Flynn Pleading Guilty
- Thread starter cernjSHU
- Start date
The FBI Director cannot be fired to hinder a criminal investigation. Trump could have said, I don't think he is doing a good job and stuck with the Rosenstein reasons. But no. He decided to say he fired Comey over the Russian investigation. That would indicate a corrupt intent and thus obstruction. This investigation is just about corroborating obtaining more evidence against Trump to demonstrate his corrupt intent to interfere with a criminal investigation. And that my friend is obstruction.
Where are you getting your understanding from because that is not my understanding at all.
The law is "whoever . . . . corruptly or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication, influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice, shall be (guilty of an offense)."
I don’t see a carve out there for, unless your boss asks you to.
Hint? 2 people have already plead guilty. The national security advisor pleading guilty of lying to the FBI and avoiding FARA charges like Manafort was charges with is not a hint. It is a flip.
Flynn was being paid by Turkey while working with the campaign.
He was warned about Flynn before he was sworn in.
Yates told them Flynn was compromised and was fired for it.
And they still kept Flynn on staff!
If this were a Democrat in office, this board would be filled with people losing their minds over this stuff.
They lied about their contacts with Russia so many times.
This isn’t just me being partisan. This is everything I was worrried about with Trump proving out over time.
There are many signs about where this is heading.
Two guilty pleas and not a shred of evidence that anybody "colluded" with Russia to win an election.
Correct. No direct evidence yet. I might even be more in line with your reasoning had they not lied about their contacts with Russians so many times... fact is there is a lot of smoke.
Still possible there is no fire, but the smoke is building.
You do realize that if you are correct (I'm assuming you think Trump and his people actively sought Russian help to win) that would be the biggest deception and con ever pulled against the United States, right? I just can't see how that could have happened.
I do realize what I am suggesting.
There are many reasons I believe that to be true. For example, do you think it is a cooincidence that Wikileaks leaked the podeata emails hours after the access Hollywood tapes dropped?The CIA said the Russians obtained the podesta emails and provided them to Wikileaks.
Do you think it is possible there was a coordination between Wikileaks and the campaign?
We know Russia aided in helping Trump win. We know people contacted the Trump campaign offering dirt in Hillary. We know that Trump Jr was willing to accept that information.
Is it more or less likely that at some point, the campaign did all of those things and actually received something?
Have you read the post on Facebook days after the election from Konstantin Rykov?
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/kr...-laid-out-evidence-mueller-still-probing/amp/
He basically admits Trump worked with hackers, Wikileaks and a Russian campaign stratergist.
Cambridge analytica built the system to target people on social media. Crambridge had a staff working for the Trump campaign. Russian bots were targeting Americans in swing states. Was there coordination between Cambridge and the Russian bots? Where did they get their database?
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That definition seems to imply that Trump would have to be aware of that he committed a crime related to Flynn. If he didn't commit a crime, I don't see how he obstructed justice. Asking but not ordering Comey to "let it go" because Flynn is a good guy doesn't seem to meet that standard at the time. Comey said Trump was not personally under investigation and he did not by any account fire Comey because he was after Flynn.
Thank you for the link.That certainly creates some doubt in my mind. There was also a Politico article about a week ago and the way I interpreted it was, they were insinuating that Trump had been recruited by the Russians for decades without actually saying that in the article. That was my interpretation reading between the lines.
This all makes sense in a theoretical world, but could they actually execute it without US intelligence doing anything about it? I still find that hard to believe.
The part about France was interesting and actually makes sense.
This all makes sense in a theoretical world, but could they actually execute it without US intelligence doing anything about it? I still find that hard to believe.
The part about France was interesting and actually makes sense.
Odds that Trump didn’t know Flynn violated FARA and lied to the FBI when he asked Comey to let him go? Keep in mind Comey was fired the day after Flynn was subpoenaed.
You’re also missing some pieces in this puzzle. Trump was not under investigation himself until he fired Comey. Firing Comey triggered the event that lead to the special prosecutor being placed. Trump is absolutely now under investigation for Obstruction of justice.
Honestly the more I read, the more it makes sense. Comey’s tweets shoud not be lost on us either. He knows more than anyone in the public. He keeps tweeting about the truth and justice whenever Trump tweets something crazy. Feel like he knows where this is heading.
Not saying I am 100% correct here. I completely understand opposing viewpoints. It’s just my opinion, but I do believe Trump will not complete his term because of the investigaton.
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Interesting take:
Why did Flynn lie and why did Mueller charge him with lying?
BY ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 12/02/17 03:50 PM EST 1,861 THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL
2,550
Flynn enters guilty plea, to cooperate with Mueller
The charge to which retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty may tell us a great deal about the Robert Mueller investigation.
