If you really want a breakdown of what went down with the FBI, Flynn, and the Justice Department and why it was totally eff’d up, look no further than Kimberley Strassel and this thread ‘laying waste’ to the Deep State in general.
This is great.
1) On the substance of the Flynn withdrawal: What separates our FBI from, say–ahem–Russian secret police is the requirement that they articulate the basis of an interview–an alleged crime. They can't just wander in an ask anybody anything.
— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) May 7, 2020
But they still did.
2) FBI was hot on its Logan Act theory, but never opened an actual investigation on that basis. It instead used an open counterintelligence investigation (in which they'd found nothing on collusion) as its excuse to interview Flynn on completely unrelated points.
— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) May 7, 2020
And if they’d do this to someone like Flynn?
Yeah, they’d do it to anyone.
3) That's just not legit, and why DOJ now and correctly says that nothing Flynn said in that interview was "material" to the only open investigation–counterintelligence/collusion. DOJ is right to care about this important principle.
— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) May 7, 2020
Ding ding ding.
4) On Comey: The pages in the filing (6-7) on Comey's insubordinate behavior are eye-watering. They are a repeat of his behavior in the Clinton case (where he went around the AG).
— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) May 7, 2020
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And yet he’s had zero real consequences for his actions other than being ‘let go,’ which honestly didn’t seem to phase him one bit.
5) He ignores the collective view of DOJ leadership and refuses to brief WH on the Flynn calls, then also ignores a Yates call so that his agents can sandbag Flynn. (And then later brags about this to Nicole Wallace?) McCabe doesn't come off looking very stellar either.
— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) May 7, 2020
Sandbag Flynn.
That’s exactly what they tried to do.
6) On Mueller: What the hell? Why was Rosenstein directing Mueller to look into Logan Act issues when his own department had dismissed that idea ? (More on that in my upcoming column..)
— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) May 7, 2020
What the hell indeed.
7)On politics: Those partisan commentators already piling on AG Barr are willfully ignoring that the man who made the call–U.S. attorney Jeff Jensen–was 10 years FBI and 10 years a career prosecutor. This was done by the book.
— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) May 7, 2020
And is not partisan, unlike what they tried to do to Flynn.
8) Instead of continuing to cover/apologize for FBI misconduct, they might instead try to relocate the principles they threw out the door in 2016. Flynn should never have been prosecuted.
— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) May 7, 2020
Maybe the FBI missed it, but they just had their as*es handed to them.
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