Trump Admits to Obstructing Justice

Synthaholic

Diamond Member
Jul 21, 2010
71,223
48,691
2,605
I am a God on this message board.
What a dumbass! His dementia makes it impossible for him to remember what he has previously stated.

Trump Tweets He Knew Flynn Lied to FBI When He Asked Comey to ‘Let Flynn Go’


I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017


Whether the president remembered it or not, he has never before stated that Flynn lied to the FBI. Whether the president realized it or not, conceding that he knew about Flynn’s FBI lie – to which Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday – opens Trump up to a world of legal hurt. Trump had asked James Comey, the former director of the FBI, to drop an inquiry into a man Trump now says he knew lied to the bureau.

“This tweet makes it clear that Trump knew at the time that he made his request to Comey to let the investigation go that Flynn had lied to the FBI, which is a criminal offense,” Barbara McQuade, who until January served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, told The Daily Beast.

Trump’s original explanation for firing Flynn on the evening of February 13 was that Flynn had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his December conversations with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak concerning new U.S. sanctions on Russia. On February 14, then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump fired Flynn for what Spicer called an “evolving and eroding level of trust” with Flynn.

That same day, Trump met with several national security officials, including Comey, and dismissed the others to talk with Comey in private. Comey at the time was in charge of the Russia inquiry.

“I want to talk about Mike Flynn,” Trump told him, according to Comey’s sworn Senate testimony in June. “The President began by saying Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President.” (If Trump told Comey that Flynn lied to the FBI, Comey did not include that in his highly anticipated testimony.)

RELATED IN POLITICS

Michael Flynn Just Flipped on Team Trump


‘Very Senior’ Trump Official Authorized Flynn’s Russia Chats


Flynn Knew the FBI Heard His Russia Calls. Why’d He Lie?

Trump quickly got to the point of the one-on-one discussion.

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Comey quoted Trump saying. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

Comey said he promised Trump nothing, and considered Trump’s request such a breach of FBI independence from the White House that he prepared a memo on it – a subpoenable document, in other words – that he shared with his FBI leadership team and not Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Less than three months after that meeting, Trump fired Comey, citing the Russia investigation as the cause to NBC’s Lester Holt, which itself was a revision from the initial White House excuse that Comey had mistreated Hillary Clinton.

Trump’s tweet “adds to the evidence that Trump was attempting to obstruct or impede the investigation of a crime,” said McQuade, the former federal prosecutor.

GET THE BEAST IN YOUR INBOX!
The admission from the president also suggests that White House counsel Don McGahn had informed the president about Flynn’s potential to “be blackmailed by the Russians,” as Sally Yates, the former acting attorney general, put it in May testimony.

Yet according to the timeline Yates provided of briefing McGahn, Trump kept in office for another 18 days a man he now says he knew lied to the FBI – deepening Flynn’s compromise, and even potentially Trump’s, should the Russians have come to know Trump was sticking with Flynn.

“Trump had asked James Comey, the former director of the FBI, to drop an inquiry into a man Trump now says he knew lied to the bureau.”
Flynn lied to the FBI in an interview on January 24. Yates testified that on the morning of January 26, she called McGahn with “a very sensitive matter” she needed to discuss with the White House counsel in person. That day and the next, Yates told McGahn that Flynn was in a “compromise situation” owing to Pence’s untrue public presentation of Flynn’s conversations with Russian ambassador Kislyak.

In her public testimony, Yates was careful not to discuss two pieces of classified information. First, U.S. intelligence had intercepted the Flynn-Kislyak conversations – legally, since Kislyak was an agent of a foreign power; as the other party on the call, Flynn was collected “incidentally,” in surveillance parlance – thereby disproving Pence’s public account of the calls. Second, Flynn had just given the FBI what Flynn has now conceded was an untruthful account of the Kislyak conversation.

But without saying Flynn had lied to the FBI, Yates made it nonetheless clear that Flynn’s FBI interview was significant enough to prompt her urgent White House visit. (After all, Pence’s TV appearance was on January 15, 11 days prior.) Yates said she had “notes that described that interview” that she took to her parley with McGahn, along with a senior Justice Department national-security official in contact with the FBI. As well, Yates recalled that during a follow-up meeting on January 27, McGahn asked her about “the applicability of certain statutes, certain criminal statutes” to Flynn.

Yates said she was not in a position to know what McGahn did with the “urgent” information on Flynn that she gave to him. She did not hear from the White House counsel again until January 30, she testified: “I don't know what happened after that because that was my last day with DOJ” – when Trump fired her, ostensibly for her refusal to defend Trump’s anti-Muslim travel ban in court. Mueller interviewed McGahn last week, the Washington Postconfirmed.