The first question is, why did Flynn lie? People who lie to the FBI generally do so because, if they told the truth, they would be admitting to a crime. But the two conversations that Flynn falsely denied having were not criminal. He may have believed they were criminal but, if he did, he was wrong.
Consider his request to Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S., to delay or oppose a United Nations Security Council vote on an anti-Israel resolution that the outgoing Obama administration refused to veto. Not only was that request not criminal, it was the right thing to do. President Obama’s unilateral decision to change decades-long American policy by not vetoing a perniciously one-sided anti-Israel resolution was opposed by Congress and by most Americans. It was not good for America, for Israel or for peace. It was done out of Obama’s personal pique against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rather than on principle.
Many Americans of both parties, including me, urged the lame-duck Obama not to tie the hands of the president-elect by allowing the passage of a resolution that would make it more difficult to achieve a negotiated peace in the Middle East.
As the president-elect, Donald Trump was constitutionally and politically entitled to try to protect his ability to broker a fair peace between the Israelis and Palestinians by urging all members of the Security Council to vote against or delay the enactment of the resolution. The fact that such efforts to do the right thing did not succeed does not diminish the correctness of the effort. I wish it had succeeded. We would be in a better place today.
Some left-wing pundits, who know better, are trotting out the Logan Act, which, if it were the law, would prohibit private citizens (including presidents-elect) from negotiating with foreign governments. But this anachronistic law hasn’t been used for more than 200 years. Under the principle of desuetude — a legal doctrine that prohibits the selective resurrection of a statute that has not been used for many decades — it is dead-letter. Moreover, the Logan Act is unconstitutional insofar as it prohibits the exercise of free speech.
If it were good law, former Presidents Reagan and Carter would have been prosecuted: Reagan for negotiating with Iran’s ayatollahs when he was president-elect, to delay releasing the American hostages until he was sworn in; Carter for advising Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to reject former President Clinton’s peace offer in 2000-2001. Moreover, Jesse Jackson, Jane Fonda, Dennis Rodman and others who have negotiated with North Korea and other rogue regimes would have gone to prison.
So there was nothing criminal about Flynn’s request of Kislyak, even if he were instructed to do so by higher-ups in the Trump transition team. The same is true of his discussions regarding sanctions. The president-elect is entitled to have different policies about sanctions and to have his transition team discuss them with Russian officials.
This is the way The New York Times has put it: “Mr. Flynn’s discussions with Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, were part of a coordinated effort by Mr. Trump’s aides to create foreign policy before they were in power, documents released as part of Mr. Flynn’s plea agreement show. Their efforts undermined the existing policy of President Barack Obama and flouted a warning from a senior Obama administration official to stop meddling in foreign affairs before the inauguration.”
If that characterization is accurate, it demonstrates conclusively that the Flynn conversations were political and not criminal. Flouting a warning from the Obama administration to stop meddling may be a political sin (though some would call it a political virtue) but it most assuredly is not a crime.
So why did Flynn lie about these conversations, and were his lies even material to Mueller’s criminal investigation if they were not about crimes?
The second question is why did Mueller charge Flynn only with lying? The last thing a prosecutor ever wants to do is to charge a key witness with lying.
A witness such as Flynn who has admitted he lied — whether or not to cover up a crime — is a tainted witness who is unlikely to be believed by jurors who know he’s made a deal to protect himself and his son. They will suspect that he is not only “singing for his supper” but that he may be “composing” as well — that is, telling the prosecutor what he wants to hear, even if it is exaggerated or flat-out false. A “bought” witness knows that the “better” his testimony, the sweeter the deal he will get. That’s why prosecutors postpone the sentencing until after the witness has testified, because experience has taught them that you can’t “buy” a witness; you can only “rent “ them for as long as you have the sword of Damocles hanging over them.
So, despite the banner headlines calling the Flynn guilty plea a “thunderclap,” I think it may be a show of weakness on the part of the special counsel rather than a sign of strength. So far he has had to charge potential witnesses with crimes that bear little or no relationship to any possible crimes committed by current White House incumbents. Mueller would have much preferred to indict Flynn for conspiracy or some other crime directly involving other people, but he apparently lacks the evidence to do so.
I do not believe he will indict anyone under the Logan Act. If he were to do so, that would be unethical and irresponsible. Nor do I think he will charge President Trump with any crimes growing out of the president’s exercise of his constitutional authority to fire the director of the FBI or to ask him not to prosecute Flynn.
The investigation will probably not end quickly, but it may end with, not a thunderclap, but several whimpers.
