Flippin Flynn

In the latest episode of Russiagate, General Mike Flynn supposedly has offered to testify in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

Mike Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, has told the Federal Bureau of Investigation and congressional officials investigating the Trump campaign’s potential ties to Russia that he is willing to be interviewed in exchange for a grant of immunity from prosecution, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.

The last sentence has the reek of #FakeNews on it, but this isn’t the first source that indicates that Flynn is thinking of doing this.  So it deserves consideration.

The two questions I have are these:

  1. Has Flynn actually committed any sort of crime?  The article mentions a violation of the Emoluments Clause, but I’m not aware of that being any sort of felony.  Was he bribed?
  2. What would he have to offer in exchange for immunity?  Former DNI James Clapper has already publicly stated that the Obama Administration found no evidence of collusion between the campaign and Putin’s government, though it sure looks like Flynn was writing checks his ass couldn’t cash from the wiretaps incidental intelligence collection we already know about.

Given that nobody is in any position to grant immunity to Flynn just yet, I’m going to have to withhold judgement on this story.  We’ll see what changes if he’s charged.

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31 comments

  4. My favorite part of this:
    “When you are given immunity, that means you have probably committed a crime.” – Michael Flynn, September 2016

  7. No, that’s not what “immunity” is. You can read it however you like, but it’s clear you guys are going to be disappointed by anything he has to say if he testifies.

  8. You guys are behind, the real fake news is that Trump is considering resignation because of this. Using my usual 50/50 approach, I choose to interpret ‘assurance against unfair prosecution’ as asking for immunity from prosecution.

  9. You’re free to interpret it as you see fit. I’m just saying that you’re on the road to heartbreak.

    Immunity is given to someone who is under criminal investigation in exchange for testimony against another target. The quote you took out of context from Flynn refers to Clinton staffers who may have mishandled confidential information in violation of the Espionage Act were granted immunity in exchange for statements about Hillary Clinton, who was gthe target of a criminal investigation.

    But tell me, is Flynn under criminal investigation? Not that I’ve heard. People don’t ask for or get immunity if they’re not under one. What would be the point? I call choosing not to testify in front of a community that’s desperately looking for some traction on this whole Russia thing a wise move. I wouldn’t either in his shoes.

    I’m making the prediction that if Flynn testifies, he will not turn evidence against the Trump White House and Democrats will gnash their teeth over it for a few days before moving to the next exaggerated story in the Russiagate saga.

  13. But he is not choosing not to testify. He is choosing to testify if they guarantee immunity from prosecution.
    You don’t have to be under investigation to get immunity. Someone else can be under investigation, you can offer to testify in exchange for immunity.
    Remember the SATs?
    Flynn is to staffer like
    Trump is to Clinton.
    Not sure how my quote was out of context? He was referring to Clinton staffers getting immunity before they would agree to testify, which, now that Flynn is trying to do it, is just a wise precaution, right?
    Look, I don’t believe that Trump is going to resign any time soon. I don’t even think Flynn has a piece of paper with the deed to 19.5% of Rosneft.
    I am just enjoying the complete turn around from the Lock her up crowd who are now the Benefit of the doubt crowd.
    You guys got yourself a Benghazi/but her emails level of scandal and I predict that it will drag on for at least as long as those did. It’s fun to watch from the other side.

  14. Well, if you’re admitting that all you want is a distracting scandal that you know has no merit, then yeah: mission accomplished. But Benghazi didn’t do the GOP much good in unseating Obama in 2012 and I don’t see how Russiagate does much for knocking Trump out in 2020 either.

    Sooner or later, your party is going to have to face what Wikileaks revealed. Also, it’s going to have to acknowledge why Trump won and it had nothing to do with Russia. The more your team obsesses over scandals that you know to be fake, the longer it’s putting off what it needs to do.

    I don’t care, really. I’ll watch as the Russia narrative continues to crumble and laugh at the Democrats’ increasing frustration. This is only further discrediting the mainstream media, you know.

    Then I’ll vote to re-elect Trump in 2020 and watch him win by a greater margin than he did in 2016.

    I not only predict that this will happen, but I’ll go even further and say that the Democrats still won’t understand why it happened again.

  15. I think it’s pretty clear by this point that Flynn has shown himself to be untrustworthy. There has been enough of a trickle of news about his prior associations that make me think the Feds would have some sort of case were it all to be laid bare. His motivations aren’t really clear though–does he resent Trump for firing him and wants vengeance? Is this a head fake to expose info indicting Obama? Is he just trying to innocently clear his name? Whatever the case, it will take the intelligence committee working through the proposition, considering what he really would have to say and how important it is before he would be granted immunity.

  16. You guys got yourself a Benghazi/but her emails level of scandal

    This level of delusion is impressive. I’ve read the law. Even if I was a dyed in the wool Democrat, I would be forced to admit Clinton broke the law by putting classified email on a private server. Equating that to the absolute lack of proof of anything illegal going on in regards to Trump or Flynn is nuts.

  17. Wow, I had not seen that video. She definitely alludes to the Obama Administration knowingly spying on Russia/Trump, which is what Trump claimed, and Obama denied. Why isn’t this bigger news? Context that is missing?

