Kim Strassell Gets Just About Everything Right

Kim Strassell has an excellent Twitter thread that appeared at Real Clear Politics this morning. It provides a nice, concise picture of what was done to Michael Flynn by the FBI. Importantly, and this is the part that Strassell leaves out, it was also done to Flynn by Team Mueller. In fact, all of the FBI's bad behavior would have gone unnoticed but for Team Mueller taking that ball and running with it. While being aided and abetted by Rod Rosenstein and Chris Wray.

That's not an excuse for the FBI's bad behavior, for which the entire organization deserves to be turned inside out. It's simply a recognition that this attempted coup was never just about the FBI--no matter how essential and central the FBI's role was for the past four years.

Two additional things to keep in mind going forward:

1) The FBI did not "create a crime," as Strassell and so many others like to repeat. What they did was create the appearance of a crime. Flynn did not commit a crime. To keep this illusion or appearance moving forward, the FBI and Team Mueller had to engage in repeated criminal acts of their own--lies and misrepresentations.

2) Not only did the FBI have no reason to interview Flynn, they never had any reason to have an open case on Flynn in the first place. It's in the documentation for the case opening that you'll find the false statements that they FBI later relied on to interview Flynn.

If you keep these two facts firmly in mind, you'll be able to follow where Durham is trying to go: A big picture conspiracy to deprive multiple persons--to include Donald J. Trump--of their constitutional rights. The list of bad actors varies at different stages of the conspiracy--from the 2016 Russia Hoax, to the 2017 frame job on Flynn, to setting up Team Mueller on false pretenses, to the fake impeachment. Nevertheless, there is a real continuity of actors as well. The Flynn case overlaps several of these stages and includes bad actors from all of those stages. It is a door into the heart of the conspiracy that Durham is trying to exploit.

That said, here's Strassell:

Kimberley Strassel
@KimStrassel
   
1) To really understand how outrageous are these new Flynn docs, you have to add to everything we already know. And key is remembering that the FBI had no REASON to interview Flynn. It already had transcripts of his conversations with Kislyak.  

2) The new docs show FBI had already cleared Flynn of ludicrous claims that he was agent of Russian power; it moved to close that investigation on Jan 4 2017. But then DOJ cooked up the absurd Logan Act claim, the notion Flynn had violated an obscure 1799 law.  

See? Strassell gets it--the "claims" that Flynn was an "agent of Russian power" were "ludicrous." As AG Barr would say, "there was no basis." But ... whose claims? Ah. Those would be the claims that the FBI and John Brennan made up out of thin air. No predication--the key to the conspiracy case.

3) Again if they thought he violated Logan, all they had to do was prosecute. They had the transcript. Their problem? They knew such ridiculousness would never fly. So how how else to nail Flynn? As the notes show, Logan just became the pretext for interview.  

As commenter Mike Sylwester and I discussed last night. Logan was strictly a pretext. Or as Roddy Martindale would say: "Cover, George? Cover?" Yes, Roddy, cover. It's what lawyers describe as "under the color of law."

4) The real goal was trap him into saying something at odds with transcript, to "get him to lie." And the evidence of that strategy is everywhere. We have Comey bragging that they went around WH legal counsel, so Flynn would have no representation.

Again Strassell hits the nail on the head--by putting "lie" within quotes. The operative phrase is "saying something at odds with transcript." Saying something at odds with the transcript does not, ipso facto, equate to lying. And even if Flynn knew he was doing so, it didn't matter. The FBI had the transcript and they had an actual recording. BUT, as Strassell has already said, they had no reason to discuss the matter with Flynn. The FBI was not in Flynn's office on official business. They were there on monkey business--conspiracy to deprive Flynn of his constitutional rights business.
 

5) We have a new email from Lisa Page asking how FBI can get around issuing to Flynn the standard admonition against lying, suggesting Strzok just "casually slip that in."  

6) We have McCabe docs showing he discouraged him from getting lawyer. FBI decided to get rid of standard admonition altogether. Also did not tell Flynn he was being interviewed in an "investigatory" context, suggesting this was a chat between gov officials.  

7) As for liberal commentators/legal scholars saying all this is "routine," well, let's sure as hell hope not. The FBI exists to investigate cries--not create them. 

And not even to create the appearance of crimes.