DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus General Flynn

I wouldn't say shocking. More disappointing than anything. I mean, who is shocked whenever a politician lies nowadays?

I don't have a WSJ subscription, but does the article fully track with what the title is saying? Also, why is this only being published in the Opinion section?

Did I just hear that a Judge put the Brakes on the whole Flynn case dismissal?

BARR BLOCKED Judge refuses to drop charges against Michael Flynn for lying to FBI so that DoJ’s decision can be challenged

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11610245/us-judge-michael-flynn-exoneration-on-hold/

Don't worry . You would rank right up there with the best of them.

List of officials who sought to 'unmask' Flynn released: Biden, Comey, Obama chief of staff among them

The document comes just a day after Biden told ABC News’ “Good Morning America” that he knew “nothing about those moves to investigate Michael Flynn,” and called the topic a “diversion” from the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden was pressed again, and clarified: “I thought you asked me whether or not I had anything to do with him being prosecuted. I’m sorry. ... I was aware that there was—that they asked for an investigation, but that’s all I know about it, and I don’t think anything else.”

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/grenell...iefs-among-them

Obamagate! - another 'Much Ado about Nothing' stinker from the party who brought you the worst President ever and allows him to commit crimes on the regular...

Damanshot is right, this is nothing but a distraction from Trump's inept failures as the pandemic POTUS. Maybe we will at least be able to stop investigations into Hillary's emails now...

LMAO, Did you see Trump, after all the tweets about how bad Obamagate is and being worse than Watergate, get pressed for the specific crime he was accusing Obama of commiting and he had nothing! Nada, zip, zilch! He got called out and is stupid about this too! Then gets mad at the press for embarrassing him! lmfao... legacy of a fool and the fools who elected him.

"The 80's called and they want their foreign policy back"

I'd do it in my best Obama voice but...

It's funny get sad to see how easily you guys get unhinged when it doesn't go your way lol. I do applaud your comedic sense in the ironic sig talking about anti-intellectualism.

First, you can't be convicted of lying unless the statements were made under Oath or on an affidavit. When's the last time you heard of someone who was convicted of murder who said they didn't do it also being convicted of "lying"? It doesn't happen. I'd say we could set aside that it appears his Miranda Rights were violated but, it's kind of a biggie...

Second, the legal fees bankrupted Flynn. He couldn't afford to continue to fight the process. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor... especially when they are threatening to harass and extort your children.

Third, you assume pleading guilty to lying means he lied.

How many of you have gotten a speeding ticket, plead guilty/responsible or whatever to a lesser charge of something like "Improper Speedomoter/Equipment"? just because you plead guilty to faulty equipment doesn't mean there was anything wrong with your car....


Here's a suggestion, take it or leave it.

IF Trump is so stupid, and so corrupt, and dirty, and everything he does is illegal.... why not just play it straight? On the facts? Why keep tossing aside Due Process and legitimate investigative work? Why do you guys keep creating more work and more problems for yourselves? Take for example the impeachment.

Why did you guys try to impeach him on such a steaming, worthless lump of crap that the House sent up? There was nothing factual there. Why try to oust him on that when according to you and others the Mueller investigation revealed what, was it 7 or 10, blatant and obvious instances where Trump unlawfully obstructed the investigation.

I know that the DOJ didn't indict claiming a rule about a sitting President. That's really neither here nor there.

But Schiff and Pelosi literally could have taken the Mueller report, used a bright yellow Highlighter to highlight those 7 or 10 obvious instances of criminal conduct and marched that over to the Senate.

At the very least the Impeachment vote from the House would have been based on something concrete and valid. Instead all they did was cheapen that institutional process.


Anywho, it looks like we know what this elections October surprise is going to be... multiple indictments

you mean the same kind of hissy fits yall threw when republican led investigations couldnt find jack on hillary to charge her with?

dont throw stones if you live in a glass house.

James Clapper on TV in almost every appearance AFTER he testified ... it was Russian collusion ...
James Clapper’s testimony ... i saw no evidence of collusion between anyone with the trump campaign and Russia ...

Adam Schiff on tv long after the initial hearings ... WE HAVE THE EVIDENCE of collusion between the trump campaign and Russia to swing the election ...
EVERYONE WHO TESTIFIED IN FRONT OF ADAM ... we have seen no evidence of RUSSIA collusion ...

THATS THERE WORDS ... your hatred runs so deep ... its very unhealthy ... FOR ALL U ..