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Harvard Law School and author of “Trumped Up: How Criminalizing Politics is Dangerous to Democracy.” Follow him on Twitter @AlanDersh and on Facebook @AlanMDershowitz.
Why did Flynn lie and why did Mueller charge him with lying?
BY ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 12/02/17 03:50 PM EST 1,861 THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL
2,550
Flynn enters guilty plea, to cooperate with Mueller
The charge to which retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty may tell us a great deal about the Robert Mueller investigation.
The first question is, why did Flynn lie? People who lie to the FBI generally do so because, if they told the truth, they would be admitting to a crime. But the two conversations that Flynn falsely denied having were not criminal. He may have believed they were criminal but, if he did, he was wrong.
Consider his request to Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S., to delay or oppose a United Nations Security Council vote on an anti-Israel resolution that the outgoing Obama administration refused to veto. Not only was that request not criminal, it was the right thing to do. President Obama’s unilateral decision to change decades-long American policy by not vetoing a perniciously one-sided anti-Israel resolution was opposed by Congress and by most Americans. It was not good for America, for Israel or for peace. It was done out of Obama’s personal pique against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rather than on principle.
Many Americans of both parties, including me, urged the lame-duck Obama not to tie the hands of the president-elect by allowing the passage of a resolution that would make it more difficult to achieve a negotiated peace in the Middle East.
As the president-elect, Donald Trump was constitutionally and politically entitled to try to protect his ability to broker a fair peace between the Israelis and Palestinians by urging all members of the Security Council to vote against or delay the enactment of the resolution. The fact that such efforts to do the right thing did not succeed does not diminish the correctness of the effort. I wish it had succeeded. We would be in a better place today.
Some left-wing pundits, who know better, are trotting out the Logan Act, which, if it were the law, would prohibit private citizens (including presidents-elect) from negotiating with foreign governments. But this anachronistic law hasn’t been used for more than 200 years. Under the principle of desuetude — a legal doctrine that prohibits the selective resurrection of a statute that has not been used for many decades — it is dead-letter. Moreover, the Logan Act is unconstitutional insofar as it prohibits the exercise of free speech.
If it were good law, former Presidents Reagan and Carter would have been prosecuted: Reagan for negotiating with Iran’s ayatollahs when he was president-elect, to delay releasing the American hostages until he was sworn in; Carter for advising Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to reject former President Clinton’s peace offer in 2000-2001. Moreover, Jesse Jackson, Jane Fonda, Dennis Rodman and others who have negotiated with North Korea and other rogue regimes would have gone to prison.
So there was nothing criminal about Flynn’s request of Kislyak, even if he were instructed to do so by higher-ups in the Trump transition team. The same is true of his discussions regarding sanctions. The president-elect is entitled to have different policies about sanctions and to have his transition team discuss them with Russian officials.
This is the way The New York Times has put it: “Mr. Flynn’s discussions with Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, were part of a coordinated effort by Mr. Trump’s aides to create foreign policy before they were in power, documents released as part of Mr. Flynn’s plea agreement show. Their efforts undermined the existing policy of President Barack Obama and flouted a warning from a senior Obama administration official to stop meddling in foreign affairs before the inauguration.”
If that characterization is accurate, it demonstrates conclusively that the Flynn conversations were political and not criminal. Flouting a warning from the Obama administration to stop meddling may be a political sin (though some would call it a political virtue) but it most assuredly is not a crime.
So why did Flynn lie about these conversations, and were his lies even material to Mueller’s criminal investigation if they were not about crimes?
The second question is why did Mueller charge Flynn only with lying? The last thing a prosecutor ever wants to do is to charge a key witness with lying.
A witness such as Flynn who has admitted he lied — whether or not to cover up a crime — is a tainted witness who is unlikely to be believed by jurors who know he’s made a deal to protect himself and his son. They will suspect that he is not only “singing for his supper” but that he may be “composing” as well — that is, telling the prosecutor what he wants to hear, even if it is exaggerated or flat-out false. A “bought” witness knows that the “better” his testimony, the sweeter the deal he will get. That’s why prosecutors postpone the sentencing until after the witness has testified, because experience has taught them that you can’t “buy” a witness; you can only “rent “ them for as long as you have the sword of Damocles hanging over them.
So, despite the banner headlines calling the Flynn guilty plea a “thunderclap,” I think it may be a show of weakness on the part of the special counsel rather than a sign of strength. So far he has had to charge potential witnesses with crimes that bear little or no relationship to any possible crimes committed by current White House incumbents. Mueller would have much preferred to indict Flynn for conspiracy or some other crime directly involving other people, but he apparently lacks the evidence to do so.
