Grassley on Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and the Russia Investigation
Article by streiff in "RedState":
Yesterday, Iowa Senator Charles Grassley took to the floor of the Senate to lambaste the actions of the Justice Department in the Flynn case. And he didn’t stop there.
The clear aim of Grassley’s speech was to bash the handful of assclowns who nearly pulled off what can only be described as a coup d’etat using false and forged evidence to unleash an open-ended and unfocused investigation of the Trump administration that was designed to find something to prosecute rather than prosecute something they had found. This is the key part of the speech.
On January 5, 2017, the day after Strzok moved to keep the Flynn case open, President Obama met with Director Comey, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, Vice President Biden, and National Security Advisor Susan Rice. In that meeting they briefed Obama on the Russia investigation. It’s unclear to what extent they discussed the details of the investigation amongst each other. Given all that we know now regarding the fake foundation to the inquiry, it’s time we asked: what did Obama and Biden know and when did they know it?
Some of this is obviously tied to Obama’s direct and personal involvement in engineering the Flynn investigation. But a good part, in my view, is tied to the 2020 campaign.
Biden, as we all know, is a weak and morally degenerate man who inspires no one. His sole selling points for the election are a) the Democrat establishment likes me, b) I’m not Trump, and c) I’m not Trump. I think everyone, particularly those flinging about polls showing Biden in the lead everywhere, knows that Biden will probably get beaten like a rented mule unless he is rescued by some deus ex machina. Now that Mueller has failed and impeachment has failed and Wuhan virus panic is looking like an own goal for the Democrats, that mechanism to save Biden is Barack Obama.
There is a belief, I don’t know if it is a belief so much as a superstition, that Obama endorsing Biden and working on his behalf will bring out the same Obama coalition to vote for Joe “the Love Finger” Biden…just like it worked for Hillary Clinton. The fact that Obama is going to get directly involved was teased by Obama himself when a ‘leaked” tape of a meeting he had with his inner circle of catchfarts made its way into the hands of royal stenographer Michael Isikoff.
The message seems to be that if Obama wants to come out of retirement and interject himself into the campaign, he shouldn’t expect to be treated like an illegal combatant not a former president. To that end, I find it hard to believe that Mexico demanding some hard answers for the illegal gunrunning operation managed by Eric Holder and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is an accident.
Obama should listen up and pay attention. Does he really want his role in setting off an orgy of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Syria explored? Does he want hearings on how he gave Libya to al Qaeda? How will the side deals he cut with Russia to remove US ballistic missile defense from Europe in exchange for Russia using its ‘good offices’ to get Iran to negotiate a very favorable, one might say infamously corrupt, nuclear deal?
Obama does need to answer for his role in the Russia Hoax, but that can wait until a second Trump term. For right now, a brush-back pitch is exactly what is needed to help Trump and the GOP win heavily in 2020.
In the last several weeks, a lot of information relating to the
FBI’s Russia investigation has been declassified and made public. That’s
in large part thanks to Attorney General Barr and Acting Director
Grenell. Their acts of transparency are finally shining a light on the
dark corners of the federal government. They’re doing what they ought to
do and I encourage them to keep it up.
In the last
several weeks, we’ve also seen a lot of denial from some quarters in
the media about the information that’s been released. Also, last week,
former President Obama said the rule of law is at risk because of the
Justice Department’s dismissal of the Flynn case.
I
believe the opposite is true. The rule of law is at risk if the federal
government can get away with violating the constitution to do what they
did to Lt. Gen. Flynn. And when it comes to those violations and other
misconduct by former government officials, Obama and the mainstream
media pundit circle are silent.
I’ve heard no
comment from Mr. Obama about independent Inspector General findings that
Andrew McCabe lied under oath to federal investigators multiple times.
Or about how DOJ prosecutors falsely told the court that they had
produced all Brady material to Flynn. Or when the federal government
surveilled an American citizen connected to the Trump campaign without
probable cause and based on intelligence the FBI knew was questionable
at best.
Since 2017, I’ve aggressively pursued the
Flynn investigation to find out more about why the FBI decided to
interview Flynn, make him a subject of an investigation, and then why
the Justice Department eventually charged him. From the beginning, I’ve
wanted to know the facts of the case. And from the beginning, none of
what I found looked right.
Having done good government oversight for over 40 years, I know a government foul up when I see it.
The
public knows a lot more than it did in 2017 when the news first broke
about the Flynn case. For example, we know that on January 4, 2017, the
FBI wrote a closing memorandum on Flynn, who was codenamed Crossfire
Razor by the FBI, that said the Intelligence Community could find no
derogatory information on him.
On the very same day
the FBI was ready to close the Flynn case, Peter Strzok asked another
FBI agent, “Hey if you haven’t closed Razor don’t do it yet.”
The
case was still open at that moment and Strzok asked that it be kept
open “for now.” Strzok then messaged Lisa Page saying that Razor still
happened to be open because of some oversight and said “Yeah, our utter
incompetence actually helps us. 20 percent of the time…”
During
the course of my oversight activities of the FBI, I’ve uncovered and
made public large amounts of Strzok’s and Page’s messages. When
reviewing all the faults and disasters of the Russia investigation,
these text messages are very important. They are the free expression of
these top FBI employees’ mindset, unencumbered by rules or decorum. They
give us a look at what the drivers of the Russia investigation actually
believed.
In August 2016, just after the FBI
opened the Russia investigation, Page said, “Trump’s not ever going to
become president, right? Right?!?”