Flynn’s agreement to cooperate has substantially deepened the White House’s exposure to Mueller’s probe. There are not many administration officials senior to Flynn against whom Mueller would want him to testify. While Mueller has never confirmed that Trump himself is under investigation, Trump is on that short list.

Also there are Trump’s son-in-law and Pence himself, all of whom were senior transition-team officials at the time of the Kislyak calls. Pence, who has evaded suspicion in the Russia probe until now, ran the transition. Flynn’s agreed stipulation of the facts of the Kislyak calls claims they occurred with the full knowledge, and in one case at the direction, of the transition team.

As well, Flynn’s decision to seek a plea caused Trump to privately seethe weeks in advance, The Daily Beast reported Friday. Long before Flynn ever says Trump’s name on a witness stand, the plea deal appears to have prompted Trump to casually and publicly proffer information that could lead Mueller to his doorstep.


Sponsored Stories
Recommended by
REAL RED PILL HEART AND BRAIN
Reeling From Flynn Deal, Alex Jones Issues Civil War ‘Red Alert’—for 15th Time in Two Months
The site has been warning that war here is imminent—and even announcing its start—since the election. Lately, they’ve picked the pace up to 11.
BEN COLLINS
12.02.17 12:00 AM ET
Just after the word this morning that Gen. Michael Flynn had cut a deal with special counsel Robert Mueller, InfoWars issued a “Red Alert” warning that the “removal of Trump will trigger a massive civil war.”

Host Alex Jones explained that if “they remove Trump” after the “classic Americana being promoted and dĂ©tente with Christian Russia,” it will cause a “massive civil war.”

While the “Red Alert” designation is new, InfoWars’ doomsaying is not. Jones’ site has referred to the imminent civil war over 50 times since Election Day in 2016, citing at different times various right-wing radio hosts, Kindle e-book authors, and Ted Nugent.

Other far-right websites, echoing the response from administration officials and Trump’s personal lawyer, Ty Cobb, rushed to distance the president’s former national security adviser from the campaign and administration.

Breitbart quickly placed the blame on Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, whose name was surrounded by emojis of princes on the website. “Did Mr. Perfect Sink Gen. Flynn?” the homepage headline blared on Breitbart, a website run by Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon, who frequently feuded with Kushner when he served as senior adviser to the president.

The Daily Caller led with a story titled “White House Plays Down Importance Of Flynn Guilty Plea,” in a four-paragraph story that consisted mostly of Cobb’s statement.

At InfoWars, however, it was once again time to warn of the impending civil war, for the 15th time in the past two months.

RELATED IN POLITICS

What Trump and His Gang Will Forgive Is Unforgivable


Trump Tweets Out Anti-Muslim ‘Snuff Film’


Why Can’t More GOP Voters Back Doug Jones? One Word—Abortion

Beneath an all-caps red banner that screamed “ONE DAY LEFT FOR 50% OFF SELECT ITEMS AND FREE SHIPPING” on items like “The Real Red Pill Heart and Brain Formula,” Jones delivered a stern warning.

“Number one, you better get yourself right with God, and that means Jesus Christ. And number two, if they kill Trump or remove Trump when they’ve committed all these crimes, and done everything they say he’s done, when people see the economy turboing back, with real jobs and real money and real optimism to the average person and classic Americana being promoted and dĂ©tente with Christian Russia and standing up to North Korea and securing our borders and just delivering at a dizzying level—it’s biblical—if we allow the evil people that hijack this country, the globalists, to remove Trump with all this fraud and if we buy into the hype and if we’re not strong and we don’t speak out, if these crazy globalists that don’t know how when to give up are actually able to remove Trump—I’m gonna walk through the scenarios for that coming up, because they mean business, they said he’ll be gone by the end of December, remember our intel from high-level Congressional sources? Just a few months ago—this is it!” he said.

“If they’re able to do that, it’ll cause a massive civil war in this country.”

InfoWars has spent the past few months warning in dozens of articles about a “Communist Revolution,” a “Violent Uprising,” and an “Antifa Civil War” to “Overthrow the Government” on Nov. 4. Despite the warnings of a YouTube star who dresses as a police officer, the uprising did not materialize.

The website’s Antifa civil war coverage began in early October, but conspiracies about a civil war triggered by the Las Vegas attack, citing a novelist who writes about fictional false flag attacks, and about an American civil war due to a “political class emboldened after [French President Emmanuel] Macron’s victory” date back even further.