I do not believe he will indict anyone under the Logan Act. If he were to do so, that would be unethical and irresponsible. Nor do I think he will charge President Trump with any crimes growing out of the president’s exercise of his constitutional authority to fire the director of the FBI or to ask him not to prosecute Flynn.
The investigation will probably not end quickly, but it may end with, not a thunderclap, but several whimpers.
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Harvard Law School and author of “Trumped Up: How Criminalizing Politics is Dangerous to Democracy.” Follow him on Twitter @AlanDersh and on Facebook @AlanMDershowitz.
Dershowitz has been a shill for Trump. His reasoning is elementary and he is probably being paid by the Trump campaign. They charged Flynn with the least serious crime that would expose him to the least amount of time. He was clearly guilty of not registering as an agent to Turkey but was not charged with that.
Just because he lied about something that wasn’t a crime, doesn’t mean he wasn’t doing things that were a crime but were not charged. This is basic stuff and Dershowitz should be embarrassed by writing this.
Just because he lied about something that wasn’t a crime, doesn’t mean he wasn’t doing things that were a crime but were not charged. This is basic stuff and Dershowitz should be embarrassed by writing this.
A lot wrong with Dershowitz opinion.
His assumption is framed in a way that Mueller played a weak hand and Flynn's attorneys are stupid for allowing the guilty plea.
The problem is that this hand did not need to be played at all. Logic says if Flynn was not giving something of value, Mueller would not have offered him a deal.
That should be pretty obvious to everyone.
Dershowitz also said Flynn took the deal to "protect his son" - Protect him from what exactly?
Whatever they were going after his son for, Flynn would also have been guilty of. No?
Mueller knows how the law works. He knows what evidence works from people who flipped and what doesn't. The idea that Mueller made a mistake by offering Flynn a deal for a weak offense is laughable.
Does he lack evidence, or was there an agreement to plea guilty to lying to avoid conspiracy or other charges?
My opinion is that Mueller has received information from Flynn that will implicate someone else equal to or higher up than Flynn.
His assumption is framed in a way that Mueller played a weak hand and Flynn's attorneys are stupid for allowing the guilty plea.
The problem is that this hand did not need to be played at all. Logic says if Flynn was not giving something of value, Mueller would not have offered him a deal.
That should be pretty obvious to everyone.
Dershowitz also said Flynn took the deal to "protect his son" - Protect him from what exactly?
Whatever they were going after his son for, Flynn would also have been guilty of. No?
Mueller knows how the law works. He knows what evidence works from people who flipped and what doesn't. The idea that Mueller made a mistake by offering Flynn a deal for a weak offense is laughable.
Does he lack evidence, or was there an agreement to plea guilty to lying to avoid conspiracy or other charges?
My opinion is that Mueller has received information from Flynn that will implicate someone else equal to or higher up than Flynn.
I agree with knowknow.
Many of the posts here have been just that; speculation.
Many of these posts have been written such that they sound like certainty. The reality is we will not know what exactly is going on until some more of this plays out.
In many cases people's political persuasions influence their speculations. That applies to both sides.
Many of the posts here have been just that; speculation.
Many of these posts have been written such that they sound like certainty. The reality is we will not know what exactly is going on until some more of this plays out.
In many cases people's political persuasions influence their speculations. That applies to both sides.
Indeed, but much of the talk on this board in general is speculation.
None of us know how this will play out, just like none of us knew who would win the 2016 election after 2012 but we still talked about it.
Ha. I like it. I am guilty of that a lot I'm sure. I go with it being pretty much understood here that pretty much anything we say is opinion unless we are citing something specifically.
Those people who have experience in criminal investigations have an insight on how things play out. There are familiar patterns. Using those insights, it is not mere speculation. Anyone trying to downplay the significance of the Flynn plea and the impact this has on the Russian/Trump investigation either is 1) spinning it to look like of nothing of significance due to their love of Trump, or 2) doesn't have the experience of how these investigations move. Could the the downplayers in the end be right? Sure. But not likely.
I think more accurately stated, "anyone that doesn't agree with you has to be wrong".
With all of the Cambridge analytica buzz in the last couple of days - I thought my old post was worth revisiting.
If anyone hasn't read the link in that post, it is an interesting read.
We now know Russia was hacking into the voter rolls in swing states, we know CA was mico-targeting swing state voters.
On the specific questions of collusion -
I think this is heading in a couple paths - Did CA used hacked data from the Russians to target voters? If so, was anyone within the Trump campaign aware?
Did Russian hackers provide the hacked DNC e-mails to wikileaks? Was anyone within the Trump campaign aware? Did the Trump campaign direct the timing of the release of the e-mails?