Good god man ... and u think Trump lies ... your boys make trump look like Honest Abe ...

I seem to recall how pissed off everyone including Obama was that Trump was undoing regulations that Obama had put in place. Like, he was undoing a lot and some even accused him of doing it out of spite or racism.

So... if Obama enacted regulations that were good for the economy, and Trump removes them, logic would first suggest that the economy would take a down turn as a result.

Now having removed them Trump can only do 1 of 2 things:

1)not enact his own regulations which should result in a poorly performing economy. But the economy continued to outperform even Obama's expectations of growth so no Trump regulations would mean Obama's regulations weren't as positive as once believed.

Trump gets credit then for removing Obama's handicaps

or

2) Trump removes Obama regulations and replaces them with his own. I think it's obvious who logic would credit in that scenario.


OR are we to believe that Trump didn't remove any Obama regs and that Trump, the media and all the critics were lying about what Trump was doing?

They did find dirt on Hillary. In fact, for the first 10 minutes of Comey's testimony even the liberal lawyers thought Hillary was going to be indicted. It wasn't until Comey pulled a Bill Clinton "definition of is" and re-defined the Federal Statute and said gross negligence required intent that people got upset.

Negligence doesn't require intent. That's why they call it negligence LOL. If you run a red light and kill someone, you are guilty of NEGLIGENT homicide. Why? Because you were careless in running the red light, but didn't INTEND to kill that guy. If you did INTEND to do it, they don't call it negligence, they call it murder. Either way, you still get charged because someone was killed.

A legitimate criticism of that debacle would actually be why she hasn't been indicted since there has been a change at the DOJ? It's not like she's protected by a statute of limitations.

Speaking of Adam... does anyone know what the concrete evidence he said he had on Trump was? He didn't bother to include it in the Articles of Impeachment and oddly enough it's one of the things that hasn'tbeen leaked. Enquiring minds want to know.

you just made the case for Trump's impeachment over the ukrainian investigation into biden with your argument about intent.

congratulations.

Yay for me!

Too bad the Dems were too stupid to figure out how to actually prove it.

I seriously still don't understand why they didn't just Impeach him on the Mueller results.

Maybe the Dems want Trump in the Oval after all..... seriously though, it can't be that hard! Even most people who DO like Trump will admit that they don't think he's always played it on the up and up.

Have no idea what your point is.

Here's mine: Trump's economy has performed nearly identically to Obama's .... so while he may have undone regulations that protected the environment and other such things. Their result has been negligible other than to permit companies to pollute and contaminate the environment (in the case of those particular regs).

If there are other specific Trump decisions you want to discuss let me know. Maybe the Tax cuts that overwhelmingly went to the top 10% of the wealthy while doing nothing for the economy (other than increase debt)

Read for comprehension.
I don't wear red hats.
You wear them to hide your lobotomy scar.

Maybe it was just an early audition?

Have you been paying attention at all? Facts don't matter to Senate Republicans or Trump supporters! LMAO, talk about a pathetic attempt to prove your point.

I happily acknowledge you are a intelligent person. You make a lot of valid points and rarely rely on propaganda or trumpian lies to support your views. So I have always tried to keep any conversations/debates with you on a more commonly respectful level, but mostly because you are open to facts and reality.

With that said, I've noticed you drifting away from that lately and taking up the defend Trump at all costs banner. Sorry but I find that sad. And I find your comment about my sig a wholesale sellout to exactly that, so no (zero) points on that comment for Mr. Devil.

Your 'first' point is valid, however lying to the FBI during an investigation is a felony too. No oath nor affidavit required.
See: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001
And this article: https://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2017/02/what-are-the-consequences-of-lying-to-the-fbi.html

As to your 'second' point, it's irrelevant. If he is bankrupt he can get a public defense under the indigent laws like those quality defenses afforded to every other common man who finds out the hard way the system is rigged against them.

Third, in response, I don't assume anything but I simply take him at his word when confessing his guilt, the same as the court. Unless there is evidence or suspicion of him lying about his guilt to cover for another or cover other crimes, tell me what court would question this from a man like Flynn?

And as for your suggestion, I don't think there is anything wrong with the process, the investigations, or the impeachment and think all were well warranted. The problem IMHO is that the right has abandoned all their moral principles and values inside the cult f Trump. He should have been impeached over the Mueller report. IMO, he should have been cast out and punished as traitorous trash for his obvious use of foreign assistance to get elected. I mean my god man, he openly admitted he would do it again right after the report became public and it was obvious the GOP had his back! Then he did the same thing on the quid pro quo and strong arming of a foreign country for political gain after being let off the hook by Senate Republicans at his impeachment trial! I mean hell, GOPer senators straight up said the dems proved his guilt but they were not going to remove him because the election was close! WTH!?!?