GET THE BEAST IN YOUR INBOX!
Less than a week after Trump’s win, the site ran the headline “IS A REAL CIVIL WAR POSSIBLE?” and a subheadline replying that “the very idea of America is in disrepute, and held in contempt” above an aggregated piece from InternationalMan.com saying it was “unlikely,” since Americans take too many psychoactive drugs to “get off the couch.”

But that didn’t seem to assure the site’s stalwarts. Editor Paul Joseph Watson wrote that “The left is willing to risk civil war in America & nuclear war with Russia because they’re butt-hurt about losing” in a story called “The Truth About Russia ‘Hacking The Election’” last December.

On the same day, Jones sent out an “Emergency Alert” that “the left are trying to overthrow Trump,” and that “rouge [sic] elements in CIA [are] helping the globalist left.”

The drumbeat continued through 2017, as a former Green Beret, Ted Nugent, and Roger Stone all predicted a civil war this year on InfoWars, with the site also citing far-right columnists and retired lieutenant colonels appearing on Fox & Friends to warn of the impending “bloody civil war [and] societal collapse.”

In February, InfoWars warned that a force led by former President Barack Obama himself was already assembled and awaiting orders. “SABOTAGE: OBAMA IS COMMANDING AN ARMY OF 30,000 ANTI-TRUMP ACTIVISTS FROM HIS HOME 2 MILES FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.”

Alex Jones said we are “on the brink” of a civil war in May. In June, he upgraded the outlook to “imminent.” He forewarned, “If Trump is impeached, BEWARE!”

Also in June, Jones prematurely declared that the “first shots (were) fired in second Civil war.” A week later, InfoWars posted a story titled “GET READY FOR CIVIL WAR!” pointing to a quote from Johnny Depp at a music festival in England.

The same month, the headline “TRUMP ASSASSINATION IMMINENT” appeared above a story about a Shakespeare in the Park performance of Julius Caesar.

Jones further examined the question, “Would Trump Assassination Lead to Civil War?”, in a video in July.

In October, InfoWars revealed the “Democratic Plan To Launch Civil War Using False Flag Discovered” by a man who ended the segment by asking viewers to buy his books on Amazon.com.

In December of 2015, then-candidate Trump appeared on an InfoWars broadcast, where he told Jones: “Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/
 
What a laugh. He didn't say to comey "drop the investigation". He asked him to go lightly. Huuuge difference A difference you silly people ignore.
 
“This tweet makes it clear that Trump knew at the time that he made his request to Comey to let the investigation go that Flynn had lied to the FBI, which is a criminal offense,” Barbara McQuade, who until January served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, told The Daily Beast.
 
What a dumbass! His dementia makes it impossible for him to remember what he has previously stated.

Trump Tweets He Knew Flynn Lied to FBI When He Asked Comey to ‘Let Flynn Go’


I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017


Whether the president remembered it or not, he has never before stated that Flynn lied to the FBI. Whether the president realized it or not, conceding that he knew about Flynn’s FBI lie – to which Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday – opens Trump up to a world of legal hurt. Trump had asked James Comey, the former director of the FBI, to drop an inquiry into a man Trump now says he knew lied to the bureau.

“This tweet makes it clear that Trump knew at the time that he made his request to Comey to let the investigation go that Flynn had lied to the FBI, which is a criminal offense,” Barbara McQuade, who until January served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, told The Daily Beast.

Trump’s original explanation for firing Flynn on the evening of February 13 was that Flynn had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his December conversations with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak concerning new U.S. sanctions on Russia. On February 14, then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump fired Flynn for what Spicer called an “evolving and eroding level of trust” with Flynn.

That same day, Trump met with several national security officials, including Comey, and dismissed the others to talk with Comey in private. Comey at the time was in charge of the Russia inquiry.

“I want to talk about Mike Flynn,” Trump told him, according to Comey’s sworn Senate testimony in June. “The President began by saying Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President.” (If Trump told Comey that Flynn lied to the FBI, Comey did not include that in his highly anticipated testimony.)

RELATED IN POLITICS

Michael Flynn Just Flipped on Team Trump


‘Very Senior’ Trump Official Authorized Flynn’s Russia Chats


Flynn Knew the FBI Heard His Russia Calls. Why’d He Lie?

Trump quickly got to the point of the one-on-one discussion.

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Comey quoted Trump saying. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

Comey said he promised Trump nothing, and considered Trump’s request such a breach of FBI independence from the White House that he prepared a memo on it – a subpoenable document, in other words – that he shared with his FBI leadership team and not Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Less than three months after that meeting, Trump fired Comey, citing the Russia investigation as the cause to NBC’s Lester Holt, which itself was a revision from the initial White House excuse that Comey had mistreated Hillary Clinton.

