Today, the Department of Justice (so- called) dropped its prosecution of General Michael Flynn. This followed a ferocious defense by Sidney Powell, an attorney and author of the excellent book, “Licensed to Lie” which explained the federal misbehavior in the Enron cases, one of which resulted in a unanimous decision by the US Supreme Court that reversed the conviction of Arthur Anderson Accounting Corporation in a miscarriage of justice by Andrew Weissmann who should be disbarred for the Mueller investigation which he ran with Mueller as a senile figurehead.
Why was Flynn prosecuted ?
The only other Republican candidate to repudiate the “Bush Freedom Agenda” was Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. That is why the 2016 Republican primary became a two-man race between Trump and Cruz. The whole of the American Establishment had signed on to a utopian crusade to impose the liberal world order on the Muslim world. After nine years of frustration in Iraq, it saw in the so-called “Arab Spring” demonstrations of 2011 a second chance to bring its agenda to fruition. The result of this was the near-collapse of Egypt and an eight-year civil war in Syria that killed half a million people and displaced 10 million refugees.
Flynn called attention to this massive intelligence failure and had to be destroyed. It’s a shame that Cruz did not endorse Trump at the end on become part of a unity campaign.
After Flynn was driven out of his post at DIA, things got even more threatening to the intelligence officials, as he became a prime advisor to candidate Trump and, early in the campaign, other Republicans. After the 2016 elections, the IC officials went all-out to keep him out of the White House, sometimes resorting to spreading ridiculous stories. President Obama warned Trump not to appoint Flynn as national security advisor, and Susan Rice actually warned the president-elect that Flynn might be in violation of the Logan Act, for which nobody has ever been prosecuted, and hence blackmailable by the Russians. Meanwhile, the Bureau had opened a counterintelligence investigation of Flynn’s activities. His digital communications were monitored, “unmasked” at the request of Obama officials, and leaked to friendly journalists.
Goldman’s version is a little different.
As chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012, Flynn had warned that American support for Sunni jihadists in Syria had the unintended effect of supporting the new caliphate movement, that is, ISIS. Among all the heads and former heads of the 17 agencies that make up the US intelligence community, Flynn was the only one who had objected to the disastrous covert intervention in Syria and foreseen its baleful consequences. Obama fired him, but Donald Trump hired him as a top campaign aide and then appointed him national security adviser.
The Syrian debacle brought Russia into Syria in 2015; the American-backed jihad had turned into a Petri dish for Russian Muslims from the Caucasus, as well as Chinese Uighurs and a motley assortment of foreign militants. Russia had interests of opportunity, for example, a warm-water refueling station for its Mediterranean fleet, but the risk of blowback from the Syrian civil war was the most urgent motive for President Vladimir Putin’s intervention.
That is the background to the mutiny in the US Intelligence Community against the elected commander-in-chief. America’s noble – or perhaps narcissistic – intentions did more damage than Trump’s indifference.
In retrospect, I think I agree even more with Goldman on this. I supported the Iraq War at first but it was botched beyond redemption.
This is another post I made on the same topic last February.
CIA must be disestablished. Its functions should be returned to the Departments of State, Defense, and Treasury. FBI must be restricted to law enforcement. At home, the Agencies are partisan institutions illegitimately focused on setting national policy. Abroad, Agencies untied to specific operational concerns are inherently dangerous and low-value.
Intelligence must return to its natural place as servant, not master, of government. Congress should amend the 1947 National Security Act. The President should broaden intelligence perspectives, including briefs from State, Defense, and Treasury, and abolish CIA’s “covert action.” State should be made responsible for political influence and the armed services for military and paramilitary affairs.
This is an obvious fact. Our intelligence capability has been destroyed in China and Iran by CIA incompetence in its secure communication systems.
The President’s top advisors for world affairs used to be the State Department and the Pentagon. Starting in the latter days of the Cold War, the CIA took over the job, and by 2000 they were feeding the president every morning a steady breakfast of their view of the world. It’s time they relinquish control back to the civilians.
It would be helpful to determine which retirees from which agencies/institutions currently benefit from their Saudi 401Ks and Chinese 401Ks and the like. That would tell us a lot about steps needed to reform our bureaucracies.
Interesting sidelight to the Flynn case.
Obama’s direct knowledge of the details of Flynn’s wiretapped calls even shocked his then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. Obama had fired Flynn as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 in order to protect Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Obama’s knowledge of Flynn being wiretapped raises significant questions about what Obama knew and when he knew it with regard to the attempt to railroad Flynn and prevent him from serving as Trump’s national security adviser.
Hmmmmm
I think we can all agree that the country is a lot safer and much more secure with Bill Barr running the Justice Department. We knew he was a solid choice when first appointed, but the swamp has no counter for the genuine moral courage he brought to the job.
Hmmm, indeed. Wasn’t it Susan Rice’s userid the one that was used to request all the unmasking? How’s that work, again?
There was no statutory legality to Obama even knowing the identity of the US Person who was party to the Kisylak phone calls. Without there already being an investigation started and proceeding along legal lines, there should have been no way for him to legally know the identities of the US Persons participating in those calls.
Or, so I was trained. It’s amazing to me that all the statutory constraints that the Democrats wove around the FBI and CIA back during the 1970s were the first things that Obama and his minions threw out the window when they were in power. The Church Committee set things up so that I couldn’t keep newsclippings about local high-crime areas and local criminals to brief incoming personnel on, because that was considered “gathering intelligence on US Persons”. If I was caught doing it, extensive fines and likely criminal proceedings were in my future as a military intelligence functionary.
And, yet… The President of the United States just blithely ignores all of that stuff, and openly discusses the identity of a wiretapped US Person who has not been accused of a crime, and who is not under espionage investigation.
