NOT PROSECUTING MICHAEL FLYNN IS AN ATTACK ON THE RULE OF LAW PART II

…Former Lt General, Michael Flynn & son

It’s disgusting that AG  Barr is saying he is, ”doing the law’s bidding”..

The House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) has said that all Americans should be “furious” with a move that dropping the charges against Michael Flynn was the act of a “politicized and thoroughly corrupt Justice Department”. He also called for the decision to be investigated by Justice Department’s inspector general.

There was a chorus of former federal prosecutors and FBI officials that decried the move, saying that the Justice Department had caved to pressure from Trump.  This move also provided Flynn an outcome he would not have received were he an ordinary American defendant.

The Attorney General Barr, has often questioned the Russia investigation. He said in an interview with CBS that it was the Justice Department’s “duty” to dismiss the case because prosecutors could not establish that a crime had been committed.  It that’s really true, why did Flynn plead guilty twice under oath?

Of course, AG Barr has disputed that he was doing Trump’s bidding: “No, I’m doing the law’s bidding,” he responded, and said he was ready to take criticism for the decision.  It’s disgusting that he is saying he is, ”doing the law’s bidding”, that's nonsense.

Then Barr added: “I’m prepared for that, but I also think it’s sad that nowadays, these partisan feelings are so strong that people have lost any sense of justice,” that's more nonsense.

This is not partisan, it is following the law that even Flynn admitted that he was guilty,

Flynn only served for 23 days as national security adviser, and he lied to the vice president about his discussions with the Russian Ambassador weeks before Trump took office.  During his calls with the Russian, Flynn urged Russia not to respond to sanctions imposed by the Obama administration for the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 campaign.  This is according to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

However, after Mueller concluded his work and issued his report last year, Flynn replaced his legal team and sought to withdraw his guilty plea, arguing that his FBI interview had been a setup and designed to catch him in a lie.

A 20-page court filing from the Department of Justice essentially endorsed those views, arguing that the FBI had no justifiable reason to interview Flynn and would not be able to prove in court that he had made false statements.

The filing was signed by US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Timothy Shea, but in a statement, another prosecutor, appointed by Barr in January to review the Flynn matter, said the move had been his (Barr’s) recommendation.

The decision came without the blessing of any officials who had originally decided to investigate and then prosecute Flynn.  (This is highly unusual to not have additional officials supporting the decision.)  FBI Director James Comey and his deputy Andrew McCabe, who had directed Flynn’s interview, were both ousted by Trump.  In statements and tweets, both Comey and McCabe spoke out at the latest decision.

“This is simply a pardon by another name. A black day in DOJ history,” tweeted Michael Bromwich, a former federal prosecutor and inspector general at the Justice Department who now represents McCabe.

Through a representative, Mueller declined to comment. But the final member of Mueller’s team who had remained involved with the Flynn case, Brandon Van Grack, withdrew in protest from the case, just before the filing was entered.

Needless to say, something really smells about the AG's moves.

Current and former national security officials have said they were dismayed by the Justice Department’s reasoning.  This argues the point that it was improper to again question Flynn about his contacts with the Russian ambassador as part of the FBI investigation into possible cooperation between Russia and the Trump campaign.  That’s because they already had Flynn on the recorded phone call with the Russian diplomat.

Flynn had been a senior campaign adviser for Trump and had traveled to Russia in 2015 at the request of a Russian state-run media organization. 

“There’s no question that [the reasons] existed” for the FBI to talk to Flynn, said Susan Hennessey, a former attorney for the National Security Agency (NSA) and the executive editor of Lawfare. “I think this brief makes selective arguments as though they represent the totality of conditions, in order to make completely reasonable, fully supported investigative decisions to appear as if they were illegitimate or even unlawful.”

And national security experts who think Russia was never held accountable for its role in disrupting the 2016 election said they fear the Kremlin would be very pleased with AG Barr getting involved.

“Russia will see this as a huge victory. A sign both of American weakness and of a corrupt American judicial system, in which they can continue meddling in our affairs and get away with it,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer who oversaw operations in Europe and Russia at the time of the 2016 U.S. campaign.

Trump spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, afterward telling reporters that he had discussed with Putin how “the Russia hoax” had damaged his ability to work with Moscow.

“They’re a very powerful nation. Why would we not be dealing with each other? But the Russia hoax, this absolute dishonest hoax, made it very difficult for our nation and their nation to deal,” Trump told reporters.

The end of the Flynn prosecution has provided Trump a resounding final victory over the Mueller investigation, which consumed nearly two years of his presidency, but it ended last year with a finding that the evidence did not establish that Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia in 2016.

Likewise, despite compiling a lengthy, damaging narrative of Trump’s efforts to derail the probe, Mueller declined to offer a finding as to whether Trump had engaged in obstruction of justice. In the end, Trump emerged from the investigation essentially unscathed. Mueller disbanded his office, just last June.

In a 434-page report last year, the Justice Department’s inspector general found that the FBI’s investigation had not been driven by political bias, but also concluded that there were serious flaws in the surveillance of Trump aide Carter Page, who was investigated in 2016, but never charged.

However, last year, Barr intervened to reduce the sentencing recommendation issued by career officials who had prosecuted Trump confidant Roger Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress, obstructing an official proceeding and witness tampering.  This move by Barr prompted the withdrawal in protest of all four prosecutors who had overseen the case.  More proof that Barr is acting as Trump’s personal lawyer.

Stone was ultimately sentenced to 40 months in prison. He is appealing his conviction. But as with Flynn, Trump has repeatedly bemoaned Stone’s prosecution and insisted that he has been treated unfairly.

Across the right wing of the Republican Party, the Justice Department’s recommendation was taken as support of their own views of the Russia probe.  Many allies of the president are casting the prosecution of Flynn as an example of an attempted “coup” by the “deep state,” and allies of the Democratic Party and former president Barack Obama.

In a tweet, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, noted the Flynn and Page findings, and added, “Someone remind me [why] we needed $30M+ Mueller collusion investigation?”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), a top ally of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said the recommendation “reminds me of a haunting question by ex-Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan, who after his acquittal in a 1987 fraud trial, asked, ‘Which office do I go to get my reputation back?’ ”

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who is influential in conservative legal circles, tweeted, “What happened to Gen. Flynn was a travesty.” And Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) called Flynn “the victim of a plot hatched at the highest levels of the FBI to take down” Trump.

Flynn’s lawyer, Sidney Powell, disgustingly indicated that the Justice Department’s decision was not the end of the matter, calling it “the first step toward restoring the importance of truth and the rule of law.”

Republicans signaled that they intended to continue to press what they see as their advantage on the Russia issue, particularly as Trump’s campaign against Biden heats up.

So, basically the Republicans are on the side of Trump and the Russian involvement in the American 2016 election.

Two White House officials and an outside Trump adviser said Thursday afternoon that the Trump campaign was considering using the Flynn case to argue that Biden and Obama should be blamed for what the White House sees as an unjust conspiracy against the president.

Hours later, the Trump campaign even put out a statement saying that “a corrupt witch hunt” against Flynn had taken place “on Vice President Joe Biden’s watch.” And of course the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., like his father by using Twitter, he called for revenge against officials who had been involved in the investigation.  “It’s time for some transparency & bad actors should be punished accordingly, you know, the way they would have punished us!” he wrote.

The campaign for the 2020 election is already showing just how dirty it’s going to get.

Everyone, better get used to what we are going to see coming from Trump and what is unfortunately left of the GOP.

Copyright G. Ater 2020