AG William Barr, Trump's Personal Attorney

[ousdahl]

"American History: An Autobiography"

[Deleted User 89]

the new history will be written in sharpie

[Geezer]

Cliff's notes with 4 color pie charts.

[DCHawk1]

[Sparko]

Well Flynn was a foreign agent of Turkey working for Turks with FSB creds. But I am sure the Federalist Society is all over that. And the back-channel to Kushner’s Kremlin phone was actually just Agenda 30 stuff. No, the Russian ties are real. The only question is why Trump never released his tax returns. Or Deutsche Bank revealing his Oligarch LOC. On and on and on and on.

[Shirley]

2. He's created multiple internal investigations into investigations trying to find someone who will say that the Russia probe had no basis, since his own IG wouldn't

3. He's lied to the public about the findings of the Mueller Report, which -- despite being called out on the fact by a federal judge -- many people believe

4. He's attempted to undo two cases which have already made their way to the sentencing stage of the federal courts -- Stone and Flynn -- as well as the case against Putin's Troll Farm, so that what Mueller did find about Russia won't have an "official" stamp on it

5. In so doing, he is essentially claiming that working with agents of a foreign power who are trying to interfere in our election isn't something that should be investigated or punished (see #2), and that foreign adversaries should operated here unencumbered

6. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, he's had his OLC provide legal justifications for not providing Congress with whistleblower complaints that have been vetted by the ICIG

7. And ensured that his Criminal Division can't use the President's attempt to secretly enlist foreign governments to help the president's reelection efforts by extorting them into investigating an adversary as a basis for opening a campaign finance violation

8. And meanwhile he's flying all over the world bullying foreign governments who provided our FBI with intel and pimping dangerous drugs for COVID on TV in his free time

9. IN SHORT: Barr believes he'll be on the winning side because he is creating a space where Trump can get foreign election assistance (voluntarily or involuntarily given); the FBI can't investigate him or others for it and DOJ can't charge anyone who helps;

10. people who witness it and try to blow the whistle get buried; Congress (and therefore voters) remain in the dark; and allies who might step up to raise the alarm will have their intel leaked and sources blown.

That's why he's so confident.

[Shirley]

Only the best people:



...The bombshell court filing was signed only by interim DC US attorney Timothy Shea, a political appointee who used the court identity number of his ousted predecessor Jesse Liu. The incorrect ID number is a technical error that may need to be fixed before the judge weighs in.

Shea's filing on Thursday -- undoing more than two years of work from special counsel Robert Mueller's team and his own office's work on the case -- shocked lawyers across the country, who alleged the undermining of the rule of law for President Donald Trump's political gain. Shea's signature on the document already raised questions about who within the Justice Department prepared it, why other prosecutors didn't sign the filing, and why the lead prosecutor on the case withdrew from it an hour before its submission.

A Justice Department official told CNN on Saturday that the ID number under Shea's name was a clerical oversight. The official said it was the mistake of a staffer who submitted the filing to the court on Shea's behalf -- but who didn't sign it herself. The official said Shea was part of a team who wrote the document, and declined to explain why the career prosecutor, Jocelyn Ballantine, who signed several other recent filings in the Flynn case, didn't sign it.

People close to the DC US attorney's office said the mistake isn't one trial lawyers in that office would likely make. And they pointed to the fact that no other lawyer in that office signed the dismissal request as a possible indicator the document was prepared elsewhere, perhaps at the Justice Department headquarters, where Attorney General William Barr was closely managing the Flynn review.

Shea has been previously criticized for doing Barr and Trump's bidding to go easy on associates of the President, first in the case of convicted Trump friend Roger Stone, where Barr directed Shea to override the sentencing recommendations of career prosecutors in Shea's office. The four prosecutors refused to sign Barr's sentencing revision. Now with Flynn, no career prosecutor stepped up to sign the document dropping the case.

[...]

[DCHawk1]

Got 'im!

[Geezer]

elections have consequences.

[Shirley]

[twocoach]

What a silly spin piece. Argument over the use of the term "know" in an interview. That reads like some of the childishly stupid semantics arguments on here.

Shall we bring all of the Trump administration under oath and have them testify about every word they have otters on camera? That would be productive.

[dolomite]

President Trump, just end the Flynn mess with a pardon. Over and out!

[chiknbut]

President Trump, just end the Flynn mess with a pardon. Over and out!

Sure, go for it. But you do know that this means Flynn (and eventually Roger Stone, I'm sure) acknowledges guilt and he (they) can testify against Trump in the future, right?

[Leawood]

I think we are about to see the Courts maintain their status as an equal branch of the government. Yesterday’s arguments were telling, particularly the questions of the justices..

This subject is my favorite two minute discussion during jury selection.

[chiknbut]

[Deleted User 62]

All the "proof" that Trumps Idiot Corps needs.

.........

[DCHawk1]

All the "proof" that Trumps Idiot Corps needs.

.........

Goodjobgoodpost.

[DCHawk1]

I have bad news for you chikn...

[jfish26]

All the "proof" that Trumps Idiot Corps needs.

.........

Goodjobgoodpost.

"But Her Emails!", except much, much dumber.

[Shirley]

Ex-F.B.I. Official Is Said to Undercut Justice Dept. Effort to Drop Flynn Case

A key former F.B.I. official cast doubt on the Justice Department’s case for dropping a criminal charge against President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn during an interview with investigators last week, according to people familiar with the investigation.

Department officials reviewing the Flynn case interviewed Bill Priestap, the former head of F.B.I. counterintelligence, two days before making their extraordinary request to drop the case to Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. They did not tell Judge Sullivan about Mr. Priestap’s interview. A Justice Department official said that they were in the process of writing up a report on the interview and that it would soon be filed with the court.

The department’s motion referred to notes that Mr. Priestap wrote around the bureau’s 2017 questioning of Mr. Flynn, who later pleaded guilty to lying to investigators during that interview. His lawyers said Mr. Priestap’s notes — recently uncovered during a review of the case — suggested that the F.B.I. was trying to entrap Mr. Flynn, and Attorney General William P. Barr said investigators were trying to “lay a perjury trap.”

That interpretation was wrong, Mr. Priestap told the prosecutors reviewing the case. He said that F.B.I. officials were trying to do the right thing in questioning Mr. Flynn and that he knew of no effort to set him up. Media reports about his notes misconstrued them, he said, according to the people familiar with the investigation...

Mr. Flynn’s case grew out of phone calls he made to Mr. Kislyak in the final days of 2016, asking that Moscow refrain from retaliating after the Obama administration imposed sanctions on Russia as punishment for interfering in the election. The conversations were captured on routine wiretaps of Mr. Kislyak and prompted concern among the F.B.I. agents investigating Mr. Flynn once they learned of them.

Then the incoming vice president, Mike Pence, publicly denied that Mr. Flynn had asked Russia to hold off on sanctions. Agents began to suspect that Mr. Flynn was lying to other Trump officials about the phone calls and were concerned that he was a blackmail risk because Russia knew the truth of the calls.

Mr. Priestap’s notes, taken hours before agents questioned Mr. Flynn on Jan. 24, 2017, showed that F.B.I. officials were debating how to proceed and trying to determine the objective of questioning Mr. Flynn.

[...]


Judge Hesitates to Accept Justice Dept. Move to Drop Flynn Charge