The over three-year drama surrounding Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to President Trump, took a massive turn on Thursday, with the Department of Justice announcing that it was dropping the criminal case against him amid newly surfaced evidence pointing to a “perjury trap” laid by the FBI.
The Daily Wire reported:
Court documents released Thursday, obtained exclusively by The Associated Press, reveal the DOJ decided to drop the case “after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information.” The court documents further revealed that the DOJ concluded that the ill-fated FBI interview of Flynn on January 24, 2017 was “untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn” and “conducted without any legitimate investigative basis.”
“Through the course of my review of General Flynn’s case, I concluded the proper and just course was to dismiss the case,” Jeff Jensen, the U.S. attorney assigned to review Flynn’s case, said in a statement. “I briefed Attorney General Barr on my findings, advised him on these conclusions, and he agreed.”
One of the key pieces of evidence that prompted the dismissal of the case against Flynn was a newly unsealed document containing a handwritten note from FBI agents asking if their planned interview with Flynn was about “Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?”
President Trump responded to the development in a pair of tweets Friday morning. “Yesterday was a BIG day for Justice in the USA,” he wrote. “Congratulations to General Flynn, and many others.”
“I do believe there is MUCH more to come!” he wrote, a nod to ongoing investigations into the matter. “Dirty Cops and Crooked Politicians do not go well together!” In an emphatic follow up post, Trump declared: “DRAIN THE SWAMP!”
Yesterday was a BIG day for Justice in the USA. Congratulations to General Flynn, and many others. I do believe there is MUCH more to come! Dirty Cops and Crooked Politicians do not go well together!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2020
DRAIN THE SWAMP!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2020
Asked in an interview that aired Thursday if the evidence shows that “the counterintelligence case against General Flynn was simply left open to lay a trap for lying,” Attorney General William Barr said, “Yes.”
“Essentially. They had started a counterintelligence investigation during the summer, as you know, related to the campaign,” Barr explained to CBS News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge. “But in December, the team, the Crossfire Hurricane team, was closing that and determined they had found nothing to justify continuing with that investigation against Flynn. On the very day they prepared the final papers, the seventh floor, that is the director’s office and the deputy director’s office up there, sent down word they should keep that open. So that they could try to go and question Flynn about this call he had with the Russian ambassador.”
The James Comey-led FBI kept the case open, Barr said, “for the express purpose of trying to catch, lay a perjury trap for General Flynn.”
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