When it comes to the Michael Flynn case the media, along with vast swaths of the pliant public, are like a stupid dog that reflexively chases a shiny object or a phantom squirrel. The latest development is that the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled 2 to 1 to order crooked Judge Emmet Sullivan to accede to the Department of Justice request to drop the case against Flynn. While this ruling merits attention, the real news is that we now have documentary evidence that President Obama and Vice President Biden were involved directly and personally in orchestrating the entrapment and prosecution of Michael Flynn.
A Peter Strzok note, apparently penned on the 4 January 2017, recorded the discussion about Flynn with Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Sally Yates, Jimmy Comey, Susan Rice and Strzok (it looks like Comey took him along specifically as his note taker). Here it is:
Sidney Powell's brief (filed today with Sullivan's Court) provides a nifty summary of what Strzok scribbled:
Strzok’s notes believed to be of January 4, 2017, reveal that former President Obama, James Comey, Sally Yates, Joe Biden, and apparently Susan Rice discussed the transcripts of Flynn’s calls and how to proceed against him. Mr. Obama himself directed that “the right people” investigate General Flynn. This caused former FBI Director Comey to acknowledge the obvious: General Flynn’s phone calls with Ambassador Kislyak “appear legit.” According to Strzok’s notes, it appears that Vice President Biden personally raised the idea of the Logan Act. That became an admitted pretext to investigate General Flynn.
So much for disparaging intelligent folk as "conspiracy theorists" for daring to declare that Obama and Biden played a direct and significant role in the plot to destroy the Trump Presidency before it was born. We have it in "black and white."
Take a close look at what Strzok recorded about what appears to be the substance of the 5 January 2017 meeting at the White House:
NSA Director (Susan Rice): Flynn calls(?) Other Ambassadors
D (Comey) Lean forward on “?????”
VP (Biden): “Logan Act”
P (Obama): “These are unusual times”
VP (Biden): “I’ve been on the intel committee for ten years and I never . . .”
P (Obama): “Make sure you look at thing and have the right people on it.”
P (Obama): “Is there anything I shouldn’t be telling the transition team?”
D (Comey): “Flynn-Kislyak call but appear legit.
Comey’s answer to Obama’s questions about what to withhold from the transition team. Comey clearly stated, according to Strzok, that the Obama team should say nothing about the Flynn Kislyak call. However, Comey also acknowledge the calls “appear legit.”
This is one more piece of damning evidence that Obama, Biden, Comey and others in that meeting were engaged in what is a clear conspiracy. Is it criminal?
Larry,
What is Trump gonna do about all this?
Posted by: Jack | 24 June 2020 at 01:21 PM
Looks as though John Durham is going to be very busy this summer. My personal opinions about Trump aside, how Democrats both inside and outside the Obama Administration used US intelligence agencies and the FBI to smear a president elect as a foreign agent was criminal. Hopefully one day criminal behavior by high ranking government officials will be punished.
Posted by: LA Sox Fan | 24 June 2020 at 02:02 PM
Jack,
He's doing it in front of your eyes. Releasing the Strzok note is just one more example that the worm has turned on the DOJ/FBI traitors.
Posted by: Larry Johnson | 24 June 2020 at 02:26 PM
The DOJ didn't have to release that note, it could have gone into a shredder and why it didn't many moons ago gives an indication as to just how safe the conspirators thought they were.
If that is the exposed part you have to wonder what the redacted words are. Only redacted from the public of course.
Any view on why they did it? It does seem like giving a bottle, some rag and gas to an revolutionary. If Sydney can be called that.
Posted by: JohninMK | 24 June 2020 at 03:50 PM
Larry, according to Susan Rice this was done "by the book."
We need Richard Greenell to take over one of these agencies.
Can Biden be indicted in a Rico case?
Posted by: Jose | 24 June 2020 at 03:55 PM
I really have to thank TP, Larry and Robert. SST is the only place to get this kind of hard intel without a lot of BS.
Posted by: scott s. | 24 June 2020 at 04:32 PM
I wouldn't have thought Joe could have come up with Logan Act angle by himself. I wonder if there was a pre meeting for the meeting.
With the dismissal of the Flynn case the precedent has been set if Biden wins the presidency. All charges will be dropped with the new DOJ
Posted by: Terence Gore | 24 June 2020 at 06:39 PM
Does Gen. Flynn have standing to sue? And if so, whom?
