More Evidence that The Comey FBI was a Malevolent Clown Show by Larry C Johnson

I believe in repentance and redemption. But the FBI remains an unrepentant, vile sinner. Yesterday, Tuesday, the FBI and the Department of Justice made a stunning admission in the Michael Flynn case--they mislabeled evidence. DOJ sheepishly admitted that the notes of the interview of Michael Flynn taken by Agent Pientka actually belonged to Agent Strzok and that the notes attributed to Strzok actually belonged to Pientka. Holy Guacamole, Batman. It is still not clear that the FBI is freely confessing its sin and is committed to turning its bureaucratic life around. 

There is no good news in this for the government's case. At a minimum it exposes the FBI as incompetent clowns. At worse, it may be evidence of a deliberate effort to deceive the defense and the judge. It has been exposed because of the insistent demands of the principled Sidney Powell, a relentless Honey Badger. That woman will not quit in demanding that General Flynn be treated fairly. She knows right from wrong. Cannot say the same for the FBI. The Bureau is a disgrace.

Now that we know that the FBI mislabeled the notes taken by the FBI agents during their interview of General Flynn, it would appear the entire case is in jeopardy. The foundation of the charge that Flynn lied about his conversation with the Russian Ambassador is predicated on the notes the FBI agents took and then turned into a 302 report. I asked one of my retired FBI buddies (he served as a Special Agent in Charge of a large US city) if the agents were required to date and sign their notes. He replied: 

No, we did not sign and date notes. They were placed in a 1-A (evidence) Envelope which had our name and the date collected along with the file number and, I believe, the case title. The 1-As were kept as part of the original case file. They were not entered into evidence like other things we collected.

Those notes should have been placed in an "evidence" envelope with the appropriate name and date on the envelope. How could so-called professionals screw up something this basic?

There was something more nefarious afoot. Let's put this into the broader context. If Flynn actually had lied to Strzok and Pientka that fact would have been reflected in the notes and the original 302. But that did not happen. A normal routine would be to write up the 302 and put it into final within five days. That did not happen. The original 302 still has not been produced. However, Ms. Powell has presented exhibits showing that there were other versions of the 302 generated and that substantive, unsupportable changes were made. The "final" 302 essentially made the case that Flynn lied.

But Sidney Powell has produced documentary evidence showing that Strzok stated he did not believe that Flynn lied. And there was more FBI misconduct. General Flynn, for example, was not advised of the need to have a lawyer present nor was he shown the transcript of the call that was illegally recorded by the NSA. At no point was he given a chance to correct the record. It was a total setup and designed to paint Flynn as a liar and a collaborator with the Russians. This is malevolently diabolical conduct by law enforcement officers.

Honey Badger Powell's terrific lawyering and insistence on getting her hands on the evidence the US Government is withholding has now backed the Mueller team into a corner. Sidney Powell has exposed staggering misconduct and malfeasance. Michael Flynn will be exonerated. The only real question is whether or not the prosecutors will be held in contempt and tried.

Comments

[Jack]

Larry

Why doesn’t the FBI, just record an interview? It’s not that video cameras and tape recorders are a new invention. Is the objective to manipulate using written interpretations of conversations?

[Mr Zarate]

I'm worried there won't be any popcorn left by the time we get to the end of this sorry saga. It would be nice to think that success by Sidney Powell might be the start of the finale in this duplicitous story but I doubt it. The world is upside down and to many this is now a matter of belief not evidence, something that has been largely caused be an entirely partisan mainstream media (interested only in improving its revenue stream) and what can only be described as a totally gullible section of the voting public.

[Upstate NY'er]

One thing, Flynn has one hell of a lawsuit against his prior lawyers - a well known swamp law firm.
Egregious malpractice if not outright conspiring with the prosecutors.

[Diana C]

Nothing can bring back the time he has spent in this horrible situation.

I think for most of us, it was clear from the start that Flynn was just used by the Democrats (and FBI) as "meat" for their mindless followers to get them excited for the never ending impeachment quest.

Again, people should never be used as a means to an end. They are ends in themselves. (Kant)

[Factotum]

How did Sidney Powell become involved in this long, on-going case? She can't ethically "solicit" the business, but someone must have put Flynn in touch with her -- at what point. What made Flynn seek legal advice elsewhere.

Flynn seemed so passive about facing these drummed up charges earlier in the case - what exactly was he trying to protect his son about that allegedly caused this legal passivity about his own case.

Love watching this unfold and the lessons in " big government" that come with it. But Flynn having to live out a modern day Greek tragedy is a very high price to pay for our civics lesson.

