FBI Deliberately Tried to Trap Michael Flynn – Why Might That Be?

A new sentencing memo from Michael Flynn’s defense team shows that there is more than enough evidence for a reasonable court to allow Flynn to walk without prison time. Not only do we have both James Comey and Andrew McCabe on the public record saying that the FBI agents who spoke with Flynn in January 2017 found him credible and forthcoming, but this memo shows that Flynn was urged to waive his constitutional rights prior to the interview.

According to the memo, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe urged Flynn to meet with his FBI agents on Jan. 24, 2017 without the presence of an attorney. McCabe did the usual TV-cop thing where he told Flynn, Oh, we don’t need to get lawyers involved. If we do that, then I gotta go get the Department of Justice involved in all of this, and it’ll be a big old thing. You don’t want that, do you, Gen. Flynn? No, no, only a guilty person would want that. Let’s just keep it nice and casual, whaddya say, old buddy, old pal?

“I explained that I thought the quickest way to get this done was to have a conversation between [Flynn] and the agents only,” McCabe wrote in the 302 report about the interview. “I further stated that if LTG Flynn wished to include anyone else in the meeting, like the White House counsel for instance, that I would need to involve the Department of Justice. [Flynn] stated that this would not be necessary and agreed to meet with the agents without any additional participants.”

Flynn agreed to meet the agents without a lawyer present. According to officials in the Bureau, those agents made the deliberate decision not to inform the general that he could face serious consequences for lying to them. They reportedly wanted to withhold that information because it would make Flynn more “relaxed” during the interview.

“The agents did not provide Gen. Flynn with a warning of the penalties for making a false statement under 18 U.S.C. 1001 before, during, or after the interview,” Flynn’s lawyers informed the court.

“The warnings,” McCabe wrote later, “might adversely affect the rapport.”

This goes well beyond the kind of prison sentence Flynn should or should not get. After all, both Flynn and Mueller agree that the judge should be lenient.

Alas, this was never about sending Flynn to jail in the first place. It was solely about ratcheting up the pressure on this man until he spilled the beans (or made them up) on President Trump. And to those ends, the Obama FBI (still very much in place when these events transpired) was more than happy to bend every ethical and legal rule in the book to get their guy.

You think Mueller is any better?