Trump’s tweet “adds to the evidence that Trump was attempting to obstruct or impede the investigation of a crime,” said McQuade, the former federal prosecutor.

GET THE BEAST IN YOUR INBOX!
The admission from the president also suggests that White House counsel Don McGahn had informed the president about Flynn’s potential to “be blackmailed by the Russians,” as Sally Yates, the former acting attorney general, put it in May testimony.

Yet according to the timeline Yates provided of briefing McGahn, Trump kept in office for another 18 days a man he now says he knew lied to the FBI – deepening Flynn’s compromise, and even potentially Trump’s, should the Russians have come to know Trump was sticking with Flynn.

“Trump had asked James Comey, the former director of the FBI, to drop an inquiry into a man Trump now says he knew lied to the bureau.”
Flynn lied to the FBI in an interview on January 24. Yates testified that on the morning of January 26, she called McGahn with “a very sensitive matter” she needed to discuss with the White House counsel in person. That day and the next, Yates told McGahn that Flynn was in a “compromise situation” owing to Pence’s untrue public presentation of Flynn’s conversations with Russian ambassador Kislyak.

In her public testimony, Yates was careful not to discuss two pieces of classified information. First, U.S. intelligence had intercepted the Flynn-Kislyak conversations – legally, since Kislyak was an agent of a foreign power; as the other party on the call, Flynn was collected “incidentally,” in surveillance parlance – thereby disproving Pence’s public account of the calls. Second, Flynn had just given the FBI what Flynn has now conceded was an untruthful account of the Kislyak conversation.

But without saying Flynn had lied to the FBI, Yates made it nonetheless clear that Flynn’s FBI interview was significant enough to prompt her urgent White House visit. (After all, Pence’s TV appearance was on January 15, 11 days prior.) Yates said she had “notes that described that interview” that she took to her parley with McGahn, along with a senior Justice Department national-security official in contact with the FBI. As well, Yates recalled that during a follow-up meeting on January 27, McGahn asked her about “the applicability of certain statutes, certain criminal statutes” to Flynn.

Yates said she was not in a position to know what McGahn did with the “urgent” information on Flynn that she gave to him. She did not hear from the White House counsel again until January 30, she testified: “I don't know what happened after that because that was my last day with DOJ” – when Trump fired her, ostensibly for her refusal to defend Trump’s anti-Muslim travel ban in court. Mueller interviewed McGahn last week, the Washington Postconfirmed.

Flynn’s agreement to cooperate has substantially deepened the White House’s exposure to Mueller’s probe. There are not many administration officials senior to Flynn against whom Mueller would want him to testify. While Mueller has never confirmed that Trump himself is under investigation, Trump is on that short list.

Also there are Trump’s son-in-law and Pence himself, all of whom were senior transition-team officials at the time of the Kislyak calls. Pence, who has evaded suspicion in the Russia probe until now, ran the transition. Flynn’s agreed stipulation of the facts of the Kislyak calls claims they occurred with the full knowledge, and in one case at the direction, of the transition team.

As well, Flynn’s decision to seek a plea caused Trump to privately seethe weeks in advance, The Daily Beast reported Friday. Long before Flynn ever says Trump’s name on a witness stand, the plea deal appears to have prompted Trump to casually and publicly proffer information that could lead Mueller to his doorstep.


Sponsored Stories
Recommended by
REAL RED PILL HEART AND BRAIN
Reeling From Flynn Deal, Alex Jones Issues Civil War ‘Red Alert’—for 15th Time in Two Months
The site has been warning that war here is imminent—and even announcing its start—since the election. Lately, they’ve picked the pace up to 11.
BEN COLLINS
12.02.17 12:00 AM ET
Just after the word this morning that Gen. Michael Flynn had cut a deal with special counsel Robert Mueller, InfoWars issued a “Red Alert” warning that the “removal of Trump will trigger a massive civil war.”

Host Alex Jones explained that if “they remove Trump” after the “classic Americana being promoted and dĂ©tente with Christian Russia,” it will cause a “massive civil war.”

While the “Red Alert” designation is new, InfoWars’ doomsaying is not. Jones’ site has referred to the imminent civil war over 50 times since Election Day in 2016, citing at different times various right-wing radio hosts, Kindle e-book authors, and Ted Nugent.

Other far-right websites, echoing the response from administration officials and Trump’s personal lawyer, Ty Cobb, rushed to distance the president’s former national security adviser from the campaign and administration.

