WASHINGTON, D.C. – It’s a sudden end to a long legal battle.

On Thursday, the Justice Department revealed it’s dropping the criminal case against President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

CNN described Flynn as the man “whose lies about his contacts with Russia prompted Trump to fire him three years ago and special counsel Robert Mueller to flip him to cooperate in the Russia investigation”.

The request to drop the case was filed with a federal judge in DC District Court on Thursday.

President Trump has recently stepped up the game in using the legal battle to attack the early Russia investigation and former FBI leadership.

Technically speaking, the court must still formally approve the request.

A review of the filing shows that the department attacked the FBI’s work when it interviewed Flynn in the West Wing in the first weeks of the Trump presidency.

The filing also shows that the Justice Department called the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Flynn for his contacts with Russia “a no longer justifiably predicated investigation”.

“After a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information appended to the defendant’s supplemental pleadings, the Government has concluded that the interview of Mr. Flynn was untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn — a no longer justifiably predicated investigation that the FBI had, in the Bureau’s own words, prepared to close because it had yielded an ‘absence of any derogatory information.’”

Now only that, but the Justice Department also says it can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Flynn lied.  It went on to say that even if they could, the lies weren’t substantial.

“The Government is not persuaded that the January 24, 2017 interview was conducted with a legitimate investigative basis and therefore does not believe Mr. Flynn’s statements were material even if untrue.

Moreover, we not believe that the Government can prove either the relevant false statements or their materiality beyond a reasonable doubt,” the filing states.

Brandon Van Grack was the lead Mueller prosecutor who cut the deal with Flynn.  Moments before the announcement, he withdrew from it… giving no detail on the reason for his exit, writing only to the court to “please notice the withdrawal.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy calls Michael Flynn setup “bigger than Watergate”

By Pat Droney, Staff Writer for LET – May 1, 2020

WASHINGTON, D.C.- For people who grew up or lived in the 1970’s, the term “Watergate” should be pretty familiar.

As a matter of fact, nearly every political scandal (and even football) has had “gate” added to the end of it in homage to the “mother” of all political scandals—Koreagate, travelgate, spygate, deflategate (shameless Patriots plug there)—you get the picture.

What we now have is a scandal that may…just may…replace Watergate as THE scandal which all other scandals get compared to. That is the hatchet, bag job on former National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn.

Watergate, for those of you too young to remember, was when operatives working for the Republican National Committee committed a burglary at Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. in June, 1972.

The whole sordid mess, which involved wiretaps, stealing documents, etc. wasn’t the main issue…what brought then-President Nixon and his administration down was the cover-up that reached up into the highest levels of government. 

That brings us to the case of Michael Flynn. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy believes that the revelations brought up concerning Flynn’s case are “bigger than Watergate and we need to make sure people are held accountable.”

In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, McCarthy said that the American people “need a Congress that will work with them and work with this president.

Because what you have talked about with Flynn and with the president is bigger than Watergate and we need to make sure people are held accountable.”

Of course, the difference we have between this case and Watergate is we now seemingly have a media that isn’t so much interested in the truth as it is in pushing a political agenda.

With the Watergate case, you had an investigation conducted by two Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who clearly had ambition and worked relentlessly to get to the truth of what President Nixon and members of his administration had done.

In the current case, you have a media complex that some say hates President Trump and would never go out of its way to show that the Trump administration had been screwed over by another federal agency, in this case the leadership and a couple of rogue investigators with the FBI.

The fact that some of the veins of this particular case go beyond the FBI and up through the Department of Justice and possibly to the White House under Obama makes it even less likely that aside from organizations such as Fox News, Breitbart and select others, nobody will even report on this, or, if they do, it will be spun faster than a spin cycle in a washing machine.

This past week, four pages of documents were provided to Flynn’s defense attorneys, and on Wednesday they were unsealed by a federal judge.

The documents show that in January of 2017, just as Trump was starting his administration, FBI investigators were discussing how to deal with the investigation into Flynn’s alleged contacts with the Russian ambassador just weeks before, during the transition from Obama to Trump.

According to Flynn’s lawyers, the notes and emails that were unsealed indicate a so-called “smoking gun” that shows that Flynn was in fact railroaded by FBI investigators who wanted to take him out.

