Why was the FBI Investigating General Flynn?


CNBC

Trump: I fired Flynn because of what he told Pence
Jacob Pramuk | @jacobpramuk
Published 1:37 PM ET Thu, 16 Feb 2017 Updated 9:44 AM ET Fri, 17 Feb 2017
A defiant President Donald Trump on Thursday insisted that he asked Michael Flynn to resign because of Flynn's statements to Vice President Mike Pence. The president also denied that he told his key national security advisor to discuss sanctions with a Russian official.

"He didn't tell the vice president of the United States the facts and then he didn't remember, and that's just not acceptable," Trump told reporters at the White House at his first solo news conference as chief executive.

"I fired him because of what he said to Mike Pence."
 
...

They also knew there was nothing untoward about the call. We know that from the Times report — a report that suggests an unseemly conjoining of investigative power to partisan politics.

The report informs us that as the FBI set its sights on Flynn, its agents were consulting with “Obama advisers.” Interesting, no? Ever since Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump on November 8, Obama’s Democratic party had been pushing a narrative that “Putin hacked the election.” The narrative continues to have two major flaws. First, while the Russian dictator may have preferred Trump to Clinton, there is no evidence that his Russian regime did anything to compromise the voting process. The media-Democrat complex has desperately sought to obscure this problem by emphasizing Putin’s likely role in publicizing embarrassing Democratic e-mail communications. Notwithstanding Democratic talking points, that is a far cry from “hacking” the voting process.

The second flaw is that, although Trump has made disturbingly flattering remarks about Putin, there is no evidence his campaign has given or promised Russia any actual accommodation in exchange for Putin’s favor. Democrats hope to erase this problem by finding something, anything, that could be spun as a quid pro quo. Obviously, they hoped the Flynn–Kislyak conversation would answer their prayers. No such luck. As the Times puts it:

Obama officials asked the FBI if a quid pro quo had been discussed on the call, and the answer came back no, according to one of the officials, who like others asked not to be named discussing delicate communications. The topic of sanctions came up, they were told, but there was no deal.

Asked not to be named discussing delicate communications. That’s a good one. Let me translate: The officials don’t want you to know who they are because they are corrupt — (a) FISA intercepts are classified, so disclosing them to the press is a crime; (b) by revealing the Flynn–Kislyak conversation to the press, the “officials” inform the Russians that whatever countermeasures they are taking against U.S. surveillance have failed, assuring that the Russians will alter their tactics, making the job of our honorable intelligence agents more difficult; and (c) the FBI’s investigative powers are not supposed to be put in in the service of a political party’s effort to advance a partisan storyline, like “Putin hacked the election.”

So since there was no impropriety in Flynn’s call to the Russian ambassador, why did the Bureau continue investigating Flynn? Why did FBI agents interrogate him?

...

And there was no need to “grill” him over the contents of a conversation of which the FBI and Justice Department already had a recording.

And the FBI has no business probing the veracity of public statements made by presidential administrations for political purposes — something it certainly resisted doing during the Obama administration.

There appears to have been no foreign-intelligence or criminal-investigative purpose served by the FBI’s interrogation of General Flynn. It is easy to see why Democrats would want to portray Flynn’s contact with the Russian ambassador as worthy of an FBI investigation. But why did the FBI and the Justice Department investigate Flynn — and why did “officials” make sure the press found out about it?

Mike Flynn & FBI Investigation: Bureau Had No Basis for It | National Review

Flynn was being investigated because he did not register as a foreign agent AS REQUIRED BY LAW. Amazing how Trumpies are always talking about the laws that Democrats have supposedly broken Yet they seem to have no problem when their guys clearly do it. He was also helping Erdogan who is a Islamic extremist. Nice guy to be helping.
 
...

They also knew there was nothing untoward about the call. We know that from the Times report — a report that suggests an unseemly conjoining of investigative power to partisan politics.

The report informs us that as the FBI set its sights on Flynn, its agents were consulting with “Obama advisers.” Interesting, no? Ever since Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump on November 8, Obama’s Democratic party had been pushing a narrative that “Putin hacked the election.” The narrative continues to have two major flaws. First, while the Russian dictator may have preferred Trump to Clinton, there is no evidence that his Russian regime did anything to compromise the voting process. The media-Democrat complex has desperately sought to obscure this problem by emphasizing Putin’s likely role in publicizing embarrassing Democratic e-mail communications. Notwithstanding Democratic talking points, that is a far cry from “hacking” the voting process.

The second flaw is that, although Trump has made disturbingly flattering remarks about Putin, there is no evidence his campaign has given or promised Russia any actual accommodation in exchange for Putin’s favor. Democrats hope to erase this problem by finding something, anything, that could be spun as a quid pro quo. Obviously, they hoped the Flynn–Kislyak conversation would answer their prayers. No such luck. As the Times puts it:

Obama officials asked the FBI if a quid pro quo had been discussed on the call, and the answer came back no, according to one of the officials, who like others asked not to be named discussing delicate communications. The topic of sanctions came up, they were told, but there was no deal.

Asked not to be named discussing delicate communications. That’s a good one. Let me translate: The officials don’t want you to know who they are because they are corrupt — (a) FISA intercepts are classified, so disclosing them to the press is a crime; (b) by revealing the Flynn–Kislyak conversation to the press, the “officials” inform the Russians that whatever countermeasures they are taking against U.S. surveillance have failed, assuring that the Russians will alter their tactics, making the job of our honorable intelligence agents more difficult; and (c) the FBI’s investigative powers are not supposed to be put in in the service of a political party’s effort to advance a partisan storyline, like “Putin hacked the election.”

So since there was no impropriety in Flynn’s call to the Russian ambassador, why did the Bureau continue investigating Flynn? Why did FBI agents interrogate him?

...

And there was no need to “grill” him over the contents of a conversation of which the FBI and Justice Department already had a recording.

And the FBI has no business probing the veracity of public statements made by presidential administrations for political purposes — something it certainly resisted doing during the Obama administration.

There appears to have been no foreign-intelligence or criminal-investigative purpose served by the FBI’s interrogation of General Flynn. It is easy to see why Democrats would want to portray Flynn’s contact with the Russian ambassador as worthy of an FBI investigation. But why did the FBI and the Justice Department investigate Flynn — and why did “officials” make sure the press found out about it?

Mike Flynn & FBI Investigation: Bureau Had No Basis for It | National Review
To my knowledge they were monitoring the Russian's phone because Putin did not retaliate against the US for Obama's knee jerk (and ill-advised in my opinion) reaction to Russia getting involved in our election...which is very out-of-character for Putin. So, Flynn highlighted himself when he contacted the Russian whose phone they were monitoring, thereby opening up a file on himself. (Like, if you know somebody is a liaison for a terrorist network, you don't simply monitor that person...you monitor that person and absolutely everybody he is in contact with). This is all pretty common sense.

The issue here is that the leaks are a bad problem. One of the reasons why the FBI director was said to have made his letter to Congress in the 9th inning of the election was to beat his internal leakers to the punch that they were reviewing emails that Clinton was involved in. Some leaks from our intel community help Americans...like Snowden whistleblowing the NSA nationwide phone taps. However, this amount of leaking really seems detrimental to America.

One does have to wonder if Trump has encouraged these leaks though through his repeated bashing of the intel community during his campaign.

They were hardly ill-advised. I don't believe they were tough enough. Putin is a murdering thug.
 

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