Breitbart quickly placed the blame on Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, whose name was surrounded by emojis of princes on the website. “Did Mr. Perfect Sink Gen. Flynn?” the homepage headline blared on Breitbart, a website run by Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon, who frequently feuded with Kushner when he served as senior adviser to the president.

The Daily Caller led with a story titled “White House Plays Down Importance Of Flynn Guilty Plea,” in a four-paragraph story that consisted mostly of Cobb’s statement.

At InfoWars, however, it was once again time to warn of the impending civil war, for the 15th time in the past two months.

RELATED IN POLITICS

What Trump and His Gang Will Forgive Is Unforgivable


Trump Tweets Out Anti-Muslim ‘Snuff Film’


Why Can’t More GOP Voters Back Doug Jones? One Word—Abortion

Beneath an all-caps red banner that screamed “ONE DAY LEFT FOR 50% OFF SELECT ITEMS AND FREE SHIPPING” on items like “The Real Red Pill Heart and Brain Formula,” Jones delivered a stern warning.

“Number one, you better get yourself right with God, and that means Jesus Christ. And number two, if they kill Trump or remove Trump when they’ve committed all these crimes, and done everything they say he’s done, when people see the economy turboing back, with real jobs and real money and real optimism to the average person and classic Americana being promoted and dĂ©tente with Christian Russia and standing up to North Korea and securing our borders and just delivering at a dizzying level—it’s biblical—if we allow the evil people that hijack this country, the globalists, to remove Trump with all this fraud and if we buy into the hype and if we’re not strong and we don’t speak out, if these crazy globalists that don’t know how when to give up are actually able to remove Trump—I’m gonna walk through the scenarios for that coming up, because they mean business, they said he’ll be gone by the end of December, remember our intel from high-level Congressional sources? Just a few months ago—this is it!” he said.

“If they’re able to do that, it’ll cause a massive civil war in this country.”

InfoWars has spent the past few months warning in dozens of articles about a “Communist Revolution,” a “Violent Uprising,” and an “Antifa Civil War” to “Overthrow the Government” on Nov. 4. Despite the warnings of a YouTube star who dresses as a police officer, the uprising did not materialize.

The website’s Antifa civil war coverage began in early October, but conspiracies about a civil war triggered by the Las Vegas attack, citing a novelist who writes about fictional false flag attacks, and about an American civil war due to a “political class emboldened after [French President Emmanuel] Macron’s victory” date back even further.

GET THE BEAST IN YOUR INBOX!
Less than a week after Trump’s win, the site ran the headline “IS A REAL CIVIL WAR POSSIBLE?” and a subheadline replying that “the very idea of America is in disrepute, and held in contempt” above an aggregated piece from InternationalMan.com saying it was “unlikely,” since Americans take too many psychoactive drugs to “get off the couch.”

But that didn’t seem to assure the site’s stalwarts. Editor Paul Joseph Watson wrote that “The left is willing to risk civil war in America & nuclear war with Russia because they’re butt-hurt about losing” in a story called “The Truth About Russia ‘Hacking The Election’” last December.

On the same day, Jones sent out an “Emergency Alert” that “the left are trying to overthrow Trump,” and that “rouge [sic] elements in CIA [are] helping the globalist left.”

The drumbeat continued through 2017, as a former Green Beret, Ted Nugent, and Roger Stone all predicted a civil war this year on InfoWars, with the site also citing far-right columnists and retired lieutenant colonels appearing on Fox & Friends to warn of the impending “bloody civil war [and] societal collapse.”

In February, InfoWars warned that a force led by former President Barack Obama himself was already assembled and awaiting orders. “SABOTAGE: OBAMA IS COMMANDING AN ARMY OF 30,000 ANTI-TRUMP ACTIVISTS FROM HIS HOME 2 MILES FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.”

Alex Jones said we are “on the brink” of a civil war in May. In June, he upgraded the outlook to “imminent.” He forewarned, “If Trump is impeached, BEWARE!”

Also in June, Jones prematurely declared that the “first shots (were) fired in second Civil war.” A week later, InfoWars posted a story titled “GET READY FOR CIVIL WAR!” pointing to a quote from Johnny Depp at a music festival in England.

The same month, the headline “TRUMP ASSASSINATION IMMINENT” appeared above a story about a Shakespeare in the Park performance of Julius Caesar.

Jones further examined the question, “Would Trump Assassination Lead to Civil War?”, in a video in July.