[Brent]

From what I have read, I gather that the FBI in the Mueller / Comey era has made extensive use of "perjury traps". They then threaten charges to get someone to "flip" on someone bigger, in this case Trump. Flynn wouldn't flip even when they threatened to go after Flynn's son. So they decided to "F" him, as stated by Andrew McCabe.

The FBI has been thoroughly disgraced, and Wray is incapable of cleaning it up. He just wants to keep the dirt under the rug. It is too late for that, it is all coming out. US citizens deserve to know how dirty our FBI and CIA are - they are criminal organizations.

[Dave Schuler]

Why bother? With today's image synthesizing technology they can just create such videos to order.

[Mr Zarate]

Apparently they were going to paint them, to go alongside the written notes but they didn't like the mess.

[Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12)]

Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins. Could it be my Russian paranoia. Nah, I am being unreasonable--those people never had a bad feeling towards Trump's attempts to boost Russian-American relations with Michael Flynn spearheading this effort. Jokes aside, however, I can only imagine how SVR and GRU are enjoying the spectacle. I can only imagine how many "free" promotions and awards can be attach to this thing as a free ride.

[Factotum]

I am reminded of Susan MacDougall in the Clinton Whitewater case, decades ago -she claimed "they' were trying to make her flip too - can't remember who was on which side, but was it also government prosecutors against a vulnerable individual who they had hope to break to get the goods they decided they wanted? If so, I guess we need generational reminders of the awesome and terrifying powers of an overly powerful "government".

[artemesia]

Perhaps Larry Johnson knows -- Does Michael Flynn have some form of redress agains the government, some established protocol for compensation for the misery and expense he's been put through? Or are lawsuits against former lawyers his only option to try to recoup legal expenses?

Strozk's caree/life is over. An interesting meditation: is he an evil man, or did he get caught up in something larger than he could handle? (He thought he had what it took to swim with the sharks, but he was just a barnacle. Or steelhead trout.)

The "unidentified" supposed whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, is young - early 30s. Age of consent, for sure, but very young, the "age of youthful ambition," a different category from Strozk, the age of damn well should have known better. I would judge Eric -- whom I suspect was at very least put up to carrying out dirty deeds for Biden and careerism -- less harshly than Strozk.

[LA Sox Fan]

FBI interviews are not recorded because if they were, then the interview subject could not be falsely charged with the felony of lying to a federal investigator.

[Factotum]

Many/most government actions are privileged and not subject to legal recourse, but a clear abrogation of one's constitutional rights opens up the option of Bivens action. See Biven's case.

[Factotum]

Asked and answered: Powell tussled dramatically in the past with Andrew Weissman over his role in the government's prosecution of Enron steam roller cases. She finally got court vindication for her clients 9 years later.

Why does Andrew Weissman's name keep popping up just about everywhere now, when one is looking in pari delitci (including our now famous Pierre Delecto)?

[Coleen Rowley]

I need to write about the long history of the FBI honoring J. Edgar Hoover's policy, even countering former Director Louis Freeh, after a meeting in mid 1990's with a federal judge who had same suggestion, ORDERED the FBI to begin tape recording confessions and even after many states like Minnesota, began to find their own constitutions required tape-recording (at least of custodial confessions). After Freeh ordered the FBI to begin tape-recording, a number of SACs argued the advantages for prosecutorial purposes of sticking with the old policy of allowing Agents to write up, from memory and notes, what subjects and witnesses said. The SACs made the point that juries would always tend to believe agents over the word of defendants. So Freeh backed down. Flynn's attorney ought to request these memos documenting how FBI policy was deliberately kept antiquated because it was advantageous.

[uncle tungsten]

Hang Charlie with a shorter rope.

[jd hawkins]

If you are THE Coleen Rowley... I have to say I... and many others have great admiration for you.

[akaPatience]

If all of this corruption were carried out to entrap or thwart a liberal Democrat instead of Trump and his associates, we all know the MSM would be banging a drum of utter outrage, 24/7. We'd never hear the end of a story such as this -- that the FBI misidentified the authors of Flynn's interview notes. Unbelievable.

A while back, I recall reading about a sexual discrimination or harassment case involving FBI's Andrew McCabe in which Gen. Flynn intervened on behalf of the female accuser, and it was thought by some that the bogus charge against the general was in part an act of revenge on McCabe's behalf. There are so many dots out there, unconnected, because the MSM is doing its best to suppress the truth.