This question might be more appropriate for Robert William than Larry J.
Posted by: ex PFC Chuck | 24 June 2020 at 06:50 PM
I'm shocked, you guys act like Flynn is the first swnigin penis to be railroaded by the FBI, the courts and the politicians. It's SOP from the lowest level to the top. It's called corruption.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 24 June 2020 at 08:34 PM
@LA Sox Fan
Actual crimes by high ranking government officials will never be punished. Never. This is not a partisan thing; neither Republicans or Democrats will be held to account for real crimes. A few minor unelected bureacrats will be sacrificed for an illusion of propriety, but actual crimes...
It used to be that such crimes remained carefully concealed, but such is the powerlessness of the public today that coverup is no longer needed. Biden can brag in public about extorting the government of Ukraine with taxpayer funds, and pay no price for it.
Posted by: Bill H | 25 June 2020 at 02:06 AM
T. Gore: re Biden and the Logan Act
Joe's been on the DC scene for so long he probably remembers the bygone days when it was usually honored. Now it rarely is except when it comes in handy to go after the "wrong" people.
Posted by: ex PFC Chuck | 25 June 2020 at 08:19 AM
ex PFC Chuck,
Since Flynn has been harmed by the actions or failure to act by others, he has "standing" to sue. The idea of standing looks to see whether a person or organization has enough of a connection to a set of facts about which the law might give relief. Or, a law might say specifically that a person can sue even though he has little or no connection with the subject matter or the defendant being sued (like a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act). If you were injured in a car wreck, and I was nowhere around, but I filed a lawsuit in my name against the other driver, I would not have standing because I had nothing to do with the collision.
Flynn has to identify those who have harmed him, and then see if there are any legal doctrines or theories of liability he can use to try to get relief. The difficulty he faces is that some of the potential defendants might have legal protections that prevent them from being sued, or limit the the theories of liability he can use, or create extra hurdles he has to get over before a case can make it all the way to a trial in court.
Maintaining a lawsuit against a government or governmental employee is not easy. The doctrine of "sovereign immunity" blocks some lawsuits entirely, and it can limit the theories of liability you can use and the remedies you can try to get.
Flynn can analyze a possible a lawsuit against his former lawyers at the Covington & Burling law firm, the law firm itself, and lawyers at the firm who were not representing him but were involved in the mix of what the law firm did or did not do. The rules and doctrines involved in a lawsuit by a client against a former lawyer are a little different (as you might expect!), but are not as restrictive as those surrounding a case against a government or its employees.
There might be private persons or businesses who could qualify as defendants, including news and media companies. And maybe even a foreign country, but that is a real tough situation without specific legislation to help you.
It will take some time for Flynn and his lawyers to identify defendants and to sort through and analyze the issues that will exist if he files civil lawsuits about what has happened to him.
Posted by: robt willmann | 25 June 2020 at 10:26 AM
If Sidney, his current lead lawyer, moves forward in charge of his 'restitution' team the I would say, past performance is an indicator to future events and those she goes after could well be rather concerned today. Specifically about their probable cost in 'lawyering up' with an equivalent team to defend themselves against Sidney who is clearly going to be on a mission to right the financial wrongs.
I have no idea what her remuneration has been to date but would expect it to be significant from now on.
In addition, they both have books to write.
Colonel, as to date legally an innocent man, would Flynn have continued to receive his, albeit reduced as a non serving officer, pay, which as I understand it is not actually called a pension?
Posted by: JohninMK | 25 June 2020 at 03:37 PM
JohninMK
A "retired" military person (as opposed to a former military person) receives a reduced portion of his base pay without allowances (housing, subsistence, etc.). The amount depends on rank and length of service. It is pay, not a pension. The retired person can be recalled to active duty if that is thought necessary. A commissioned officer cannot by law be sentenced to prison. If Flynn had been sent by Sullivan to prison he would have had to be dismissed from the service first. He would then be a civilian with no status at all as a soldier, and no retirement benefits.
Posted by: turcopolier | 25 June 2020 at 03:50 PM
Sydney Powell has some possibly relevant thoughts:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/06/25/sidney-powell-discusses-peter-strzok-cya-notes-theres-a-criminal-conspiracy-in-there/
Bartiromo and Powell discuss what Powell calls the "criminal conspiracy" WITHIN the government to get Flynn,
but there is a much larger force at work.