Flynn, who had an extensive background in intelligence, was likely seen as a roadblock to FBI and other investigators who were trying to get something with which to take out President Trump.

The handwritten notes that were released, dated Jan. 24, 2017 sow an internal debate about whether or not they (investigators) should be forthcoming with Flynn or others at the White House about the nature of the FBI investigation.

“If we’re seen as playing games, WH will be furious,” the notes say. “Protect our institution by not playing games.”

There was also some discussion in the notes about whether or not trying to trap Flynn with a lie in real time might assist in the investigation.

“What is our goal? Truth/admission or get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?”

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Murdered officer's grave desecrated before headstone even placed

The unsealed documents do not show specifically who authored the notes, however they bear the initials of E.W. “Bill” Priestap, the head of FBI’s counterintelligence division at the time, and they relate to a meeting with the bureaus then-deputy director, Andrew McCabe.

Indeed it was McCabe who called Flynn and asked him to meet with two FBI agents, Peter Strzok (remember him?) and Joe Pientka.

The interview was set up by McCabe to ostensibly discuss phone calls Flynn had in December 2016 with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States at the time. 

In fact, in a memo that was released, it notes that on Jan 4, 2017, the FBI’s Washington Field Office said there was no justification to continue investigating Flynn, whom the FBI referred to as code name “Crossfire Razor.” 

“The FBI is closing this investigation. If new information is identified or reported to the FBI regarding the activities of CROSSFIRE RAZOR, the FBI will consider reopening the investigation if warranted,” the memo said. 

However text messages that were released show that Peter Strzok intervened to stop the FBI from closing Flynn’s case. 

“Hey if you haven’t closed RAZOR don’t do so yet,” Strozk wrote in the text to a colleague at the FBI. 

According to former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, he called the FBI’s interview of Flynn a “meticulously planned scheme” to set him up, he told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum.

“What we are seeing is a meticulously planned-out scheme to try to get a 33-year combat veteran of the United States to say something that was inaccurate so that they would have a basis to try to charge him with false statements or otherwise get him fired,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy noted that many people felt that the interview with the FBI was nothing more than a “perjury trap” and that the released documents prove it.

“They did not have a legitimate investigative reason for doing this and there was no criminal predicate, or reason to treat him [Flynn] like a criminal suspect,” McCarthy said.

“They did the interview outside of the established protocols of how the FBI is supposed to interview someone on the White House staff, are supposed to go through the Justice Department and the White House counsel’s office.

They obviously purposely did not do that and they were clearly trying to make a case on this.”

“For years a number of us have been arguing that this looked like a perjury trap,” he continued.

Former FBI Director James Comey admitted in an interview with MSNBC that he had sent agents to interview Flynn outside of the normal process.

“I sent them,” Comey told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, noting that he had intentionally gone around the normal process so that he could get something on Flynn, noting that it was “something I probably wouldn’t have done or gotten away with in a more organized administration.”

McCarthy went on in his interview and noted that the FBI ignored common protocols and protections that would be provided for ordinary citizens, let alone someone with Flynn’s long record of dedicated service to the American people in the military.

“People should understand. If General Flynn was a gangbanger, or Mafia guy, they would have sat down with them or they would have told him, ‘This is a criminal investigation,’ they would have identified themselves as FBI agents, told him the reason for the interview, told him he had a right not to answer questions and told him if he made false statements, that could be grounds for prosecution. They would do all those things for criminals,” McCarthy added.

Rep. Devin Nunes of California, who is the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee said :

“Clear now that General Flynn was set up by dirty cops at the highest levels of our government.”

Last week in a court filing, Sidney Powell, Flynn’s lead attorney, said that the documents were “stunning” and added that the new evidence “proves Mr. Flynn’s allegations of having been deliberately set up and framed by corrupt agents at the top of the FBI.”

Flynn, who plead guilty after agents threatened to jail his son, is in the process of trying to have his guilty plea withdrawn. The fact is this may all be for naught as it is possible with the new revelations that his plea and subsequent conviction might just be launched.

One question that is begged out of all of this is how high up in the government did this plot go? In other words, what did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it?

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