She’s the one who edited Flynn’s 302 summary along with Strzok, which contradicted the original 302.
Strzok responded, “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.”
Their animus towards Trump helps to explain why they cut corners and didn’t follow regular protocol in running their inquiry.
On
January 5, 2017, the day after Strzok moved to keep the Flynn case
open, President Obama met with Director Comey, Deputy Attorney General
Sally Yates, Vice President Biden, and National Security Advisor Susan
Rice. In that meeting they briefed Obama on the Russia investigation.
It’s unclear to what extent they discussed the details of the
investigation amongst each other. Given all that we know now regarding
the fake foundation to the inquiry, it’s time we asked: what did Obama
and Biden know and when did they know it?
During
the course of my oversight, I acquired an email from Susan Rice. She
sent herself an email on Obama’s last day in office – January 20, 2017.
That email memorialized the alleged contents of the January 5, 2017,
meeting with Obama.
As I noted in 2018 when I made
that email public, I found it odd that among her activities in the final
moments of the final day of the Obama administration that she would
write herself an email about a meeting that happened weeks prior about
one investigation. According to Rice, Obama wanted everything done “by
the book.” Of course, that never happened.
She also
said, in part, “The President (as in Obama) asked Comey to inform him
if anything changes in the next few weeks that should affect how we
share classified information with the incoming team.”
Then,
one week later, on January 12, 2017, somebody in the Obama
administration leaked the Flynn/Kislyak call to the Washington Post that
ignited rumors about Flynn’s associations with Russians and a possible
violation of the arcane Logan Act. A perfectly timed leak. One that
would help create the fake foundation to interview Flynn.
Well,
twelve days later, on January 24, 2017, Strzok interviewed Flynn in the
White House. Prior to that interview, Comey chose not to follow normal
protocols to inform the White House that the FBI intended to interview
an employee. Usually you work through the White House counsel to have
discussions for approvals and who would be present.
Comey
even bragged about getting away with skirting these rules. When he was
asked in a 2018 interview about how he did it, Comey said, “I sent them.
Something I probably wouldn’t have done or even gotten away with in a
more organized investigation, a more organized administration.”
According to Comey’s former assistant, Comey said, “We just decided, you know, screw it” in reference to them breaking protocol.
That’s hardly “by the book.”
Flynn
was never told what he was being secretly interrogated for and the
whole thing was done without an attorney present. Now we know that the
FBI had no real investigative purpose to interview Flynn.
We
also know, based on FBI notes, that agents apparently interviewed Flynn
to trick him in a lie so that they could prosecute him or get him
fired. Keep in mind, the FBI had prepared to close the case weeks
before.
The FBI already had the transcript of the
Flynn/Kislyak call. They knew exactly what was discussed, so what was
the point of interviewing Flynn if they already had the transcript?
Well,
lucky for Strzok, the FBI had not technically closed the Flynn case yet
so he figured they could lay a trap for Flynn. In so doing, they didn’t
warn him he was under investigation. They went around the Justice
Department and bypassed White House interview protocols.
Under
Comey’s leadership, the FBI abused governmental power in ways the
Founders and Framers feared most. The Russia investigation is a textbook
example of what not to do. At every step of the investigation, the
government sought evidence to advance it, never got the evidence they
needed, and advanced the investigation anyway.
That is an abuse of power!
Let’s
recall that Comey also leaked his memos of his private discussions with
President Trump to get a special counsel appointed. He had a plan. It
worked. We had Mueller for two years and more than $30 million. Mueller
found no collusion, and no obstruction. That’s exactly the same
information that the House Intelligence Committee’s 50 plus depositions
told us. And those were done in 2017. Mueller finished in 2019. That’s
more than $30 million just to reinvent the wheel.
Now,
with respect to Comey, I think it’s monumentally important to point out
a piece of his testimony from 2017 before the House Intelligence
Committee. Comey said the following,
“…we had an
open counterintelligence investigation on Mr. Flynn, and it had been
open since the summertime, and we were very close to closing it. In
fact, I had – I think I had authorized it to be closed at the end of
December, beginning of January.”
Comey leaked his
memos so that the public would know that the President allegedly said to
him that he hoped Comey would let the whole Flynn thing go.
That’s what the hook was to getting a special counsel appointed.
Not
once in Comey’s memos did he mention that by the time that conversation
occurred, he had already authorized the Flynn case to be closed. Don’t
you think that’s a material fact that would put the proper context on
his interactions with Trump?
Attorney General Barr
is exactly right. What the FBI did to Flynn cannot be justified by any
angle of review. What the FBI did is flout the rules, the law and the
Constitution.
That’s where the outrage ought to be.
Not on the dismissal of the case but on the fact the case was brought
in the first place and a good man’s life was destroyed.
Mueller
had all these facts. He had the documents. Had the Brady material. He
had the FBI notes and contradictory 302 summaries. He had the emails. He
had all the information that showed Flynn was set up, targeted, and
pressured to plead guilty in a secret side deal between the Mueller team
and his former lawyers only because he was running out of money and the
government was coming after his son.
Flynn did
what he did to save his family from financial ruin and his son from
reputational ruin. He did what any father would do for his family.
If
it can happen to Flynn it can happen to you. And in some ways it also
happened to Carter Page and the illegal surveillance on him.
We’re
in a constant battle between liberty and tyranny. My fellow Americans,
let’s use the Russia investigation and all its shortcomings to forever
guard against the tyranny of the federal government.
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