Remember that DoJ dropping charges against Flynn is being done in the context of a diversion and a pandemic. There are Mueller investigation files being unsealed.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 7, 2020
Remember that DoJ dropping charges against Flynn is being done in the context of a diversion and a pandemic. There are Mueller investigation files being unsealed.
With imminent release of #RussiaTranscripts
Fox News is already spinning it as raising doubts about @RepAdamSchiff saying there was evidence of collusion.
So, here's a reminder:
Mueller Report found LOTS of evidence of collusion.
I wrote about it:https://t.co/FlWmRZxzAx pic.twitter.com/M1PHmaifA3— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) May 7, 2020
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to temporarily block House Democrats from getting access to confidential materials from Robert Mueller's investigation. https://t.co/gCRPRseKQb
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 7, 2020
xRussia Investigation Transcripts and Documents – Materials from the House Intelligence Committee's Investigation into Russian Active Measures
50+ transcripts from 2017 to 2018 released today by @RepAdamSchiff
https://t.co/jL7tn2XqTy pic.twitter.com/c1QocGVEEF
— Wendy Siegelman (@WendySiegelman) May 7, 2020
While Special Counsel Mueller found insufficient evidence to prove the crime of criminal conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt, he refused to draw any conclusion on the issue of collusion — contrary to false representations made by Attorney General Bill Barr and others. There is ample evidence of the corrupt interactions between the Trump campaign and Russia, both direct and circumstantial, in the record:
Despite taking part in this investigation and hearing these facts first-hand, the transcripts reveal how House Republicans used witness interviews not to gain the facts, but to press President Trump’s false narrative of ‘no collusion, no obstruction.’ It would be a pattern they would follow throughout the Russia investigation and into the President’s subsequent Ukraine misconduct. To that end, House Republicans sought to use the Committee’s Russia investigation to undermine the Intelligence Community’s assessment that Russia sought to hurt Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. That assessment has been affirmed by this Committee’s Democrats, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, and Special Counsel Mueller.
So a literal foreign agent takes a job as national security advisor, doesn't reveal it, and gets cleared by DOJ after a pressure campaign from the President? Banana republic shit.
— Tim Miller (@Timodc) May 7, 2020
Barr makes it clear here that he personally intervened in the Flynn case to have it dropped. (Remember when Barr pretended he was thinking of resigning over Trump's comments about Stone? Barr seems to have gotten past that.) https://t.co/XJpuaJM06t
— Dan Friedman (@dfriedman33) May 7, 2020
In an extraordinary departure from the Justice Department’s typical handling of criminal cases, the Donald Trump-appointed leadership of the Justice Department on Thursday dropped charges against Michael Flynn, the former White House national security adviser who previously pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia.
In a court filing, Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Timothy Shea said that even if Flynn lied about his contact with the Russian ambassador to the United States ahead of Trump’s 2017 inauguration, that Flynn’s lies were irrelevant to the FBI’s counterintelligence probe into his communications with Russia.It is highly unusual for the Justice Department to seek to undo a guilty plea, and comes just months after Attorney General William P. Barr pressed prosecutors in another of Mueller’s cases to soften their sentencing recommendation for the president’s friend and former political adviser Roger Stone.
Barr in January directed the U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen of St. Louis to review the case’s handling by the federal prosecutor’s office in Washington, which took over Mueller cases last year, and Jensen made the final recommendation.“Through the course of my review of General Flynn’s case, I concluded the proper and just course was to dismiss the case,” Jensen said in a statement. “I briefed Attorney General Barr on my findings, advised him on these conclusions, and he agreed.”The retreat could be a political windfall for Trump, who last month announced on Twitter that he was “strongly considering a Full Pardon” for Flynn, whom Trump removed just weeks into the new administration. The Justice Department’s decision also means that the president won’t have to become personally involved in the Flynn case to get the outcome he desired. […]The move is likely to intensify concerns within and outside the Justice Department that Barr and its politically appointed leadership is intervening in sensitive cases to help the president’s friends and political allies.
[…]
The filing came one day before a Justice Department deadline to answer defense allegations of misconduct prompted by the Barr-ordered review, and coincided with the withdrawal from the case of its lead prosecutor, veteran national security prosecutor Brandon L. Van Grack.
xThis is remarkable: DOJ says it now doesn't think it can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Flynn lied to the FBI, even though he *twice* admitted in open court that he did, and those admissions could be used as evidence against him. pic.twitter.com/0YxZuFwXnc
— Brad Heath (@bradheath) May 7, 2020
Remember that Bill Barr was instrumental to getting people pardoned in the Iran-Contra scandal. He knows that a Trump pardon for Flynn would have political repercussions — so he's providing “legal” cover by (ab)using his power in DOJ to obtain the same result. Disgusting. https://t.co/K2Ligzlobh
— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) May 7, 2020
NEW: Trump said he discussed the Russia investigation in a phone call with Vladimir Putin on Thursday, calling the probe a âÂÂhoax.âÂÂ
âÂÂI wouldnâÂÂt be surprised if you see a lot of things happen over the next number of weeks,â Trump told Putin.https://t.co/TIoDOqneIu
— Caroline Orr (@RVAwonk) May 7, 2020
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