How long can they continue to hear, see and speak no evil if the you-know-what hits the fan? I guess we're going to find out.

[jd hawkins]

" I can only imagine how SVR and GRU are enjoying the spectacle".

Guess the neo fbi is enjoying it too________ or not so much!!!

[confusedponderer]

Factorum,
re: I guess we need generational reminders of the awesome and terrifying powers of an overly powerful "government".

I'd put it more precise - "the awesome and terrifying powers of ANY overly powerful "government".

If it's an Obama FBI crew getting after you or a Trump FBI crew - it must be very bad every time, guilty of anything or not.

A classic case of how really bad it can get is Brazil's evangelical Bolsonaro.

Iirc a brazilian tv station had reported that his son was likely deeply involved in the murder of a left polician or reporter in Brazil, a deed done by former brazilian cops who also happened to call Bolsonaro's house.

Bolsonaro simply freaked out and was not interested at all in any investigation or the question whether the report was accurate. He simply threatened the tv station that, when reelected, he would nullify their media license.

He showed no interrest in any reality or facts but was just trying to brutally silence and intimidate the media outlet he doesn't like.

He also suggested that his son should become Brazil's ambassador to the US. Probably a perfect job since Trump doesn't have any problems with the Saudi murder prince MbS as well.

A crook by the book ...

[JohninMK]

Is this just a situation where the DoJ are giving the judge an easy way out to throw the case for a technical reason?

This would leave Flynn high and dry without his innocence having been proved having just got off on a technicality. Also the DoJ would not be exposed to having to produce all the damning stuff that the Honey Badger wants out in public.

Very interesting to see which way Judge Sullivan goes now. Wonder if he wants another Powell book.

[English Outsider]

Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within the American administration.

I couldn't remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the more hawkish elements in US politics.  I thought it had been an American Admiral.  I had no luck finding a reference so I googled it.  Still no joy with the American admiral, but the list thrown up had near the top of it this informative quote from Patrick Bahzad.

"The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown member of George W's administration. It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose to dubious fame after the 9/11 attacks. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff, described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe" to top executives in the White House with his Southern sense of humour, adding that they had become almost overnight what was henceforth called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East – and in D.C. – certainly looked like a distant but distinct reminder of that period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the policy agenda on questions that would require adult supervision."

Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to positions of influence in the respective administrations.  I'd argue that that has not been uniformly beneficial.  Not when those men and women enlist under the crazy banner.  Or, to put it more soberly, form part of the neocon wing of those administrations.  Though I, as an outside observer, might be prejudiced here because I happen not to get on very well with Brzezinski and his copious output.

Allowing for that prejudice, which I confess runs very deep, I still think that to an extent American foreign policy has been hijacked by Eastern European emigres who themselves retain some of the prejudices and mindset of another age and place.

Looking at it from afar, the influence of some Eastern European emigres on American foreign policy has been uniformly deleterious.  And that from a long way back and no matter whether those emigres are in Washington or Tel Aviv.  

It cannot but help be distorting, that influence.  It's not merely that unexamined Russophobia is embedded in the DNA of many Eastern Europeans.  There's a narrow minded focus on aggressive Machtpolitik, bred from centuries of violent territorial disputes with neighbours.  

That, transferred to the world stage as it must be when it infects the foreign policy of the United States -  because that is a country that cannot but help be at the centre of the world stage - distorts US foreign policy.  To a great degree American foreign policy no longer operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people.  It too often plays to the obsessions inherited from Old Europe.

In the most famous of his speeches Churchill spoke of the time when, as he hoped, "the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

Let the historians dispute as they will, that is what happened.  And continued to happen for half a century and more.  But there was a price few noticed.  The New World might have stepped forward to rescue the old, but it carried back from that old world a most destructive freight.

[Fred]

JohninMK,

Which country are you from where people have to prove innocence rather than prosecutors prove guilt? A technicality - do you mean that as a joke since this is obviously criminal misconduct by the FBI/DOJ; or do you really believe they made a mistake that went undiscovered through the entire Mueler probe, congressional testimony and a couple years worth of legal discovery by defense counsel?

[Fred]

confusedponderer,

Thank goodness the German government has never done anything like this.

[Fred]

akaPatience,

How do you know the FBI/DOJ and our wonderful allies never did this to a Democratic politician before? Keeping them in office and subject to extortion to get favorable policies in place would be far more effective than removing someone from office. Perhaps we should ask Jeffrey Epstein just what those politicians and businessmen were doing on that island, that manions in NYC or the one in Paris.....