Thursday, May 14, 2020

"This whole trial's out of order!"


So the New York Times decided to revisit the Flynn case in a bold and decisive manner:

Mr. Trump and his allies now accuse the F.B.I. of framing Mr. Flynn, which is part of the president’s broader campaign to tarnish the Russia investigation and settle scores against perceived enemies ahead of the November election.

Their revisionist narrative is in stark contrast to the view held three years ago not only by top F.B.I. management but also by senior White House officials. Mr. Flynn, the officials said then, had lied to Vice President Mike Pence and other aides about the nature of his calls to the ambassador, had lied repeatedly to F.B.I. agents about the calls, and might have made himself vulnerable to Russian blackmail.
But the Flynn case is not just about Flynn's guilty plea.  He took a plea deal to the lesser offense of lying to the FBI.  There were far more serious charges against him, which may even be what the Court is now considering.  The case, however, is not just what Michael Flynn did, or did not, say to FBI agents in an interview.

Maggie Haberman says some details of this case are getting 'memory-holed.' Let's just get in the wayback machine and return to the halcyon days of 2018.  The post at that link is the Twitter account of the hearing where Judge Sullivan accepted Flynn's guilty plea.  The details of the entry of that plea don't interest me here; what does is Sullivan's pointing to the far more serious crimes Flynn was investigated for:

Yup, there it is.  The National Security Advisor was an unregistered aganet of a foreign country.  That is not something Barack Obama could have masterminded, or Joe Biden could have uncovered in asking the NSA to "unmask" an identity in a phone log.  That's on Flynn entirely, and that's why Flynn plead guilty to lying to the FBI.  That country, by the way, was Turkey.  Search high and low in that NYT article of today, you'll find no mention of Turkey at all.  It was this fact which prompted Judge Sullivan at that hearing to ask the prosecutors why they'd never considered charging Flynn with treason.  Flynn took the plea deal he was offered for very good reasons.  It is that fact which is still getting "memory-holed."

And now there's the new issue of criminal contempt, something the court can press without the cooperation of the DOJ or even the need of an amicus curiae.  Here is, in part, the basis of Sullivan's inquiry into Flynn's commission of criminal contempt for perjury:

“I cannot recall any incident in which the court accepted a guilty plea in which he was not guilty and I don’t intend to start today,” Sullivan told Flynn, according to MSNBC. “I will inform you, any false answers will get you in more trouble, do you understand?”

Flynn responded in the affirmative, before Sullivan asked if he wished “to challenge the circumstances under which you were interviewed by the FBI?”

His lawyers have said in recent days that the only reason Flynn lied to the FBI was because he was caught off-guard by the agents. The White House on Tuesday said he was “certainly ambushed” by the FBI.

“No, your honor,” Flynn said. “I was aware that lying to the FBI was a crime.”
This is also pretty damned important:

Now Flynn says he was "entrapped."  Damned convenient excuse many a convicted criminal wishes he could have made successful use of.  But those criminals don't have the POTUS in their corner.

There's also this:
There is a lot here for Judge Sullivan to rule on, and I'm still not ruling out a pardon from Trump when he declares this whole trial to be out of order (Trump undoubtedly fancies himself Al Pacino).  For the moment, though, unless Trump finally decides to act, the ball is in Sullivan's court, and he knows exactly what to do with it.

It's too bad the press doesn't.

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