Flynn’s gambit flopped
by digby
In my piece for Salon this morning I linked to Marcy Wheeler’s post discussing the Flynn sentencing and his lawyers’ implication that the FBI had somehow entrapped the poor naive general by not telling him he shouldn’t lie to federal investigators. I noted the immediate assumption in the right wing fever swamp that because the judge had asked to see the interview documents, it meant that the judge was going to stick it to the Deep State and Flynn and Trump would be somehow exonerated. Like this guy:
“The FBI said Michael Flynn, a general and a great person, they said he didn’t lie. And Mueller said, well, maybe he did. And now they’re all having a big dispute. So, I think it’s a great thing that the judge is looking into that situation. That’s an honor for a lot of terrific people,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Marcy suggested that they might regret opening this can of worms. Today the judge ordered that he interview reports be released to the public. They aren’t good news. For Flynn. And Trump.
In response to Judge Sullivan’s order, the government filed Flynn’s 302 under seal. After Sullivan reviewed it, he deemed it pertinent to Flynn’s sentencing, and had the government release a redacted version.
And it is unbelievably damning, in part because it shows the degree to which Flynn’s lies served to protect Trump.
The 302 shows how the FBI Agents first let Flynn offer up his explanation for his conversation with Kislyak. He lied about the purpose for his call to Kislyak on December 29 (he said he had called to offer condolences about the assassination of Russia’s Ambassador to Turkey) and he lied about the purpose of his call about Israel (he claimed he was, in part, doing a battle drill “to see who the administration could reach in a crisis” and in the process tried to find out how countries were voting on the Israeli motion; Flynn denied he had asked for any specific action).
Then, after the Agents specifically asked whether he recalled any conversation about the Obama actions, Flynn doubled down and claimed he did not know about those actions because he was in Dominican Republic.
He was hiding two things with this claim: first, I believe Susan Rice had given the Trump Administration a heads up on what Obama was going to do (at the very least the Obama Admin had asked the transition not to send mixed messages, and at least one person on the transition says they agreed not to). More importantly, he was hiding that he had already talked about the actions with KT McFarland, who was at Mar-a-Lago relaying orders from Trump.
And Flynn again denied having had a heads up from Susan Rice when he claimed he didn’t know that Russia’s diplomats were being expelled.
Finally, Flynn offered an excuse that is at least partly bullshit for why he called Kislyak multiple times.
The reason he kept calling Kislyak was, at least in part, because he was coordinating with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. His earlier claim that he didn’t respond to Kislyak is also probably a lie; he delayed his response to contact Mar-a-Lago first.
Sullivan said this 302 is relevant to Flynn’ sentencing, so he may actually use it to justify ignoring the joint requests of Flynn and Mueller for no jail time (though I’m not betting on it).
But by giving DOJ the opportunity to present this 302 for publication, Flynn provided proof of what has been hidden all this time — why Trump responded to the way he did about this investigation.
Flynn lied to hide Trump’s involvement in all this (and, to an extent, the degree to which it involved specifically ignoring a heads up from Obama).
Flynn lied to hide Trump’s personal involvement in telling the Russians to hold off on responding to Obama’s sanctions. And when the FBI investigated those lies, Trump fired the FBI Director to try to end that investigation….
This 302 also reveals that he was quoting directly from the instructions KT McFarland had given him, relaying Trump’s orders. Here’s what McFarland said she had told Flynn, in an email shared with multiple transition officials.
She also wrote that the sanctions over Russian election meddling were intended to “lure Trump in trap of saying something” in defense of Russia, and were aimed at “discrediting Trump’s victory by saying it was due to Russian interference.”
“If there is a tit-for-tat escalation Trump will have difficulty improving relations with Russia, which has just thrown U.S.A. election to him,” she wrote.
And here’s what — quoting from the transcript of his calls with Kislyak — the Agents asked him if he said.
I have always assumed that Trump was fully informed of the sanctions calls and probably ordered them. It’s obvious by what he tweeted after they were made:
Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he was very smart!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2016
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