong.
There is simply insufficient information. Most of whats going on is simply invisible, and the players have (most of them, most of the time) impunity.
they couldn't court-martial him, like they did with general billy Mitchell, the air power strategist, they couldn't reasonably convict him, so they created this kerfluffle,
I think Flynn's lawyers will ultimately be disbarred, or should I say, they be got Barred thanks to United States Attorney General William Barr.
@Birkel:
The expansion of the IC is one reason I detest the whole Bush family.
Fuck those guys.
Yes, the Bush family influence on American society has been mostly awful. But at least the elder Bush still had some old WASP values tugging at his heart strings. His sons are boomer nitwits.
From being a near pauper Flynn is going to become a rich man thanks to the US government, Covington and Burling, Jim Comey and Andrew McCabe.
It isn’t over yet.
Shutting down the economy is another episode of this conspiracy to Get Trump.
I confess that I don't know enough of federal procedure about whether the prosecutor can dismiss without leave of court.
narcissi's link to patterico has lawyers in the comments saying that the DOJ can only recommend dropping the case, and that the judge has to approve it.
What the hell happened to patterico, man? Wow that is sad stuff over there.
overlapping circles of influence that share group think and common objectives, would we call that conspiracy, or standard operating procedure,
I'm late to the party, but the popcorn is popping while I begin to read comments. Personally, I'm disappointed, because I wanted to hear from Judge Sullivan after his comments to Flynn from the bench (that Sullivan later apologized as being too excessive, which I agree).
That Flynn was abused in this way is an outrage.
That he knowingly hired a twenty zillion dollars an hour law firm and went bankrupt with them I am less sympathetic about. His belief in the elite is his own folly. Had he hired a run-of-the-mill criminal defense attorney he'd had gotten better representation.
Still, they owe him a full refund. But they would have had an ethical obligation to repay him a lot of the money even if they had done their job in the first place and beaten the charges. There is an obligation that fees be reasonable, but ethics is less and less a real thing anywhere, including the legal profession.
"A gigantic shout out for Sydney Powell! She knew the enemy and showed incredible courage attacking them. She has shown that the FBI/Intelligence community can be wounded, weakened and ultimately overcome. If I were Barr I would enlist her to go after the Mueller crew ; she has already written a book about what an incredible schmuck Weissman is."
Yeah, She's smart, tough and extremely articulate.
Come to think of it, how did that last of the American patrician class manage to produce such a uniformly unimpressive cast of heirs? Could it have been avoided, or is it simply the natural consequence of being the third and fourth generations of unearned privilege, status, and wealth?
my favorite narrative from the qanon kooks has Michael Flynn (and Jeff Sessions, lol) recruiting Donald Trump to run for president as part of a long-planned civil insurrection against the establishment, and that Mueller was actually on Team Trump in this scenario--the whole Russia Hoax was actually a honeypot trap into which the deep state fell. Any day now, there will be a mass arrest of the conspirators. I don't believe a word of it, but that would be so fucking cool.
a message to all future National Security Advisors that they too, with impunity, can make themselves vulnerable to Russian blackmail by violating the Logan Act.
Seems a bit narrow, John Kerry was a Secretary of State.
Leland: "Personally, I'm disappointed, because I wanted to hear from Judge Sullivan after his comments to Flynn from the bench (that Sullivan later apologized as being too excessive, which I agree)."
I think Sullivan has been allowing this to be completely slow-walked by DOJ in trying to push off Judgement Day until after the election so the dems could continue to use their now completely exposed lies for one more election cycle.
Sure Sullivan looked like a "good enough guy" when he blasted DOJ after the Stevens inquisition but this is much bigger: this is the effort to get rid of Trump and Sullivan is doing his part.
Flynn was not competent at dealing with the deep state attack on him.
He did not understand that his own lawyers were untrustworthy.
He went along with the absurd advice they gave him.
A trusting man is not suitable for such an internal struggle.
He may have been good at military intelligence management vs an open foe, but obviously not at institutional civil wars.
