RUTHFULLY YOURS

The FBI set former national security advisor Michael Flynn up.

That is about all we can make of the latest revelation that the FBI made serious breaches of protocol when it set up the Jan. 24, 2017, meeting with Flynn to ask him about his Dec. 2016 conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kisylak. We now know the FBI did not go through the White House counsel first, suggest Flynn have a lawyer present, or advise him of his rights prior to the interview. Former FBI director James Comey even appeared on MSNBC to brag about the breach, stating:

[This was] something I probably wouldn’t have done or wouldn’t have gotten away with in a more organized administration. … In the George W. Bush Administration or the Obama Administration, if the FBI wanted to send agents into the White House itself to interview a senior official, you would work through the White House counsel, there would be discussions and approvals and who would be there. And I thought, it’s early enough let’s just send a couple guys over.

The Justice Department and the FBI engaged in misconduct in the questioning of Flynn, and it ought to result in overturning Flynn’s conviction. We’ll see what Judge Emmet Sullivan does for Flynn’s sentencing.

In the meantime, it seems useful to retrace our steps to how we got to this point.

The only reason Flynn was questioned in the first place is because somebody in the Obama administration illegally leaked his conversation with Kislyak to the Washington Post’s David Ignatius on Jan. 12, 2017. Conducting damage control, Vice President Mike Pence appeared on CBS to say sanctions were not discussed. So what crime was the FBI investigating on Jan. 24, 2017? Why question Flynn at all about his conversation with the ambassador — other than to see if he’d lie or had forgotten the substance of the conversation, that is?

The Washington Examiner’s Byron York reported on Dec. 3, 2017:

Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates has told Congress that the Logan Act was the first reason she intervened in the Flynn case — the reason FBI agents were sent to the White House to interview Flynn.

But it wasn’t the Logan Act, an unenforced ancient U.S. law that — unconstitutionally — forbids private individuals from undermining U.S. foreign policy abroad. Just the day before the interrogation on Jan. 23, the Washington Post published a big report on Flynn’s conversation with the ambassador, stating that the FBI had investigated and found no crime. Were they just trying to lull Flynn into a sense of complacency?

It seems improper for the FBI to interrogate somebody for something the FBI didn’t even believe was a crime. Ultimately, as it is, Flynn was never charged by Mueller with any Logan Act violations — probably because they could not be supported. Americans have First Amendment rights, after all. CONTINUE AT SITE