General Michael Flynn has recently spoken out about the tactics the FBI used in order to get allegedly false statements from him about meeting with the Russian ambassador. Does General Flynn have a point? Robert Mueller and his team have strongly denied there was any impropriety or trickery in their actions, but Andrew Klavan says “not so fast.” Here’s why “The Andrew Klavan Show” host thinks there were some issues with the Flynn story.
“Michael Flynn plead guilty to lying to the FBI over a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador, the conversation was completely legal. In fact, it was his responsibility to have the conversation as part of Trump’s staff,” he said. “So they’re just charging him with telling a falsehood to the FBI during the questioning about that conversation. The investigation was supposed to be about Russian collusion, Trump ‘colluding’ with the Russians to fix the campaign. That investigation, at the time, was secret – they didn’t know that investigation was going on.”
After the prosecution recommended no jail time, Klavan explained how federal Judge Emmet Sullivan issued a Brady Order to the prosecution, forcing them to surrender all the exculpatory evidence over to the defense.
“This is what they found out,” Klavan said. “… and by the way, this is stuff that the House investigators have been trying to get out of the FBI and the Justice Department forever, and they’ve been stonewalling them, and now we know why!”
“Here’s what they did to 3-star general Michael Flynn – then deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who’s now been fired for poor behavior,” he continued. “McCabe personally called up Michael Flynn and was talking about something else, then he said ‘oh by the way, we’d like you to have a sit down with two agents to clear up a little bit about this conversation you had with the Russian ambassador.’ He told Flynn not to have a lawyer present because he said ‘once you do that, it all gets kinda complicated.'”
Klavan pointed out that the FBI agents, which included allegedly corrupt Agent Peter Strzok, did not inform Flynn that his words could be used against him, nor did they read him his Miranda rights.
“They treated this 3-star general like a skell,” Klavan explained. “If a suspect may have just killed someone, that might be appropriate, but you’re talking to a combat veteran, a 3-star general, who had a legal conversation with the Russian Ambassador. It was part of his job. He had no reason to think he was in legal jeopardy, and they pulled this trick on him and nailed him. It’s dirty cop stuff. It would be ugly if they did it to a killer; it’s despicable that they did it to Michael Flynn.”
Video and transcript below:
Michael Flynn plead guilty to lying to the FBI over a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador. The conversation was completely legal. In fact, it was his responsibility to have the conversation as part of Trump’s staff. So they’re just charging him with telling a falsehood to the FBI during the questioning about that conversation. The investigation was supposed to be about Russian collusion, Trump “colluding” with the Russians to fix the campaign. That investigation, at the time, was secret – they didn’t know that investigation was going on.
So here’s what we now know. We know that Flynn plead guilty to this because he’s been in the military his whole life, he’s a soldier, he hasn’t got a lot of money, it would have bankrupted him to have defended himself against it, and his son was also in danger of becoming a legal target. So they threatened him. Just remember, this is a combat veteran, a 3-star general. They bring this before the judge, federal judge Emmet Sullivan, and he’s pleading, and the government is saying he shouldn’t get any jail time, and Sullivan – who everybody’s thinking he’s just gonna make a decision right away, he says, “hold on just a minute, what is going on here?”
He issues something called a Brady order – Sullivan is a guy who’s suspicious of federal investigators because he knows they play a lot of games. So he put forward a Brady order, which reminds the prosecution that they have to give the defense all the exculpatory evidence, meaning all the evidence that might prove the defendant not guilty. He saw some of this stuff and he said, “I want to see these documents for myself.” This is what they found out – and by the way, this is stuff that the House investigators have been trying to get out of the FBI and the Justice Department forever, and they’ve been stonewalling them, and now we know why!
Here’s what they did to 3-star general Michael Flynn – then deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who’s now been fired for poor behavior, McCabe personally called up Michael Flynn and was talking about something else, then he said, “oh by the way, we’d like you to have a sit down with two agents to clear up a little bit about this conversation you had with the Russian ambassador.” He told Flynn not to have a lawyer present because he said “once you do that, it all gets kinda complicated.” They didn’t warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie to the FBI. So he didn’t know, for instance, that if he accidentally got something wrong that he could be accused of lying and charged, and that he would have to bankrupt himself to defend himself. He wasn’t given any kind of Miranda warning, he wasn’t given any of that. He was just provided with the entrapment opportunity to commit a crime.
Later, the first thing Flynn said was, “Oh, I misremembered this.” Of course, you’re talking to a 3-star general – why wouldn’t you believe him? But they didn’t have to believe him because they knew they could pressure him and get him to crack, and get him to plead guilty. James Comey is bragging about this, too! One of the agents, by the way, who went over to talk to Flynn was Peter Strozk – the guy who was sending texts to his lover about how we had to have a plan to get rid of Donald Trump if he got elected. This is real, real dirty cop stuff.
They say they wanted Flynn relaxed and unguarded, so they didn’t want to give him the standard warnings. As I said, Comey bragged about this:
James Comey: “[This is] something I probably wouldn’t have done or gotten away with in a more organized administration…the FBI wanted to send agents into the White House itself, to interview a senior official, you would work through the White House counsel and there would be discussions and approvals, and I thought ‘it’s early enough, let’s just send a couple guys over.'”
He’s bragging about it! He took advantage of the chaos of the new administration to send a couple of guys over to talk. They treated this 3-star general like a skell. They treated him like they treat suspects in “NYPD Blue.” Remember, the old cop show where they would bring guys in and lie to them about not needing a lawyer, etc.? If a suspect may have just killed someone, that might be appropriate, but you’re talking to a combat veteran, a 3-star general, who had a legal conversation with the Russian Ambassador. It was part of his job, he had no reason to think he was in legal jeopardy, and they pulled this trick on him and nailed him. It’s dirty cop stuff. It would be ugly if they did it to a killer; it’s despicable that they did it to Michael Flynn.