So there is simply no moral high ground or lofty idealism for you to mount a counter attack from when it comes to the GOP and Trump! What we say, how we feel, how we act toward this administration and that party is not only well deserved but 1000% earned by their actions.

These FACTS make your points weak ass sauce on BS at best. Try to wrap around that talking point. And I won't insult your intelligence because you are smarter than this, but I will blame you for the blind loyalty to your beliefs allowing you to buy into the false narratives from the right. This would be completely forgivable if the stakes weren't so damn high with an idiot running the country.

Hope you're not holding your breath.

Discuss .... ... u mean get lectured by someone that actually believes O’s and Trump’s economy have performed the same ... u can cherry pick stats and actually make O’s economy look better if u choose to deceive those that don’t know any better ... u cherry pick some stats that lead to a false narrative .... the fact u actually believe it is scarier on a few levels ...

The only thing O’s economy had over Trumps is the amount of government jobs O created .... he kicked Trumps ass in that one ... good job O ...

What makes you feel this way? The Trump plus Putin with Duty in the middle triangular tramp stamp he's been rumored to be sporting? jk Duty... we get that you have blinders on when it comes to Trump and we get that you hate libs!

"Cherry Pick" ... oh you mean the same metrics used to gauge every administration?

Don't debate - attack the person. Nice one.

Glad you didn't forget to include the signature well done!

No, I think he means you should listen to people who know much more about these things than you; educated experts with actual facts. This would be why he bothered to post the information and not just random word salad that is incomprehensible expecting that to be accepted as an equal argument validating your talking points... So you should just listen and only speak when you have sorted all of that.

I think that's what he means. You know, 2+2=...

Clem...we can only hope that the "uneducated" will take some time to educate themselves.

Hopefully I can help them out by posting some information/links to information.

Russia recently upgraded their nuclear arsenal in 2018, with most of those nukes aimed at the USA.




link

Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed long-held rumors in the US intelligence community in a speech on March 1, 2018, by announcing Russia had built an underwater nuclear device capable of killing millions in a single blast and rendering thousands of square miles of land uninhabitable for decades.

The US, Russia's main nuclear rival, had no answer for this weapon — no defenses in place can stop it, no emergency-response plans in place address it, and no forthcoming projects to counter or neuter it.

On the surface, the doomsday torpedo represents unrivaled capability of nuclear destruction, but a nuclear arsenal's worth rests on many factors, not just its ability to kill.

Eight nations control the roughly 14,200 nuclear weapons in the world, and another nation holds an additional 80 or so as an open secret.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This link gives facts about Russia and their WMDS...interesting read. BTW, this read also touches on Russia's Biological and Chemical weapons programs.
link

According to the Federation of American Scientists, an organization that assesses nuclear weapon stockpiles, as of 2018, the Russian Federation possesses approximately 6,500 nuclear warheads.[2]"[4] In addition to nuclear weapons, Russia declared an arsenal of 39,967 tons of chemical weapons in 1997.[5][6] The Soviet Union ratified the Geneva Protocol on April 5, 1928 with reservations. The reservations were dropped on January 18, 2001. Russia is also party to the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention. The Soviet Union had a peak stockpile of 45,000 nuclear warheads in 1986.[7] It is estimated that from 1949 to 1991 the Soviet Union produced approximately 55,000 nuclear warheads.[8] In early 2019, more than 90% of the world's 13,865 nuclear weapons were owned by Russia and the United States.[9]

Seems to me that the Deep State had only recently been in effect... And that Barr is at the head of it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/us/politics/bill-priestap-michael-flynn.html

Sen. Rand Paul: Flynn case abuses – Protect liberty without sacrificing security. Here's how

We now know that Vice President Joe Biden and dozens of other Obama administration officials requested the unmasking of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s private phone conversation without a constitutional warrant. Biden’s abuse of government power to go after a political rival is more than a little disturbing.

This scandal reaching, perhaps, all the way to President Obama himself, is why innocent Americans wonder just how much their own government has been spying on them and vacuuming up their most sensitive information.

Despite Edward Snowden’s devastating revelations, Congress has largely abdicated its responsibility to protect the Bill of Rights, and small tweaks to the system have not stopped abuse or waste of vital resources that could have been spent actually protecting our country. Yet Congress has patted itself on the back even as it steamrolled meaningful debate on one of the biggest issues of our time.