  19. I love the logic that we don’t need to investigate Trump because there is no proof he did anything wrong.
    Which law did Clinton break? Why did multiple investigations clear her? Why is she still not on trial, what with the GOP in control of both the executive and the legislative?
    Is it Obama’s fault somehow?

  20. First of all, the Democrats are doing something. They have literally just fired the whole DNC.
    I am not sure why you think the narrative is crumbling, though? More and more people are getting swept up into the story.
    Also keep in eye on Russia, itself. Interesting stuff going on which might either lead to blood on the streets or new people in power. One might make cozying up to Putin less palatable, the other might reveal some info. Either way, we live in interesting times.
    But it’s good to know that you plan to vote to re-elect the man who has so far accomplished none of his agenda v. a yet to be named Democrat. If that doesn’t scream bias, I don’t know what does.

  21. I honestly don’t see what you guys are seeing. The woman is talking about the NYT article (your clip is edited, this is the article which they throw on the screen in the full clip – https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/us/politics/obama-trump-russia-election-hacking.html?_r=0) and only saying that they spy on the Russians, they don’t want the Trump people to reveal the sources to the Russians or sweep the election tampering investigation under the rug.
    You are high if you think that somehow adds up to spying on Trump himself, or that she would be in a position to know about it, if it was happening. She quit in 2015.

  22. More people swept into it? We were talking about Flynn in January and we’re still talking about him. If the Democrats had anything devastating on Russia, they would have used it by now.

    The whole story now is about the investigation and nothing new has been leaked since Trump fired a shot across the bow of the leakers with his tweet about Obama wiretapping him.

    There’s nothing new under the sun, unless you think the weaksauce with Nunes amounts to much. Even then, what he has to say is a threat to the Obama White House people, not Trump’s.

    You would think me constantly mentioning that I’m a Republican would be the bias alert. I don’t pretend to be neutral and impartial. I just listen to the other side and respond as fairly and open-mindedly as I can manage. That’s all I have to offer.

    In any event, there’s nobody the Democrats would nominate I would vote for. The best you could hope for is that I won’t show up to vote for Trump. At this time though, I think he’s on the right track.

  23. Wasn’t Kushner getting swept up into the story? He met with Kilslyak? I am honestly paying way more attention to the stuff in Russia proper than to this.
    What has Trump done that you would consider the right track? I am asking sincerely. Aside from making us look like idiots abroad, I have not seen much in the way of actual movement. What am I missing?

  25. He kept his campaign promise and nominated Gorsuch, who will be confirmed. As I’ve said, this was my primary reason to vote for him.

    It goes without saying that I approve of the travel ban, even if I think the reasoning behind it is flawed. We’ve discussed that before.

    I favor his increased enforcement of immigration laws. I haven’t seen any numbers yet that indicate deportations of illegal immigrants are up, but I expect that they are.

    I approve of him strangling the Obamacare mandate with his EO that that obligates the IRS and other agencies to grant waivers where they can. I’m okay with allowing the law to crash on its own in lieu of Congress sending him a repeal bill and him signing it.

    Those are the ones that come most readily to mind and it isn’t too shabby for his first 100 days.

    For the lack of legislation, I blame the GOP Congress. They need to get their shit together.

  26. If their sole focus is to see Flynn, who was already fired over this whole affair, prosecuted and nothing more than that; then they’re going about it the right way. But if the sum total of Russiagate is going to be nailing Flynn on an obstruction or perjury charge, it shows how weak this “scandal” is.

    Has shades of the Bush-era “Plamegate”, really. What did the Democrats get for all that? Scooter Libby. Great job, Democrats!

  30. I love the logic that we don’t need to investigate Trump because there is no proof he did anything wrong.

    Nowhere did I imply we shouldn’t investigate what happened between Flynn and the Russians. I did say there is zero actual evidence thus far that any law was broken, which is true.

    Which law did Clinton break?

    The Director of the FBI outlined that she did in fact have emails on her server that were classified at the time they were sent/received, that is without question, despite many liberals still not believing/knowing it.

    U.S. Code § 1924

    Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.

    Black and White. Her server was an unauthorized location. “But she had no ‘intent’ to do this I hear you say. Ok, I give you U.S. Code § 793

    Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
    Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

    There is no intent requirement for breaking that section of the law, just “gross negligence”, which Comey all but admitted she had when he had his press conference.

    Why did multiple investigations clear her?

    That’s an excellent question. U.S. Code § 2071:

    Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and
    shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States
    .

    The only conclusion I come to is that we have reached the point in our society when there truly is a ruling class above the law. If she had been found guilty, she would have been ineligible to hold the office of President. So the powers that be made the case against intent rather than gross negligence in the court of public opinion, obfuscating exactly what she was guilty of, and let her walk.

    Why is she still not on trial, what with the GOP in control of both the executive and the legislative?

    They are all part of the same ruling elite. Some sort of quid-pro-quo? More likely that she lost the election so they don’t care anymore. If she had won, they would still be pushing it.

    Is it Obama’s fault somehow?

    Everything is Obama’s fault for at least the next 7 years (at least I think that’s about how long he blamed everything on Bush).

  31. Well now. The latest person “swept up” into the scandal is Susan Rice. If Democrats don’t come up with some real evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia pretty quickly, the whole story is going to be about the Obama Administration gathering intelligence on its political opponents and then illegally leaking it.

    http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/04/susan-rice-unmasked/

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