In October, InfoWars revealed the “Democratic Plan To Launch Civil War Using False Flag Discovered” by a man who ended the segment by asking viewers to buy his books on Amazon.com.

In December of 2015, then-candidate Trump appeared on an InfoWars broadcast, where he told Jones: “Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.”
/----/
beat dead horse.png
 
What a laugh. He didn't say to comey "drop the investigation". He asked him to go lightly. Huuuge difference A difference you silly people ignore.
He did ask him to drop the investigation.

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," Trump said, according to a memo written by Comey and reported by the New York Times. "He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."
 
Boy, I sure can't wait for this stuff to be over. Whatever happens.
For the Trumpanzees who complain that it's gone on too long, a reminder that Watergate took 29 months.
I realize partisans on both ends love to play gotcha and go nuts over every story and rumor and accusation, and play ongoing judge and jury and all, but I do wonder if you folks ever get tired of it.
.
 
Boy, I sure can't wait for this stuff to be over. Whatever happens.
For the Trumpanzees who complain that it's gone on too long, a reminder that Watergate took 29 months.
I realize partisans on both ends love to play gotcha and go nuts over every story and rumor and accusation, and play ongoing judge and jury and all, but I do wonder if you folks ever get tired of it.
.
So you honestly believe its partisanship to see that Drumpf admitted to knowing that Flynn was lying but asked Comey to let it go?
 
What a dumbass! His dementia makes it impossible for him to remember what he has previously stated.

Trump Tweets He Knew Flynn Lied to FBI When He Asked Comey to ‘Let Flynn Go’


I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017


Whether the president remembered it or not, he has never before stated that Flynn lied to the FBI. Whether the president realized it or not, conceding that he knew about Flynn’s FBI lie – to which Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday – opens Trump up to a world of legal hurt. Trump had asked James Comey, the former director of the FBI, to drop an inquiry into a man Trump now says he knew lied to the bureau.

“This tweet makes it clear that Trump knew at the time that he made his request to Comey to let the investigation go that Flynn had lied to the FBI, which is a criminal offense,” Barbara McQuade, who until January served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, told The Daily Beast.

Trump’s original explanation for firing Flynn on the evening of February 13 was that Flynn had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his December conversations with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak concerning new U.S. sanctions on Russia. On February 14, then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump fired Flynn for what Spicer called an “evolving and eroding level of trust” with Flynn.

That same day, Trump met with several national security officials, including Comey, and dismissed the others to talk with Comey in private. Comey at the time was in charge of the Russia inquiry.

“I want to talk about Mike Flynn,” Trump told him, according to Comey’s sworn Senate testimony in June. “The President began by saying Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President.” (If Trump told Comey that Flynn lied to the FBI, Comey did not include that in his highly anticipated testimony.)

RELATED IN POLITICS

Michael Flynn Just Flipped on Team Trump


‘Very Senior’ Trump Official Authorized Flynn’s Russia Chats


Flynn Knew the FBI Heard His Russia Calls. Why’d He Lie?

Trump quickly got to the point of the one-on-one discussion.

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Comey quoted Trump saying. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

Comey said he promised Trump nothing, and considered Trump’s request such a breach of FBI independence from the White House that he prepared a memo on it – a subpoenable document, in other words – that he shared with his FBI leadership team and not Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Less than three months after that meeting, Trump fired Comey, citing the Russia investigation as the cause to NBC’s Lester Holt, which itself was a revision from the initial White House excuse that Comey had mistreated Hillary Clinton.

Trump’s tweet “adds to the evidence that Trump was attempting to obstruct or impede the investigation of a crime,” said McQuade, the former federal prosecutor.

GET THE BEAST IN YOUR INBOX!
The admission from the president also suggests that White House counsel Don McGahn had informed the president about Flynn’s potential to “be blackmailed by the Russians,” as Sally Yates, the former acting attorney general, put it in May testimony.

Yet according to the timeline Yates provided of briefing McGahn, Trump kept in office for another 18 days a man he now says he knew lied to the FBI – deepening Flynn’s compromise, and even potentially Trump’s, should the Russians have come to know Trump was sticking with Flynn.

“Trump had asked James Comey, the former director of the FBI, to drop an inquiry into a man Trump now says he knew lied to the bureau.”
Flynn lied to the FBI in an interview on January 24. Yates testified that on the morning of January 26, she called McGahn with “a very sensitive matter” she needed to discuss with the White House counsel in person. That day and the next, Yates told McGahn that Flynn was in a “compromise situation” owing to Pence’s untrue public presentation of Flynn’s conversations with Russian ambassador Kislyak.

