The Plot Against Flynn Traced To The Oval Office

Andy McCarthy has a must-read article up this morning: Flynn and the Anatomy of a Political Narrative--a title which, in a sense, doesn't do justice to what McCarthy does in his article. McCarthy draws on newly revealed testimony as well as--crucially--information drawn from a NYT article that came out shortly after Flynn's resignation. By putting these sources together what emerges is a picture of Obama himself at the center of a conspiratorial web targeting the Trump administration through the framing of Flynn. We also see James Comey (disgraced former FBI Director) at the head of an empowered FBI--the key domestic agency in the US Intelligence Community because of its law enforcement functions--in McCarthy's words "running rings" around the FBI's "nominal superiors" at DoJ. Which is a telling fact.

McCarthy begins with ground that should be familiar by now--the Obama, Sally Yates, Comey "pull-aside" meeting in the Oval Office on January 5, 2017. This is the meeting described in the now released transcript of Mary McCord's House testimony as well as in Yate's interview by Team Mueller. (See: Mary McCord: Leak To David Ignatius Could Have Come From Obama WH.) Here's McCarthy's description of what occurred in that "pull-aside" small-group meeting:

After the main briefing, the president asked Yates and FBI director James Comey to stick around to meet with him, along with Vice President Biden and National Security Advisor Susan Rice. Yates was taken aback when Obama explained that he had “learned of the information about Flynn” and his conversation with Kislyak. She was startled because, she later told investigators, she “had no idea what the president was talking about.” 

Yates had to figure things out by listening to the exchanges between President Obama and FBI director Comey. The latter was not only fully up to speed, he was even prepared to suggest a potential crime — a violation of the moribund Logan Act — that might fit the facts.

Apparently Obama assumed that not only Comey but Yates as well would know what he was talking about re the Flynn/Kislyak conversation. In fact, Comey probably assumed the same, because Comey's right hand guy, disgraced former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, had called McCord, the head of DoJ's National Security Division (NSD) and briefed her on the Flynn/Kislyak call two days previously. However, McCord hadn't briefed Yates on the matter, as Obama and Comey assumed would have happened. McCarthy writes:

Mary McCord: Leak To David Ignatius Could Have Come From Obama WH

Among the more intriguing bits of information to come from the newly declassified but by far not fully digested transcripts of House testimony on the Russia Hoax can be found in Mary McCord's testimony. Julie Kelly, to my knowledge, was the first to pick up on this.

The information comes up when Adam Schiff is questioning McCord. Comically, Schiff leads McCord on to commit to the notion that the leak to David Ignatius (WaPo) re Flynn's perfectly appropriate conversation with Russian ambassador Kislyak could have come from the White House. Schiff doesn't get it that McCord is talking about the Obama White House.

The way this works--and I'll provide portions of the transcript below--is like this. McCord, who worked under Sally Yates, learned of the Flynn/Kislyak conversation from Andy McCabe, the disgraced former FBI Deputy Director. McCord learned of the conversation before Yates but didn't have the opportunity to share this knowledge with Yates before Yates went to the famous January 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting. Thus, when Obama, after the larger meeting, pulled Yates and disgraced former FBI Director Comey aside and started talking to them about Flynn, Yates didn't have a clue what was going on. However, when Yates got back to DoJ McCord briefed her on it, and Yates stated that it was clear to her that Comey and Obama were both in on it--they both had prior knowledge, that is, prior to this small meeting.

Here's the not-much-more-than 25 words version of how the information on the Flynn/Kislyak conversation flowed, without Yates being in on it:

Undercover Huber
@JohnWHuber 

The reason Obama knew about the Flynn call with Kislyak and even Sally Yates at DOJ didn’t, is that McCabe told Comey, who told Clapper, who told Obama
All that briefing took place orally.

And then POTUS himself raised the Flynn issue in the “by the book” meeting on Jan 5, 2017.

11:13 AM · May 8, 2020

Oh My! Michael K. Atkinson, ICIG

With a h/t to Gateway Pundit ...

Julie Kelly at American Greatness reveals who Michael K. Atkinson really is in a brilliant article. He's strictly Deep State: Inspector General’s Ties Suggest Ukraine ‘Scandal’ is Just More Collusion Hoax.

Kelly begins by rehearsing the usual hagiography that has been quickly deployed to defend Atkinson:

Atkinson, we are told, is a truth-seeker with no partisan agenda or political grudge. “The intelligence community’s chief watchdog, Michael Atkinson, is known to his peers and colleagues as a highly cautious ‘straight shooter’ who tends to keep his head down,” cooed Politico reporter Natasha Bertrand on September 23. 

... 

Atkinson is “a no-nonsense, serious and nonpartisan career prosecutor who showed a strong commitment to the law throughout his nearly two-decade career at the Department of Justice,” insisted a puff piece in The Hill on September 26.

Who but mean spirited conspiracy theorists could possibly question Atkinson's motives in sidestepping the regulatory revision process by slyly coming out with a new "whistleblower" complaint form?

Kelly proceeds to enlighten us: