Quote (Thor123422 @ May 13 2020 08:52pm)
IceMage's post seems to show that there was good reason to conduct the interview, and lets be honest, conducting a semi-formal or informal interview should require an exceedingly low bar. Even being only of tertiary relevance to an ongoing case would clear it in my book.
https://www.scribd.com/document/460365271/FlynnThe DoJ itself laid out why there was no predication to conduct the interview
The investigation was already supposed to be closed in the absence of any derogatory evidence found and the FBI concluded that no interview of Flynn was required to fill in any facts, contradicting what Icemage just posted above, and declare they were closing the investigation with the option to renew if any new evidence was found. Only due to unnecessary delay was it kept it, and extended only with the FBI's excuse of citing the Logan Act, which is a laughably unconstitutional defunct law that could not possibly be cited in court. Any investigation predicated on the Logan Act would be considered invalid because its impossible to prosecute. Strzok kept the investigation open and the FBI unilaterally moved to ambush Flynn without coordinating with or notifying the DoJ in violation of protocol.
Furthermore, the criminal statute for 'lying to the FBI' requires the lie to be about a material fact. If the statement is immaterial, like lying about the weather, it is irrelevant and not illegal. The DoJ states that there is simply no materiality in this case because 1) they had no valid investigation into Flynn at that point and 2) the FBI already had word-for-word transcripts of the calls and thus no dispute as to the fact, making it immaterial to their case and no need to question Flynn about it in the first place;
"With no dispute as to what was in fact said, there was no factual basis for the predication of a new counterintelligence investigation. Nor was there a justification or need to interview Mr. Flynn as to his own personal recollections of what had been said. Whatever gaps in his memory Mr. Flynn might or might not reveal upon an interview regurgitating the content of those calls would not have implicated legitimate counterintelligence interests or somehow exposed Mr. Flynn as beholden to Russia"
As they sum up;
"In short, Mr. Flynn’s calls with the Russian ambassador—the only new information to arise since the FBI’s decision to close out his investigation—did not constitute an articulable factual basis to open any counterintelligence investigation or criminal investigation. Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page apparently celebrated the “serendipitous[]” and “amazing” fact of the FBI’s delaying formally closing out the original counterintelligence investigation. Ex. 7 at 1. Having the ability to bootstrap the calls with Mr. Kislyak onto the existing authorization obviated the need for the “7th Floor” of the FBI to predicate further investigative efforts. In doing so, the FBI sidestepped a modest but critical protection that constrains the investigative reach of law enforcement: the predication threshold for investigating American citizens."Quote
You haven't shown me anything that suggests they were trying to get him to lie. If they knew he had been saying one thing then interviewed him to confirm that thing, and that thing was false and he had been lying... that's on him. The fact that they knew he was lying about it and talked to him just shows they were, again, acting exactly how investigators should act.
They said right in their notes for the meeting that they were trying to get him to lie so they could prosecute him or get him fired.
It says right in the notes
"What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?"The notes that are exculpatory evidence that the prosecutors unlawfully suppressed for 2 years and only came out a couple weeks ago.
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#3 is just more red herrings
So you think there's no proof that they were seeking to compel Flynn to lie and that saying they suppressed exculpatory evidence is a red herring, when the evidence they suppressed proved they were seeking to compel Flynn to lie
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Dude, you're gonna have to stop parroting the "good faith" point. Abusing good faith to catch somebody you suspect of illegal activity is not only a fair tactic, it's expected of any good investigator. If I found that they were foregoing interviews for "good faith" I'd want them out.
Compromising our national security and destroying the cooperation of our intelligence community just so investigators can "catch" someone in a process crime they fabricated is not a fair tactic, not a good tactic, and sure as hell not good for the health of our nation
How much damage to our national security was it worth for Strzok and McCabe to put Flynn through hell for a couple years?
If the next Boston Marathon bomber or 9/11 hijacker gets into our country despite the FBI and DHS having the pieces of the puzzles necessary to stop them- but refusing to cooperate- how many bodies will it be worth?
This is all somewhat ironic to me, because I'm used to the argument being that we should surrender our civil liberties in the name of security, with statists arguing that warrantless searches and FBI misconduct should be excused if it means preventing the next terrorist attack. Instead, here we are debating whether we should sacrifice both our civil liberties
and our national security, just so that we can.... let corrupt FBI officials hurl dung at Trump officials and accomplish nothing? What is to be gained here?
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Last "point" is your interpretation, which in my opinion you haven't met the burden on, and since you're using certain arguments that are nonsensical like "abusing the good faith" it really leads me to suspect you are just reaching for anything so you can keep that conclusion.
There is ample proof throughout the process of executive, FBI and prosecutorial misconduct. There are so many unpunished crimes and violations of the safeguards that just got glossed over and ignored.
Look at that article from January 12th, one throwaway in a long line of shit everyone has forgotten about. In order for that article to be published, a senior government official had to illegally leak the contents of an unmasked wiretapped phone call to the media. That 'official' may or may not have been none other than Joe Biden himself. That was just one leak out of dozens that winter. The whole premise of the FISA court was the false promise that civil liberties would be respected by safeguarding US citizens behind quarantines like masking their names that would prevent exactly the kind of abuse we witnessed. To divorce our national security interests from partisan political intrigue. But nope, politicians were able to just freely spy on the opposite, unmask their names and leak it to the media. Anyone who has paid any attention at all should know our civil liberties got thrown right out the window with the Patriot Act, but now we've got politicians weaponizing it against each other.
Then we got proof that McCabe was leaking to the WSJ, that the entire investigation was predicated upon manufactured evidence in the Steele Dossier that got leaked to reporters just to create circular 'corroboration' to provide more illegitimate secret warrants. We've got the lovebirds talking about their insurance policy and how to stop Trump, we've got Comey lying baldfacedly to the president about McCabe, we've got the FBI suppressing exculpatory evidence.
Every single one of those leaks was a crime and we were getting them daily. Nobody will ever be prosecuted for (most of) them, and its probably for the best nobody attempts it. That's the kind of deference towards our
substantial federal interest that wasn't shown when the LARPers ran amok in the FBI
This post was edited by Goomshill on May 13 2020 08:27pm