This week, the U.S. Senate will take up the U.S. House-passed government surveillance bill extending certain expired Patriot Act powers. Once again, the bill plays with reform but falls far short of bringing real change to a system that currently relies on secret courts and the hope that the government will police itself.

So I will offer an amendment to protect all Americans and help rebuild the trust our institutions have shattered over the years.

My amendment would empower the government to conduct necessary surveillance on non-Americans and our enemies, but it would force federal officials who want to surveil an American to get a warrant from a regular court as established by our Constitution instead of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

It would also protect Americans’ privacy and restore due process by preventing the government from introducing into evidence any information it gathered from surveilling an American without a warrant. Americans would, however, be allowed to use evidence collected this way to defend themselves.

My amendment would also make it illegal to use this secret, foreign court to investigate any political speech or campaign.

The alarm about abuses of our system has only grown as we have learned about the Obama administration’s spying on Donald Trump as he ran for office and then transitioned into the presidency. They used the FISA court, which meets in secret and was intended for use against foreigners.

Late last year, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz made headlines when his office released a report that, among other findings, “identified at least 17 significant errors or omissions” in four applications the FBI made to the FISC to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Not long after, we learned the Department of Justice stated that in two of the applications, “‘if not earlier, there was insufficient predication to establish probable cause to believe that Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power.’”

And, for some reason, the fact that a sitting president spied on an incoming national security adviser’s conversation continues to be regarded as just a footnote in the controversy over the FBI’s egregious treatment of Lt. Gen. Flynn.

As set up right now, and as would still be the case under the House bill, our secretive system leaves the door wide open for abuses that are only revealed long after the damage is done.

The Carter Page story led DOJ IG Horowitz to dig further, and he uncovered more shocking information concerning 29 other applications “relating to U.S. persons,” with the IG finding “apparent errors or inadequately supported facts in all of the 25 applications we reviewed.”

The FBI couldn’t find what is supposed to be required documents for the other four applications that back up the claims made, with it not even sure those documents “ever existed” for three of those four, according to the IG.

Do not misunderstand me here. Our government is filled with lots of good, hardworking men and women, and the FBI is making efforts to help prevent future problems. But the system as constructed lends itself too easily to mistakes and abuse that we discover far too late, and this is too important an issue for only cosmetic changes.

We need substantive reform and not window dressing.

I don’t believe tinkering around the edges with process reforms can make FISA constitutional. FISA employs a less-than-constitutional standard. Instead of the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of probable cause that a crime was committed or being committed, the FISA standard allows for investigations if there is probable cause that an individual is working for a foreign government.

I believe the only way to fix FISA is to exempt Americans from this court that was intended to investigate foreigners.

I, for one, am tired of hearing after-the-fact outrage, only to see it vanish when it comes time to vote.

The Patriot Act debate cuts right to the heart of what we stand for as a nation. It forces us to ask whether we will stick by our core, founding principles when they are challenged or fold in the face of those threats and change who we are supposed to be.

The most patriotic action we could take this week would be to reaffirm the Bill of Rights, rescue due process from bureaucratic overreach and secrecy, and make it clear we can keep our people safe without treating innocent Americans like criminals.

Meanwhile on planet earth - some might want to read a more balanced article about "unmasking" - I know it sounds sinister in the hands of Government run Faux News ... but here's some context:

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/14/855820024...unmasking-story

For those that may have a short attention span - this is the rub:

Was this "unmasking" illegal?

No. It's common for officials of sufficient seniority. The intelligence agencies get thousands of unmasking requests every year. And the relevant agencies keep records about who makes the requests, as this week's developments have confirmed.

What may have been illegal was when an official in the White House, reviewing these reports and having unmasked Flynn, revealed some of that information to The Washington Post's David Ignatius for a column published Jan. 12, 2017. That sparked the series of events that led to Flynn's defenestration.

---------------

Then there is this: "Judge Appoints Outsider to Take On Justice Dept. in Flynn Case"

I see that the government run Faux News is already smearing and attacking this decision and the individual involved:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/us/politics/michael-flynn-john-gleeson-judge.html

"“There has been nothing regular about the department’s effort to dismiss the Flynn case,” they wrote. “The record reeks of improper political influence.”"

https://www.foxnews.com/media/mark-levin-blasts-arrogant-flynn-judge-sullivan

I wonder what the maximum sentence for Flynn looks like?