In her public testimony, Yates was careful not to discuss two pieces of classified information. First, U.S. intelligence had intercepted the Flynn-Kislyak conversations – legally, since Kislyak was an agent of a foreign power; as the other party on the call, Flynn was collected “incidentally,” in surveillance parlance – thereby disproving Pence’s public account of the calls. Second, Flynn had just given the FBI what Flynn has now conceded was an untruthful account of the Kislyak conversation.

But without saying Flynn had lied to the FBI, Yates made it nonetheless clear that Flynn’s FBI interview was significant enough to prompt her urgent White House visit. (After all, Pence’s TV appearance was on January 15, 11 days prior.) Yates said she had “notes that described that interview” that she took to her parley with McGahn, along with a senior Justice Department national-security official in contact with the FBI. As well, Yates recalled that during a follow-up meeting on January 27, McGahn asked her about “the applicability of certain statutes, certain criminal statutes” to Flynn.

Yates said she was not in a position to know what McGahn did with the “urgent” information on Flynn that she gave to him. She did not hear from the White House counsel again until January 30, she testified: “I don't know what happened after that because that was my last day with DOJ” – when Trump fired her, ostensibly for her refusal to defend Trump’s anti-Muslim travel ban in court. Mueller interviewed McGahn last week, the Washington Postconfirmed.

Flynn’s agreement to cooperate has substantially deepened the White House’s exposure to Mueller’s probe. There are not many administration officials senior to Flynn against whom Mueller would want him to testify. While Mueller has never confirmed that Trump himself is under investigation, Trump is on that short list.

Also there are Trump’s son-in-law and Pence himself, all of whom were senior transition-team officials at the time of the Kislyak calls. Pence, who has evaded suspicion in the Russia probe until now, ran the transition. Flynn’s agreed stipulation of the facts of the Kislyak calls claims they occurred with the full knowledge, and in one case at the direction, of the transition team.

As well, Flynn’s decision to seek a plea caused Trump to privately seethe weeks in advance, The Daily Beast reported Friday. Long before Flynn ever says Trump’s name on a witness stand, the plea deal appears to have prompted Trump to casually and publicly proffer information that could lead Mueller to his doorstep.


Sponsored Stories
Recommended by
REAL RED PILL HEART AND BRAIN
Reeling From Flynn Deal, Alex Jones Issues Civil War ‘Red Alert’—for 15th Time in Two Months
The site has been warning that war here is imminent—and even announcing its start—since the election. Lately, they’ve picked the pace up to 11.
BEN COLLINS
12.02.17 12:00 AM ET
Just after the word this morning that Gen. Michael Flynn had cut a deal with special counsel Robert Mueller, InfoWars issued a “Red Alert” warning that the “removal of Trump will trigger a massive civil war.”

Host Alex Jones explained that if “they remove Trump” after the “classic Americana being promoted and dĂ©tente with Christian Russia,” it will cause a “massive civil war.”

While the “Red Alert” designation is new, InfoWars’ doomsaying is not. Jones’ site has referred to the imminent civil war over 50 times since Election Day in 2016, citing at different times various right-wing radio hosts, Kindle e-book authors, and Ted Nugent.

Other far-right websites, echoing the response from administration officials and Trump’s personal lawyer, Ty Cobb, rushed to distance the president’s former national security adviser from the campaign and administration.

Breitbart quickly placed the blame on Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, whose name was surrounded by emojis of princes on the website. “Did Mr. Perfect Sink Gen. Flynn?” the homepage headline blared on Breitbart, a website run by Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon, who frequently feuded with Kushner when he served as senior adviser to the president.

The Daily Caller led with a story titled “White House Plays Down Importance Of Flynn Guilty Plea,” in a four-paragraph story that consisted mostly of Cobb’s statement.

At InfoWars, however, it was once again time to warn of the impending civil war, for the 15th time in the past two months.

RELATED IN POLITICS

What Trump and His Gang Will Forgive Is Unforgivable


Trump Tweets Out Anti-Muslim ‘Snuff Film’


Why Can’t More GOP Voters Back Doug Jones? One Word—Abortion

Beneath an all-caps red banner that screamed “ONE DAY LEFT FOR 50% OFF SELECT ITEMS AND FREE SHIPPING” on items like “The Real Red Pill Heart and Brain Formula,” Jones delivered a stern warning.