He needed to be the biggest snake in the snakepit.
welcome to the party have a beer
https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2020/05/06/former-fbi-official-and-cnn-analyst-changes-his-mind-now-says-michael-flynn-was-railroaded/
Would still like to hear from Judge Sullivan. I suspect the DOJ did not.
as opposed to general McMaster, john Bolton seems to have sunk into the swamp, having been a retainer of victor chimkin (sic)
pinchuk, who also employed doug schoen, erstwhile employee of mike Bloomberg,
buwaya: "He may have been good at military intelligence management vs an open foe, but obviously not at institutional civil wars.
He needed to be the biggest snake in the snakepit."
I would suggest that given his personal experience, Flynn would be the perfect candidate for running any of our intel agencies and pushing change.
I would suggest he is......highly motivated.
Inga may be on suicide watch by November 3.
The purpose of suicide watch is to prevent such an occurrence.
buwaya always has observations worth reading! With respect to Gen. Flynn:
"He did not understand that his own lawyers were untrustworthy.
He went along with the absurd advice they gave him."
But in Flynn's defense, most people would think a firm the status of Covington & Burling would be beyond reproach. That firm needs to feel the pain of their failure.
I don't necessarily disagree Drago. Indeed, my only respect for Sullivan is his apology, although I don't know if he made that apology directly to Flynn. I just thought Sullivan's comments about Flynn being a traitor to be absurd and unwarranted.
I see people post stuff like that in Internet discussions like this, but nothing of the evidence known at the time showed Flynn to be a traitor. Even in Yates wildest dreams, Flynn might have violated the Logan Act by doing his future job several weeks too early. But it was public knowledge at the time of Sullivan's statements that Flynn had received permission to meet with the Russian Ambassador to discuss Trump's administrative plans, which indeed meant "nothing wrong" happened with the Ambassador. There was no Logan Act violations, other than John Kerry meeting with Iran a year ago.
"Come to think of it, how did that last of the American patrician class manage to produce such a uniformly unimpressive cast of heirs? Could it have been avoided, or is it simply the natural consequence of being the third and fourth generations of unearned privilege, status, and wealth?"
Yeah, they became diluted, deluded and now, hopefully, they'll become deleted.
The larger picture is that you have an ongoing caste war, being fought on every front.
The interest of the "volk" side, Trumps, for now, in this matter as so many others, is that those institutions held by the other side must be destroyed.
There is no reform possible here, thats absurd. This is an entirely different category of situation. You have a war, and every member of all your institutions is a participant. If any of the "volk" are still members of these institutions, they are behind enemy lines.
MSNBC is Inga-level stupid.
Inge is trying her best.
The purpose of suicide watch is to prevent such an occurrence.
That's what they told Epstein.
But in Flynn's defense, most people would think a firm the status of Covington & Burling would be beyond reproach.
I've had some dealings with some of these "top" law firms in D.C. They have done some high-level work for the place where I work. I've not been impressed -- and in fact have been pissed off about them more than once.
Come to think of it, how did that last of the American patrician class manage to produce such a uniformly unimpressive cast of heirs? Could it have been avoided, or is it simply the natural consequence of being the third and fourth generations of unearned privilege, status, and wealth?
Have you never heard the Chinese proverb"
"First generation coolie,
Second generation merchant,
Third generation rich man,
Fourth generation coolie."
The Murdoch family is living it now.
Barr is Doing what the dear leader wants him to do.
Vicki from Pasadena
RE: welcome to the party have a beer
The line it is drawn the curse it is cast
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'
I would suggest that given his personal experience, Flynn would be the perfect candidate for running any of our intel agencies and pushing change.
It's tempting to think of the ending of "Captain Blood" in this context. Flynn needs to get his life back, I suspect. Starting with lawsuits against a number of actors, including the law firm, Covington. At least their fees plus punitive damages.
@Drago:
I would suggest that given his personal experience, Flynn would be the perfect candidate for running any of our intel agencies and pushing change.
The heads can never really push any significant change. They're shuffled around too much. That's part of why there is a deep state in the first place.
HuffPo’s take:
He’s still guilty because he confessed.
victoria said...
Barr is Doing what the dear leader wants him to do.
Vicki from Pasadena
Vicki is as clueless as Inga.
Do you have a low mileage car for sale, Vicki ?
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