Obama overshot the Watergate bar a long, long time ago–And, is overdue for a comeuppance.
And, most likely, nothing will be done until the players are confident of who will be the whip-hand next year. Flynn would be just a warning to those who might “break ranks”. They know the old rules that were used during the two terms of the King of Chicago…….
To the best of my knowledge the Russians have had a naval base at Tartus since the 70s. The Syrian Civil War did not bring “Russia into Syria in 2015.” They were protecting what they already had.
Kirk,
Susan Rice did the unmasking related to a visit by one of the Gulf state producers who requested a meeting with a Trump representative (Erik T.??) that didn’t go through the Obama administration.
It was for a limited number of the Trump team. It was Samantha Powers who did the unmaskings by the hundreds. She has claimed that it was someone else using her credentials. I bet that lie will be eventually revealed.
the Obama administration, also drove Egypt back into the embrace of the Russians, after the fall of Mubarak, a similar thing has happened with General Hafter and Libya, after the events in 2011, I think goldman goes too far in linking the sahwa ‘awakening’ and the rise of Islamic state, the latter came from veteran Al Queda players, the rest from Iraqi moukharabat and special republican guards, the twist in silva’s black widow, that he held to the end, was that Khalil, the mastermind was the liason from the moukharabat to islamists like hamas, a rough analog to Gabriel Allon himself,
what’s clear is we’ve been playing in the sandbox for forty years and expecting not to get stung by the scorpion, since 1980 when we lavished support on Saudi general intelligence and isi supported figures like younis khalis (the godfather of the Taliban) up and coming battlefield commander jalal haqquani, (bin laden was affiliated with the first group) leader of the foreign fighter hekmaytyar and raisul Sayyaf, and giving short shrift to massoud and more western associated forces, the boys of aapbara, (a term I picked up from david Ignatius) have been calling the ball, one might say 1979 was the annos horribilis, with the grand mosque siege as the debut for these islamists, the fall of the shah, which was not inevitable according to fall of heaven, created a power vacuum that saddam tried to fill, hence the eight year trench and rocket war, the new revolutionary power, in Tehran, created their own proxy army in Hezbollah from a splinter of the amal militia, which targeted our embassies and forward bases to blind us, which only the likes of the late admiral ace lyons, was quick to catch on to,
Continued; the gulf war was a counter productive side show, a foiling of Saddam’s punitive expedition, but it largely benefited the sauds including their rogue retainer bin laden, and the likes of the Baluch contingent in Kuwait that comprise ksm’s family, bin laden sought to replicate the seizure of a like minded warlord ibn saud, taking lessons from jouhaymans failed attempt a decade earlier, he sought initially nearby sudan as a base of operations, but his new field of battle, to ref Michael flynns tome, was bosnia and the Caucasus, taking a lesson from mughniyeh his lieutenants like former Egyptian army officer Seif Adel struck in Mogadishu, then worked with Iranian proxies in Eastern Saudi at Khobar then the Embassies we were not paying attention, he recruited forces from the scorpions ali Saleh had harnessed in his civil war, Back in Iraq, there was a Salafi awakening that Saddam sought to master but they had made links with sunni and even shia militants all the way to north Africa, Much of this was known in certain circles, yet both in Afghanistan as well as Iraq, we operated as if this was not happening, Langley was largely in the dark,
now general Flynn was in bosnia, is the aftermath of the victory there, then he was in Afghanistan, in the early part of the ramp up, moved to head special forces in Iraq, so he understood who the fighters he was dealing with, he reorganized intelligence on a provincial level, based on data collection, he wrote the blue print for the counterinsurgency strategy, however the incoming Obama administration seemed more at war with the Karzai govt (one suspects because of the influence of figures like peter galbraith, who steered the defacto partition of Iraq,) then the Taliban, they staged the electoral equivalent of a diem coup against Karzai. using Abdallah as a catspaw, I was wondering then, what was the objective we were seeking why were we in korengal, except as a forward base against the Taliban, and then we gave it up, what was the point. all along the Curzon line we did the same, in the other example Iraq maliki an actual stooge for the Iranians and the Syrians was installed, and like a scorpion he put his badr and sciri allies in charge, so when we pulled out, the remnants of the islamists we had vanquished reappeared. may they were just wbiding their time, the same pattern we saw in Lebanon was replicated with suleimanis proxy militias,
“Baseball Crank” Dan McLaughlin has a clear list over at NRO: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/ending-the-flynn-false-statement-case-was-the-right-judgment/
“If you’re going to base a prosecution entirely on the integrity of the process, you cannot very well hand-wave away your own violations of the integrity of the process.” Hard to beat that for simplicity.
The media ignores that the Flynn case mirrors the Sen. Ted Stevens case. Horrible violations of Brady procedures. Severe rebukes from higher authority. Potentially – violators escaping conviction via this “technica!ity”. Also – potentially innocent figures destroyed in a protracted and unjust ordeal.
So when will the third such case turn up?
So when will the third such case turn up?
I think KT McFarland was an attempt that she resisted. Papadopoulis was another. The Israeli lobby story was pure BS. He wanted to negotiate a deal to build a gas pipeline from Israel to Greece via Cyprus and avoid Turkey. The people going after him, like Downer, were pro-Turkey. Any businessman who deals with different countries could be accused of the same thing.
probably closer to the hatfill case, that mueller was a party to, but nick Kristof was a catalyst, following meryl nass and susan Rosenberg’s errant speculation, Edward Epstein has the file on that story,
The Hatfill case is just a mystery. If Epstein has written about it I should read that. Do you have a link ?
let me try this one
https://edjayepstein.blogspot.com/2009/12/anthrax-case-falls-apart.html