Drilling Down Into The Flynn 302

The heart of the Flynn case lies in its origins--the claim that there were specific and credible facts to support the belief that Michael Flynn, the former head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, was an agent of the Russian intelligence services. As we now know, this claim was never presented to the single person who most needed to be aware of that fact: President Donald J. Trump.

While that is the heart of the Flynn case, at the heart of the prosecutorial misconduct throughout the investigation and prosecution of Flynn is the FBI's FD-302 (302), the report of its interview with Flynn, who had become the National Security Adviser in the new Trump administration. That interview took place on January 24, 2017, under the pretext of a need to discuss Flynn's perfectly reasonable official business--contacts with the Russian ambassador--a transcript of which had been leaked to the Washington Post. The interview was conducted by two FBI officials: Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka. 

This 302 has long been a matter of controversy, due to doubts whether the version that was ultimately provided to Flynn and his lawyers is the original version or may in fact have been edited in a way that misrepresented Flynn's statements in the interview. Those doubts were recently heightened by the admission from the prosecutors that they had misidentified which agents (Strzok and Pientka) wrote which of the two sets of notes that were said to derive from the interview.

I've previously stated my view that the basic trajectory of the Flynn investigation and prosecution ran something like this. 

The FBI, immediately after the interview, initially doubted that they had the false statement case against Flynn that they had hoped to obtain in the course of the interview. We have been told this by disgraced former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was in a position to know. In the event, Flynn was forced to resign because of a conflict with Vice President Pence. However, with the advent of Team Mueller, the Flynn case was resurrected in a new form: Team Mueller decided to seek to coerce Flynn into a guilty plea in order to squeeze from him damaging claims about President Trump. The hope was to get Flynn to plead guilty to a false statement charge, under the claim that he had lied to the FBI.

Over the course of months, Flynn refused to state that he had lied--and Team Mueller never indicted him. However, when Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein agreed to allow Team Mueller to target Flynn's son, Team Mueller confronted Flynn and told him they would indict his son the very next day unless Flynn agreed to plead guilty. Flynn caved.

UPDATED: The Bruce Ohr 302s

Yes, they're available--in heavily redacted form. From my perspective there's very little new or significant in the unredacted portions. What the 302s contain for the most part is a rehash of the dossier narrative--which the FBI got from Steele earlier. The contacts recorded in the 302s begin in late November, 2016--after Trump's election. Ohr recounts his contacts with both Chris Steele and Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS, and both appear to be telling the same story: Carter Page and then Michael Cohen were Trump go-betweens to Russia, the Alfa Bank server really was a communication link from Trump to Russia, not spam, etc. I have to wonder whether the purpose of these 302s is, from the FBI perspective, some sort of CYA exercise to make believe that this is new information that fueled the continuation of the Crossfire Hurrican investigation.

The one tidbit that was new was that Ohr states that Steele was in contact with John McCain's office "before October, 2016."

UPDATE 1: OK, I missed this:

Paul Sperry‏

@paulsperry_ 

BREAKING: Glenn Simpson was talking directly to Victoria Nuland at the State Dept. during the 2016 campaign, tying Hillary Clinton closer to the conspiracy,according to just-released FBI agent Joseph Pientka's 302 summaries of interviews with Bruce Ohr uncovered by Judicial Watch 

5:49 PM - 8 Aug 2019

UPDATE 2: ht/t GP: As I stated above:

The Bruce Ohr 302s revealed that Christopher Steele was in direct contact with then-Senator John McCain’s office BEFORE the election, prior to October of 2016 — much earlier than previously known.

“Steele also told OHR that he spoke with a staff member of Senator John McCain’s office sometime prior to October 2016. Steele had this conversation at the request of [REDACTED]. Since October 2016, Steele had not spoken to anyone regarding the Trump dossier,” the 302 report said. 

The interesting question, of course, is: Was McCain in contact with anyone else during this time period re the dossier? Other Senators, Representatives, Executive Branch officials, journalists?

Briefly Noted: The Flynn FD-302; Levin And York

CTH has an excellent piece today regarding the Deep State jihad against Michael Flynn: Second Scope Memo – Rosenstein Authorizes Mueller to Target Michael Flynn Jr… I won't attempt to summarize all that's in the lengthy piece. Here my goal is relatively modest--to focus on the issues surrounding the FBI FD-302 that summarized the interview with Flynn, and served as the basis for his eventual guilty plea.

I'm sure everyone has heard a lot about FBI "302s", but it may be worthwhile to go over the basics.

Often you'll find it said that a 302 is an agent's "interview notes". That's both true and not true--or, not entirely true. When an agent conducts an interview--i.e, potentially, simply speaks to someone--but depending on circumstances, he may take written notes. Those notes will be retained as evidence in what used to be called a 1A envelope. Those notes serve as backup for and confirmation of the contents of the actual 302, which is formalized summary of the interview/contact/investigation when it is anticipated that it could become the subject of testimony at a trial. So, since it's a summary it's true to say that these are "notes," but they can be much more extensive than the handwritten notes.

If you're saying to yourself, wait a minute, that means a 302 is classic hearsay--you're right. But the 302 is nevertheless a powerful tool for the prosecution. Why that's so is explained at this very informative and readable blog: What is an FBI 302? The Problematic Nature of FBI Agents’ Interview Memos (note that the author correctly refers to the 302 as a "memo" rather than as "notes"). I'll summarize it a bit.