Let me back up and address what the legal system has done and is all too likely to do to Flynn.
Why does the legal system do what it does?
Sure, there is the Constitution to be paid lip service to, and all their laws and precedents.
But did those cause Gorsuch to grotesquely stretch the 1964 Civil Rights Act to cover "transgenderism"?
I don't think so.
He, IMO, was strongly affected by the tsunami of "elite" opinion in the media that just loves, endorses, and encourages that blatant perversion.,
So too, when Judge Sullivan conductred his infamous sentencing on Flynn in December 2018, he was, I suspect, strongly affected by the advice coming from the media.
Now, on June 25 2020, I find on my news feed again a tsunami of "elite" opinion telling me what dirty dogs Barr, Flynn, and Rao are.
How they only have corrupt or political motives, while the career professionals of DOJ are or were simon pure and unsullied by political motives.
Totally ignored is the partisan imbalance of political given of those DOJ professionals:
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/302817-government-workers-shun-trump-give-big-money-to-clinton-campaign
"Employees of the Department of Justice, which investigated Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of State, gave Clinton 97 percent of their donations. Trump received $8,756 from DOJ employees compared with $286,797 for Clinton."
Bartiromo and Powell try to explain the manifest antimosity towards Flynn as being due to his foreign policy (on the Iran deal) and hostility towards some legacy IC policies.
But that doesn't explain why the media has such on-going hostility towards him.
I think the only possible answer is as retribution for his anti-Hillary statements in the 2016 campaign.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/how-mike-flynn-became-americas-angriest-general-214362
And getting back to the legal system, with some evident exceptions, they want to stay on the good side of the opinion-leaders.
They don't want a torrent of stories about how they, like Barr, are merely lackies of Trump.
Notice how Trump has become the devil incarnate.
Amazing, and most unfair and unjust.
Posted by: Keith Harbaugh | 25 June 2020 at 05:33 PM
Keith writes: ......"Employees of the Department of Justice, which investigated Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of State, gave Clinton 97 percent of their donations. Trump received $8,756 from DOJ employees compared with $286,797 for Clinton."
Deep state = swamp = public employee union members = Democrat cash cows
All 44 million of them. Remember this when they answer polls, produce fund raising numbers, commit vote-harvesting ground troop and votes on election day. The real division in the US is between the taxpayer funded, unionized public sector and the rest of us.
They have direct skin in the game- they get paid; we have collateral skin in the game - we pay them. They have a personal cause worth fighting for. We remain shell-shocked by their ferociousness. Two very different teams on the 2020 election playing field.
Purple SEIU tee-shirts vs the Tea Party Red, White and Blue stalwarts.
Big government vs limited government.
Posted by: Deap | 25 June 2020 at 06:54 PM
Sidney Powell is correct. There was a criminal conspiracy at the highest levels of government under both the Obama & Trump administration. Rosenstein & Wray are also implicated as they obstructed justice. Both were Trump nominees.
The real question is will anyone be prosecuted? More importantly will they be prosecuted for "criminal conspiracy". It seems that many are betting on Durham. He better get cranking soon. If Trump loses the election the whole conspiracy will be buried rapidly.
If Durham does indict, we know the response. The media will be at max volume on politicization of DOJ and Barr must be impeached. Half the country doesn't care about the subversion of law enforcement & intelligence for domestic political ends as Orange Man Bad.
The implication is for the future as a precedent has been created. Law enforcement & intelligence will get increasingly used for domestic political purposes providing enormous advantages to our adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party.
Posted by: blue peacock | 25 June 2020 at 07:47 PM
Robert William,
Thank you for the comprehensive and informative reply.
Posted by: ex PFC Chuck | 25 June 2020 at 08:06 PM
"INSTRUCTIONS FOR FILING A CIVIL ACTION FOR VIOLATION OF CIVIL RIGHTS (BIVENS ACTION)
Pursuant to Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), a plaintiff may bring a civil rights suit against federal officials in their individual capacity for damages caused by constitutional torts under color of their authority......."
NB: A Bivens Action is one way around "qualified immunitiies" granted government personnel when carrying out their official duties.
Posted by: Deap | 26 June 2020 at 12:17 AM