Without a doubt, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who served only a brief stint as President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, has become the most wrongly prosecuted American in modern history.
You recall, of course, that Flynn was accused of, and summarily convicted of, allegedly “lying” to FBI agents when they met with him in the White House in January 2017, ahead of the president’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
According to reports, Americans have been told for years that the FBI went to the White House to question Flynn as part of the fabricated ‘Russian collusion’ narrative that we now know then-2016 Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton likely crafted.
As it turns out, and according to newly-released FBI notes, that, too is a lie.
Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI. Earlier this year, he asked the judge to allow him to withdraw the plea, saying he only signed it because prosecutors threatened his son and his lawyers gave him bad advice due to a conflict of interest. The Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped the case in May after an internal review unearthed evidence suggesting that the FBI agents were trying to catch the retired three-star Army general in a lie. District Judge Emmet Sullivan has yet to rule on the dismissal.
The statement of offense that was linked to Flynn’s plea said his “false statements and omissions impeded and otherwise had a material impact on the FBI’s ongoing investigation into the existence of any links or coordination between individuals associated with the [Trump] Campaign and Russia’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.”
It turns out that, according to notes taken by an FBI lawyer from a meeting the day after Flynn was interviewed at the White House, the questioning wasn’t based on any perceived Russian collusion link.
While it’s not clear who took the notes, “they’re dated Jan. 25, 2017, and list attendees from the FBI as well as the DOJ National Security Division and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General,” The Epoch Times’ Petr Svab wrote.
Flynn’s case was discussed, but nobody said anything about him being tied to any Russian collusion via the 2016 Trump campaign. Rather, the discussion centered around the Logan Act, an 18th century law prohibiting citizens from conducting unofficial, unsanctioned diplomacy with foreign governments.
No one has ever been prosecuted under the law; the last time it was employed was 1852. And some legal experts don’t even think the law is constitutional.
Nevertheless, the FBI was set to close its probe into Flynn in late 2016 after Trump won, but the case was kept open under the Logan Act theorem because Flynn talked foreign policy preferences of the incoming administration with foreign officials during 2016 phone calls — like every other incoming national security adviser has done for decades.
One person at that meeting wrote “no reasonable prosecutor” would charge Flynn under the act, while the notes also state “other transition teams” — indicating that Flynn wasn’t doing anything previous transition teams haven’t done, and without any legal troubles.
“How do you assess Section 1001 when you wouldn’t prosecute underlying crime?” said then-FBI general counsel James Baker at the time, referring to a section of U.S. code that criminalizes making false statements to government investigators.
“Baker’s comment indicates the officials were operating on the premise that the FBI’s purpose at the interview was to investigate a potential Logan Act violation of Flynn’s,” Svab wrote.
“If that was the case, it would indicate [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller’s prosecutors grafted Flynn’s alleged lies onto the Russia investigation retrospectively” so they could charge him with a ‘crime’ — that he never committed.
Said Flynn’s legal defense team of the notes in an Oct. 7 filing: “The FBI knew on January 25, 2017, that none of the statements made by General Flynn to the FBI the day before could be material to any legitimate FBI investigation or action. These notes are further exculpatory evidence—standing in direct violation of this court’s Brady order—showing that General Flynn has been innocent all along, which the FBI knew from the beginning.”
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