Sullivan has basically one-upped Barr and the DOJ in calling for this recommendation.
As it has been explained, Flynn admitted twice, in court, under oath that he lied to the FBI. Now the DOJ is saying that Flynn's lie wasn't materially based and wants to drop the charges.
However, Judge Sullivan is now looking to bring possible perjury charges against Flynn for giving his guilty plea under oath - since now Flynn says that he's innocent of the lying to the FBI charges to which he plead guilty.
Bottom line: If Flynn wants the court to rule that he didn't commit a prosecutable lie when questioned by the FBI, then the court is looking into whether his under-oath plea was a perjury before the court - a charge the judge has the power to indict.

Also, by bringing in Judge Gleeson to act as a friend of the court, they are either forcing trump to pardon flynn, thus saying they were trying to circumvent justice or maybe would bring in barr to ask him a few questions like was he asked by anyone to drop charges on somebody who has already pleaded guilty.

a paragraph from an article on CNN

An esteemed former federal judge himself, Gleeson, 66, entered the discourse around the Flynn case on Monday, when he and two other former Justice Department officials wrote in The Washington Post that among the steps US District Judge Emmet Sullivan could take would be to "appoint an independent attorney to act as a 'friend of the court,' ensuring a full, adversarial inquiry."

Saying the case "reeks of improper political influence," they wrote that "if prosecutors attempt to dismiss a well-founded prosecution for impermissible or corrupt reasons, the people would be ill-served if a court blindly approved their dismissal request. The independence of the court protects us all when executive-branch decisions smack of impropriety; it also protects the judiciary itself from becoming a party to corruption."
Now, according to Sullivan's order, Gleeson will articulate an argument against the Department of Justice's effort to end the prosecution and will weigh whether Flynn should face a perjury charge for contradictory statements he has given the court.

Well with the real deep state running things with William Barr - it may be nothing if someone doesn't root out the corruption.

Yes but the Trumpians who don't care for facts won't like the DOJ and Trump having to be held accountable ... the machine will go into motion discrediting all who voice an opinion that questions our King.

U just have too ignore so much not to see the truth here ...

Its really incredible how much hatred ruins peoples entire ability to think logically ...

I’m not sure if i could hate anyone that much ...

U hate him so much that folks like Clapper And Brennan swear under oath they saw no evidence of collusion between Russia and the trump campaign and then go on tv and say the complete opposite on TV for the next year ... ITS THERE WORDS ... yet u still IGNORE IT ...

And thats just the most glaring ...

THANK U MISTER BARR ... YOUR DOING ONE HELL OF A JOB .. KEEP UNCOVERING THE TRUTH ... anyone looking for the truth and not BS coverup is thankful for the work you’re doing ....

If that's how you want to spin it .. that's fine.

What I heard Clapper say under oath - and with some context - is that he had seen no direct evidence, but he had seen enough suspicious activity/reports/evidence that there was a need to investigate.

That can be taken two ways... on the one hand you can choose to hear "NO EVIDENCE" and say that's the end of the conversation.

Or you can think and wonder, what do they see, hear, witness that indicated that there was something to investigate --- and do they/did they believe that with investigation they might indeed produce proof.

So no - I am not ignoring their words, I actually pay attention to what they said as opposed to listen to the Alt Right or Faux News twist and manipulate what was said.

It's a bit like Mueller - that fine upstanding Republican that was appointed by a Republican to investigate Trump's campaign ... Mueller said he couldn't prove "collusion" because too many people were telling lies / not telling the truth. He also laid out 10 or 11 examples of Trump obstructing justice. That's what is in his report .... Barr went on TV before the report was released to try and say "Nothing to see here - Trump exonerated" ... Mueller disagreed with that summary enough he did the rarest of things and refuted that conclusion .... and then months later a republican appointed Federal Judge made a public comment that stated Barr could not be trusted with his commentary on Muller because he lied.....

So you want to listen to Barr - sure it's open and shut. You want to pay attention to more than just the noise and ... you know ... facts ... and you'll see it is not open and shut.

Funny that there is supposed to be a "Deep State" to explain away all the investigations and issues on the one hand - but when Barr is proven to be Trump's henchman and blatantly lying to protect Trump it gets a pass/no comment. Oh well.

Its a real shame 0 + 0 = 0 is so difficult for u ...

your ability to pick and choose facts that lead to the most bogus conclusions is right there with Pit’s ability to move the goalposts ...