“Number one, you better get yourself right with God, and that means Jesus Christ. And number two, if they kill Trump or remove Trump when they’ve committed all these crimes, and done everything they say he’s done, when people see the economy turboing back, with real jobs and real money and real optimism to the average person and classic Americana being promoted and dĂ©tente with Christian Russia and standing up to North Korea and securing our borders and just delivering at a dizzying level—it’s biblical—if we allow the evil people that hijack this country, the globalists, to remove Trump with all this fraud and if we buy into the hype and if we’re not strong and we don’t speak out, if these crazy globalists that don’t know how when to give up are actually able to remove Trump—I’m gonna walk through the scenarios for that coming up, because they mean business, they said he’ll be gone by the end of December, remember our intel from high-level Congressional sources? Just a few months ago—this is it!” he said.

“If they’re able to do that, it’ll cause a massive civil war in this country.”

InfoWars has spent the past few months warning in dozens of articles about a “Communist Revolution,” a “Violent Uprising,” and an “Antifa Civil War” to “Overthrow the Government” on Nov. 4. Despite the warnings of a YouTube star who dresses as a police officer, the uprising did not materialize.

The website’s Antifa civil war coverage began in early October, but conspiracies about a civil war triggered by the Las Vegas attack, citing a novelist who writes about fictional false flag attacks, and about an American civil war due to a “political class emboldened after [French President Emmanuel] Macron’s victory” date back even further.

GET THE BEAST IN YOUR INBOX!
Less than a week after Trump’s win, the site ran the headline “IS A REAL CIVIL WAR POSSIBLE?” and a subheadline replying that “the very idea of America is in disrepute, and held in contempt” above an aggregated piece from InternationalMan.com saying it was “unlikely,” since Americans take too many psychoactive drugs to “get off the couch.”

But that didn’t seem to assure the site’s stalwarts. Editor Paul Joseph Watson wrote that “The left is willing to risk civil war in America & nuclear war with Russia because they’re butt-hurt about losing” in a story called “The Truth About Russia ‘Hacking The Election’” last December.

On the same day, Jones sent out an “Emergency Alert” that “the left are trying to overthrow Trump,” and that “rouge [sic] elements in CIA [are] helping the globalist left.”

The drumbeat continued through 2017, as a former Green Beret, Ted Nugent, and Roger Stone all predicted a civil war this year on InfoWars, with the site also citing far-right columnists and retired lieutenant colonels appearing on Fox & Friends to warn of the impending “bloody civil war [and] societal collapse.”

In February, InfoWars warned that a force led by former President Barack Obama himself was already assembled and awaiting orders. “SABOTAGE: OBAMA IS COMMANDING AN ARMY OF 30,000 ANTI-TRUMP ACTIVISTS FROM HIS HOME 2 MILES FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.”

Alex Jones said we are “on the brink” of a civil war in May. In June, he upgraded the outlook to “imminent.” He forewarned, “If Trump is impeached, BEWARE!”

Also in June, Jones prematurely declared that the “first shots (were) fired in second Civil war.” A week later, InfoWars posted a story titled “GET READY FOR CIVIL WAR!” pointing to a quote from Johnny Depp at a music festival in England.

The same month, the headline “TRUMP ASSASSINATION IMMINENT” appeared above a story about a Shakespeare in the Park performance of Julius Caesar.

Jones further examined the question, “Would Trump Assassination Lead to Civil War?”, in a video in July.

In October, InfoWars revealed the “Democratic Plan To Launch Civil War Using False Flag Discovered” by a man who ended the segment by asking viewers to buy his books on Amazon.com.

In December of 2015, then-candidate Trump appeared on an InfoWars broadcast, where he told Jones: “Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.”

Whether the president remembered it or not, he has never before stated that Flynn lied to the FBI. Whether the president realized it or not, conceding that he knew about Flynn’s FBI lie – to which Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday – opens Trump up to a world of legal hurt.

How does mentioning Flynn's admission open up Trump to anything?
 
Boy, I sure can't wait for this stuff to be over. Whatever happens.
For the Trumpanzees who complain that it's gone on too long, a reminder that Watergate took 29 months.
I realize partisans on both ends love to play gotcha and go nuts over every story and rumor and accusation, and play ongoing judge and jury and all, but I do wonder if you folks ever get tired of it.
.
Why would anyone let this investigation go, when its producing results? Indictments...charges..plea deals.

Its by definition not a witch hunt.
 
Boy, I sure can't wait for this stuff to be over. Whatever happens.
For the Trumpanzees who complain that it's gone on too long, a reminder that Watergate took 29 months.
I realize partisans on both ends love to play gotcha and go nuts over every story and rumor and accusation, and play ongoing judge and jury and all, but I do wonder if you folks ever get tired of it.
.

Only when it's against their guy
 

New Topics

Forum List

Back
Top