White Privilege and the Sausage Factory

American conservatism once had the sensible position of a realistic view of Moscow’s role in the world. Now it’s been degraded into calling the outing of a systematic effort by Moscow foreign intelligence to subvert American democracy a “fiasco.” Hope it pays well, @RichLowry. https://t.co/hVeX4VIIf1

— stuart stevens (@stuartpstevens) May 10, 2020

What I'm seeing here, in the "defenses" of Michael Flynn, is that white people don't deserve to be treated like criminals because "white collar" crimes aren't really crimes (who gets hurt?  Isn't it a crime only when somebody gets hurt?) and besides, we don't want to pay attention to how criminal justice operates in this country, so long as the "right" people get put in jail (and never let out).

Peggy Noonan on MTP this morning waved away the complications of this case, arguing that somehow what Flynn did didn't really amount to a crime, but William Barr wasn't right, either.

Lost in these narratives is that Flynn plead guilty on a plea deal to escape being charged with far more serious crimes, like acting for a foreign government without registering as a foreign agent (that's why Judge Sullivan told Flynn he'd "sold out his country").  What Flynn was allowed to plead guilty to was the relatively low-level crime of lying to the FBI.  And he did lie on 'material' matters, Barr's lies in the press and the pleadings notwithstanding.

Granted, this is a complicated case, and not just in terms of what Flynn was investigated for, and what he plead guilty to:

I updated this to note that in addition to Barr's request to dismiss the prosecution, Sullivan has a pending motion to withdraw the motion to withdraw. That filing included a sworn declaration from Flynn that materially conflicts with his other sworn statements. https://t.co/x1oxFCTA4F

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) May 10, 2020

You owe it to yourself to read the post linked in that tweet.  What's going on in Sullivan's is not nearly so simple as the news accounts would have it be.  Here, this will give you an idea just how corrupt Barr's actions are, without getting into the legal weeds;

I also noted that Barr had two parallel efforts to undo the prosecution of Mike Flynn: Jensen’s, and John Durham’s. John Durham has been reviewing the first six months of the Russian investigation for a year already. He has had access to this information for that entire time. But even on top of the Durham review, Barr appointed Jensen.

Yeah, Barr wasn't getting what he wanted, so he found somebody else to give it to him.  A lawyer can make any argument his client needs, but there are legal as well as ethical restrictions on that practice; and the restrictions are even more serious in a court of law, or when they involve a government prosecution.  Barr here is effectively acting as defense counsel for Flynn, not as the Attorney General of the United States.

Indeed, Barr acted on Thursday to prevent the ethical consequence of Flynn’s motion to dismiss based off a claim Covington was incompetent to occur, the public disclosure of those filings showing Covington’s representation of Flynn.

Billy Barr took a breathtaking step on Thursday to pre-empt Sullivan’s review of whether Covington really provided Flynn incompetent representation, or instead advised him wisely to dodge the accountability of his secret work for a frenemy government.

As such, DOJ has overridden the authority of an Article III judge at least twice: Sullivan’s previous ruling on Brady, and his upcoming review of Flynn’s claim that his lawyers were incompetent.

Let that sink in:  Barr is declaring himself, via the President, to be the superior legal power in the country.  He's actively ignoring court orders by cooking up unsupportable legal theories which he gleefully tries in public, and is laying the groundwork for Trump to pardon Flynn because Peggy Noonan and Rich Lowry don't understand how the sausage gets made, and don't like seeing white people of privilege being led into the factory.

It may yet end up Barr is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is:

In the wake of Bill Barr’s intervention last week, Flynn moved to withdraw all his pending motions, without prejudice, including the motion to withdraw his guilty pleas. Given that, as part of that motion, Flynn submitted a sworn filing that materially conflicts with other sworn statements Flynn has made before this and Judge Contreras’ court, as well as before a grand jury, and given that Barr went out and admitted on TV that those filings were the reason he acted in such an unprecedented fashion to pre-empt an Article III judge’s decision, it seems that Barr’s actions actually don’t affect that motion to withdraw. Sullivan could reject that, since parts of it are unaffected by Barr’s actions.

The point being Judge Sullivan still has a say in this matter, and as indicated in that paragraph, has several items on his docket related to this case, and more than a few evidentiary issues to sort out.  Denying the motion to dismiss may be the least of it, in the end.  Still, read the article; this matter is not nearly as simple as tweets and headlines make it out to be; and the corruption in that complexity stinks to the heavens.

But as I say, that's when I expect Trump to pardon Flynn.  He's already gotten more involved publicly in this case than he ever did in the cases of Manafort or Stone (both of whom are still in prison).  Flynn is acting like he's sure he'll get a pardon.  Then again, Manafort and Stone did, too.

Just gonna add this as another sign of ignorance, white privilege (imagine anyone at Fox tweeting this about any black defendant trying to contest his guilty plea), and refusing to see how the sausage is made:

(Southpaw explaining legal things to a political correspondent who works for Fox.) https://t.co/0lvUcft0dC

— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) May 10, 2020

Facts and details get in the way of a good conspiracy theory; or just a simple narrative.