Tyler Durden
ZeroHedgeFri, 29 May 2020 17:12 UTC
© AP Photo/Carolyn KasterTaken in 2016. Michael Flynn now looks to prevail against his accusers
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released the transcripts between then-incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kisliak, which revealed that Flynn asked Russia to take "reciprocal" against sanctions levied by the Obama administration over interference in the 2016 US election.
"
I ask Russia to do is to not, if anything, I know you have to have some sort of action, to only make it reciprocal; don't go any further than you have to because I don't want us to get into something that have to escalate tit-for-tat," Flynn told Kisyak.
Despite clear evidence to the contrary, Former FBI agent Peter Strzok used that conversation as a basis to continue his investigation into whether Flynn was a potential Russian agent, according to recently unsealed court documents. The agency used the call as leverage to try to get the retired general to admit to a violation of the Logan Act - an obscure old law nearly a quarter-century old which prohibits private citizens from interfering in diplomacy (which, as it turns out, is standard practice among members of transitioning administrations).
FBI agent Joe Pientka, who interviewed Flynn with agent Strzok, wrote in his interview notes that he did not believe Flynn was lying to them during the interview - while other recently unsealed notes revealed
that the FBI considered a perjury trap against Flynn to "
get him fired."
After the FBI's malfeasance came to light, the DOJ moved to drop the case against Flynn - which US District Judge Emmet Sullivan has refused to do - instead asking a retired federal judge, John Gleeson, to provide legal arguments as to whether Sullivan should hold Flynn in criminal contempt for pleading guilty to FBI agents - which he now says he did not do.
Following the release of the transcripts, Sen. Grassley said in a statement: "Lt. General Flynn, his legal team, the judge and the American people can now see with their own eyes - for the first time - that all of the innuendo about Lt. General Flynn this whole time was totally bunk.
There was nothing improper about his call, and the FBI knew it."
Earlier Friday, DNI John Ratcliffe declassified the transcripts and released them to Congress. See below:
Comment: RT
reports:
Flynn and Kislyak spoke several times in December 2016 and January 2017, during the presidential transition. Within days of President Donald Trump's inauguration, the FBI interviewed Flynn with an intent - as shown by recently published documents - to catch him in a perjury trap. After a description of his call with Kislyak was leaked to the Washington Post, Flynn was accused of misleading the White House about the calls and pressured to resign.
Those invested in the 'Russiagate' conspiracy theory have claimed for years that Flynn discussed easing US sanction against Moscow.
"Do not allow this administration to box us in, right now, okay?" Flynn tells Kislyak in a call on December 29, 2016, asking Russia to make its response "reciprocal." He doesn't want to create a situation where "everybody's got to go back and forth and everybody's got to be the tough guy here, you know?"
"We don't need that right now," Flynn says. "We need cool heads to prevail, and uh, and we need to be very steady about what we're going to do because we have absolutely a common uh, threat in the Middle East right now."
Two days later, on December 31, Kislyak informs Flynn that their conversation "was taken into account" in Moscow. In fact, President Vladimir Putin decided not to retaliate at all, saying he didn't want to ruin the holidays for American diplomats and their families.
Flynn called this decision "wise." Kislyak then said something that would turn out to be prophetic - that Russia judged these actions by the Obama administration to be aimed not just against Moscow, but against Trump.
"And I just wanted to tell you that we found that these actions have targeted not only against Russia, but also against the president-elect... and with all our rights to respond we have decided not to act now because, it's because people are dissatisfied with the loss of elections and, and it's very deplorable," the ambassador said.
The events that unfolded proved Kislyak correct. The pretext for the FBI and DOJ to go after Flynn was that he supposedly violated the Logan Act - an archaic law banning ordinary Americans from conducting foreign policy, but which did not apply to him as the incoming presidential adviser anyway. Instead, what the transcripts show is that the outgoing administration was seeking to sabotage the incoming one.
Comment: RT reports: