Michael Flynn

Opinion: Trump’s modesty and ending political persecutions

Again and again, it is President Trump’s quiet, patient modesty that shines through. Especially compared to the suffocating loud-mouthed arrogance of his predecessor. It was Mr. Trump’s own Department of Justice that determined that its own agents and lawyers had abused their power in persecuting retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and moved to drop all charges against him. After all, the foundation of the investigation into Flynn had turned out to be a fantastical conspiracy concocted by political enemies, DOJ had used highly duplicitous means to entrap Flynn, and the frontline agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe he had intentionally lied. And of course, the only reason Flynn pleaded guilty is that two years and $5 million into this whole Kafka-esque nightmare, the retired Three Star agreed to plead guilty in exchange for assurances that the same power-drunk liars who destroyed him would not do the same to his son. Any devoted father would have done the same thing. When the news broke that Flynn had been exonerated, Mr. Trump learned about it like the rest of us. Certainly, there had been rumors and court filings beforehand that had sparked widespread commentary about Flynn’s case. And President Trump being President Trump, he had commented volubly on the topic. “I think he’s a fine man,” Mr. Trump said many, many times. “I think it’s terrible what they did to him.” Seeking to bait Mr. Trump into negative stories they were plotting, reporters asked the president whether he would bring Flynn back into the White House. “It’s something that nobody’s asked me. You’re asking me for the first time,” he said. “I would certainly consider it. Yeah, I would.” No top secret meetings. No huddling in the Oval Office behind closed doors to plot a miscarriage of justice. No confabs with the most powerful operatives in his government to conspire against his political enemies. Just wide-open, off-the-cuff musings from a perilously-open mind. That is President Trump, leader of the free world. Now, compare that to his predecessor, who weaponized the Justice Department like nothing we have seen in the better part of a half century. President Barack Obama’s first Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. famously described his role in the Department of Justice as Mr. Obama’s “wingman.” Meaning, of course, that Mr. Holder used his position as America’s top law enforcement officer to shoot down and destroy Mr. Obama’s enemies. Say, for instance, a retired three star general that Mr. Obama fired as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency over his criticisms of Mr. Obama’s prosecution of the war on terror. Now, certainly, Mr. Obama had every right to fire Flynn. That is any president’s prerogative. But it was a wild abuse of power for Mr. Obama’s Department of Justice to hatch an elaborate conspiracy to entrap Flynn after he later became a political enemy. Compare Mr. Trump’s hands-off approach to Flynn’s case to the intimately-involved approach of his predecessor. In the weeks leading up to Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Obama stunned members of his own administration with his intimate knowledge of the Flynn case during a secret meeting with his top intelligence henchmen in the Oval Office. Even in jubilant victory after the Flynn case got dropped, Mr. Trump kept the focus precisely where it belonged. Instead of just brooding over the treatment of one man, Mr. Trump was more concerned about the larger issue of unjust abuse of power at the highest levels of the Department of Justice. “What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States,” Mr. Trump said in a triumphant Twitter message. A few minutes later, Mr. Trump added in all capital letters: “Dirty cop James Comey got caught!” Obviously, such boisterous gloating over the ruination of fired and disgraced former FBI Director James Comey is not exactly quiet or modest. But, wisely, the president keeps the political squabbling in the political realm where it belongs. Mr. Trump does not allow his political fever to infect the judicial process as his predecessor did. Mr. Trump’s extreme modesty allows his Attorney General William P. Barr to act with the same judicial modesty and reverence for the rule of law. At a press conference Monday, Mr. Barr lamented the “increasing attempts to use the criminal justice system as a political weapon.” He vowed the practice would end under Mr. Trump, telling reporters that his department is not presently seeking criminal charges against either Mr. Obama or his vice president, Joe Biden. “The legal tactic has been to gin up allegations of criminality by one’s political opponents based on the flimsiest of legal theories,” Mr. Barr fretted. “This is not a good development.”

Indeed..  This op-ed by Charles Hurt caught our eye because not too many articles are written about Trump’s “modesty.”  Definitely a paradigm shift.  But, Charlie sure does make several good points.  Remember when Obama used to openly, and proudly say he used to be a “community organizer?”  Not sure how that was a good resume enhancer for for being President of the United States.  Anyway..  With that in mind..  Obama is from Chicago, and was the general counsel (i.e. senior attorney) for ACORN; a corrupt “community” voter outreach organization that got kids to go out and get people registered to vote for Democrats in their communities.  These would be high-school kids who were paid for each voter’s signature they could get.  In many instances they would get someone in an inner city to register multiple times.  To these kids, it was a competition.  At any rate, as you might imagine, ACORN ending up being indicted by the FBI in several states for voter fraud; something Democrats tell us all the time is nonexistent.  So, coming full circle, Obama was a Chicago thug in he White House who routinely abused his position as President, and this latest revelation about what was done to retired LTG Michael Flynn is just the latest example.  To his credit, President Trump has let the process run its course and allowed our very capable and competent AG William Barr to do his job without interference.  Thanks for that piece, Charlie!     You can reach Charlie Hurt at churt@washingtontimes.com or @charleshurt on Twitter

Kayleigh McEnany scolds media for lack of ‘journalistic curiosity’ in Flynn case

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany scolded reporters on Friday for its “lack of journalistic curiosity” in what the Trump administration believes to be the miscarriage of justice in the criminal case surrounding former national security advisor Michael Flynn. CBS News Radio correspondent Steven Portnoy began his line of questioning by invoking remarks President Trump made in a recent interview where he suggested that people “should be jailed” for the “very obvious crime” that was committed against Flynn. “You’re an attorney and the president’s spokesperson. Perhaps you could lay out the elements of this crime. What crime was committed and in what way?” Portnoy asked. “I assume you’re referring to the Obama administration and the unmasking,” McEnany responded. “What the president calls ‘Obamagate,’ what is it? What are the elements of that crime?” Portnoy clarified. “Yeah, I’m really glad you asked because there hasn’t been a lot of journalistic curiosity on this front. And I’m very glad that you asked this question,” the press secretary told Portnoy. McEnany first began by pointing to the “number of questions” that were raised by the “actions” the Obama administration, listing the Democratic National Committee-funded Steele dossier and its involvement in the FISA warrants that were granted to surveil former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page \as well as the unmasking of Flynn by top Obama officials during the transition period between November 2016 and January 2017. She then noted the Oval Office meeting that took place just days before Trump’s inauguration between President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who McEnany stressed “learned” about the unmasking from Obama and not from the Justice Department. “We know that there was a lot of wrongdoing in the case of Michael Flynn. The FBI notes, for instance, that said, ‘Should we,’ quote, ‘get him to lie,’ as they pontificated their strategy,” McEnany continued. “We know that the identity of this three-decade general was leaked to the press — a criminal leak to the press of his identity in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. These are very serious questions. They’ve been ignored by the media for far too long. And I’m very glad that I think that is the second question that I have fielded on Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, because justice does matter. Those questions, they matter.” Portnoy then asked what specifically was the “crime,” which McEnany reiterated was the leaking of Flynn’s name to the press in January 2017. She then laid out other moments from Obama officials. “if you want to start talking about wrongdoing in the administration, I’m happy to go through Andy McCabe leaking to The Wall Street Journal and then lying about it, happy to talk about James Clapper lying before Congress, saying the NSA does not monitor phone calls. That was an inaccuracy, to say the least, if not a lie,” McEnany listed. “And John Brennan telling Congress that the bogus Steele dossier played no role in the Russia probe, when, in fact, we know it did and was the basis of attaining FISA warrants. So there’s a lot of mistruths there that were said, many of them under oath, so I would point you to those and the many other real questions that I hope you all will pursue.” The CBS News Radio reporter then pressed McEnany if the individuals she listed were the people the president thought should be “in jail,” but she pushed back, insisting that journalists should look into what she “laid out.” “That is, after all, the job of reporters, to answer the very questions that I’ve laid out, and I hope you guys will take the time to do it,” McEnany told Portnoy.

HAHAHA!!!  Absolutely AWESOME!!!  We’re really enjoying Kayleigh’s press beatdowns at the White House.  She takes these snotty, self-righteous, arrogant, members of the dominantly liberal mainstream media who have what they think are clever gotcha questions, which are really just designed to validate their already predetermined liberally spun anti-Trump narratives, and she turns the tables on them and makes them look like the fools they are.  But, she does it with class, and a smile; basically bitch-slaps them and then gives them a kiss, smiles, and takes the next question.  In this exchange from Friday afternoon, Kayleigh does just that to Steven Portnoy from CBS radio, and it was a beautiful thing to behold.  To see the exchange, and her extended comments, click on the text above…and pop some popcorn.  Great job Kayleigh!!     🙂

Gregg Jarrett: Flynn judge wrong to allow anti-Trump former Watergate prosecutors to interfere in case

It’s a sure sign of desperation whenever lawyers try to raise President Richard Milhous Nixon from the dead. And so it is that a group of former Watergate special prosecutors this week resurrected the Ghost of Watergate Past in a last-ditch effort to keep alive the federal court case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The gang, adopting the sobriquet “Watergate Prosecutors,” asked permission from U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to allow them to intervene in the Flynn case so they can – to put it bluntly – tell his honor how to think and what to do. The judge issued an order Tuesday indicating he will soon accept “amicus curiae” (“friend of the court”) submissions in the case. But in trial court proceedings involving crimes, only prosecutors and defense attorneys are permitted to be heard. Judges are supposed to render decisions based on evidence and arguments presented by the parties involved, not outside interests. The prosecution of Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, has been on life-support since the Justice Department belatedly moved last week to dismiss charges against him. He was accused of making false statements to the FBI during an interview that was nothing more than a devious perjury trap designed to “get Flynn to lie.” The FBI was creating a crime, not investigating one. A review ordered by Attorney General William Barr discovered that former FBI Director James Comey’s agents and Robert Mueller’s special counsel hit squad concealed vital exculpatory evidence from Flynn and his attorneys. The hidden documents showed that the retired lieutenant general did not lie to FBI agents, despite his coerced guilty plea under threat. The former Watergate prosecutors now want to meddle in the Flynn proceedings like uninvited house guests. In a court filing, they compare Barr’s decision to drop the Flynn charge to “the Watergate scandal” and Nixon’s infamous “Saturday Night Massacre.” The analogy is as tortured as the late President Nixon’s soul. Reading their “Statement of Interest” is a nauseating exercise in the hubris of war stories retold by old warriors prone to embellish. The former Watergate prosecutors imagine themselves as heroes who single-handedly salvaged democracy from the clutches of the demented Nixon. On that basis, they argue to the court, they are back to save the day. I’m reminded of what Butch kept asking Sundance: “Who are those guys?” Good question. The first name that pops out is Nick Akerman. He can be found on page 269 of my book “Witch Hunt: The Story of the Greatest Mass Delusion in American Political History.” He is one of the many media flamethrowers who constantly accused (without evidence) President Trump and his presidential campaign of colluding with Russia. At one point on MSNBC (July 11, 2017), Akerman said the following about Donald Trump Jr. and his conversation with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower: “There’s outright treason. I mean, there is no question that what he’s doing is giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” No question? Really? Forget that Akerman’s hyperbolic claim of treason had no remote application or support in the law. The president’s son was never charged with any offense because Special Counsel Mueller found no agreement or conspiracy to do anything illegal. But don’t let facts get in the way of a good story, Nick. Another former Watergate prosecutor is Jill Wine-Banks, an MSNBC legal analyst who has a propensity to channel Nixon’s ghost at every turn. Earlier this year, she told Salon that “Trump is more dangerous than Nixon” and should be criminally indicted. On MSNBC, she declared that Trump is more of an “existential threat to democracy than Nixon.” Richard Ben-Veniste is also a Watergate alum who has carved out a late career as an inveterate Trump thumper. In a column for The Atlantic in 2017, he drew innumerable parallels between Nixon and Trump. In the same publication the next year, Ben-Veniste accused Trump of going the “full Nixon on Mueller.” One gets the distinct impression that Ben-Veniste’s Trump-Nixon obsession belongs on a psychiatrist’s couch. The 16 former Watergate prosecutors who are now determined to insert themselves into the Flynn case just happen to be the same lawyers (minus one) who penned a joint op-ed in the Washington Post on October 10, 2019 headlined “We investigated the Watergate scandal. We believe Trump should be impeached.” Of course, we know how that turned out. But the point is this: these individuals are hyper-partisans who despise Trump, but have convinced themselves that since they helped drive the demon Nixon from office 45 years ago they should now be given exalted status as super Trump-slayers. This kind of prejudicial interference from outside forces has no place in a court of law. It makes a mockery of both fairness and impartiality. Sadly, Judge Sullivan appears to have taken leave of his senses and decided to entertain the notion of allowing the former Watergate prosecutors to usurp the role of federal prosecutors. This resulted in his order Tuesday indicating he would permit “individuals and organizations” to file “amicus curiae” submissions. Hours later, Flynn’s lawyer, Sidney Powell, filed a well-reasoned opposition argument that courts are not a forum for special interests. “The ‘Watergate Prosecutors’ have no special role and no authority whatsoever to insert themselves in this litigation on behalf of anyone,” she wrote. Powell also pointed out that Sullivan rejected 24 previous attempts by parties to intervene in the Flynn case. In one of his prior refusals, the judge made this declarative statement: “The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure do not provide for intervention by third parties in criminal cases. Options exist for a private citizen to express his views about matters of public interest, but the Court’s docket is not an available option.” What has changed? Nothing. But Sullivan’s ruling may be a reflection of his own abiding prejudice. In a hearing last year, he all but accused Flynn of treason, only to retract his words after a recess. He seems to have a feeble grasp of the facts in this important case. The former Watergate prosecutors should be denied the opportunity to pursue their biased agenda in a court of law. Flynn has been victimized enough by corrupt and dishonest government officials. Let these former prosecutors resurrect the ghost of Richard Nixon in a more-friendly forum: the Trump-hating media. These media organizations are sure to roll out the welcome mat.

No kidding…  Thanks Gregg!  Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News legal analyst and commentator, and formerly worked as a defense attorney and adjunct law professor. He is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-selling book “The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump.” His latest book is the New York Times bestseller “Witch Hunt: The Story of the Greatest Mass Delusion in American Political History“

Gregg Jarrett: Ending Michael Flynn prosecution exposes and destroys Trump-Russia collusion hoax

The collusion house of cards has finally and fully collapsed. In a stunning turn of events Thursday, the Justice Department dropped its case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Exculpatory documents concealed by the FBI and federal prosecutors for more than three years showed that the retired Army lieutenant general never lied or committed a crime. The FBI knew Flynn did not collude with Russians. He is a patriot, not a traitor. The notion that candidate Donald Trump conspired with Moscow to steal the 2016 presidential election was always an implausible phantasm built on a foundation of Russian disinformation commissioned by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democrats. The malevolent James Comey, fired director of the FBI, knew this but it didn’t deter him. He and his lieutenants sedulously stacked the cards, one by one, against Trump by exploiting the bogus allegations and pursuing an illicit investigation designed to drive him from office. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and his sycophants in the media propagated the Russia hoax by insisting there was “solid evidence” that Trump was a secret Kremlin asset and predicting the imminent demise of his presidency. Except no such evidence ever existed. Collusion was nothing more than an illusion and a delusion. Tragically, people like Flynn became collateral damage amid the carnage of corruption, dishonesty, abuse and injustice. But the weight of all the lies and propaganda has inexorably toppled the house of cards in a slow-motion crash. I have long argued in numerous columns and two books that the retired Army lieutenant general was set up and framed by Comey, FBI Assistant Director Andrew McCabe and disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok. They invented a perjury trap under false pretenses and deceived Flynn. Their goal was “to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired.” They knew Flynn was innocent – and hidden records proved it. The two agents who interviewed him in January 2017 concluded “that Flynn was not lying.” Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team of partisan prosecutors also knew Flynn was not lying, but they didn’t care. Utilizing the full force of the federal government and their unlimited resources, they intimidated and bullied an innocent man into pleading guilty to making a false statement. To accomplish this, they threatened to criminally charge Flynn’s son unless the father capitulated to their demands. That aspect of the coerced plea was hidden from the court when Flynn threw in the towel. He was financially ruined and his reputation shattered. He was forced to sell his home. Thanks to the intrepid work of Flynn’s new counsel, Sidney Powell, and a review of the case ordered by Attorney General William Barr, the ugly and unconscionable actions of the FBI and Mueller’s hit squad were uncovered and exposed. The distinguished retired three-star general has now been vindicated. In a recent column, I wrote that Flynn became “the victim of one of the worst miscarriages of justice in modern times” and “he should sue the very people and government that persecuted him under the pretext of a legitimate prosecution. Let the litigation begin. Damages should run into the millions of dollars. Flynn deserves it. And the Justice Department should now consider whether crimes were committed by those who deliberately obscured the truth and arguably obstructed justice. Another card that fell this week came from the Office of Director of National Intelligence. The office notified Schiff that transcribed interviews of 53 witnesses who appeared behind closed doors before the House Intelligence Committee in 2017 and 2018 would be released to Congress and the public, despite Schiff’s best efforts for more than two years to bury the testimony. Why would the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who has demanded transparency from Trump, want to hide the truth about him? Because the declassified 6,000 pages produced not a scintilla of collusion evidence. Zero. Of course, Intelligence Committee Chairman Schiff knew this all along, since he questioned the witnesses. He just didn’t want the American public to know it, inasmuch as it completely undermined his false collusion narrative. “Schiff is in panic mode,” a senior administration official told Fox News. Not a single witness provided any evidence of collusion, according to two sources familiar with the transcripts. The transcripts utterly discredit Schiff and expose him as a poseur. For years during television appearances, Schiff professed to have uncovered the hobgoblin of a grand conspiracy involving Trump. Yet, he refused to offer any proof. He pretended that he was privy to evidence that he did not have. As I wrote in my book “Witch Hunt: The Story of the Greatest Mass Delusion in American Political History: “The more Democrats and the media worked in concert to advance their hallucination that Trump had colluded with Russia, the more audacious Schiff became in his public denouncements of the president. He frequently insinuated that he had special access to damning information that few others could procure. Even after the House Intelligence Committee issued its majority investigative report concluding that it had all been a hoax, Schiff announced, ‘I can certainly say with confidence that there is significant evidence of collusion between the campaign and Russia.’ He produced no such evidence because it did not exist.” On CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Schiff ventured that Trump “may be the first president in quite some time to face the real prospect of jail time.” This claim was ludicrous, of course. Yet, Schiff was so heavily invested in the scam and the celebrity it brought him that there was no reversing course. He knew it was untrue. But like a guy with a counterfeit bill, he kept trying to pass it off to others. Schiff is living proof that the truth always has a nemesis. Still another card fell this week when the Justice Department belatedly made public the unredacted version of the so-called “scope memo” penned by then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in August 2017 detailing the scope of Mueller’s Russia investigation. Rosenstein authorized Mueller to specifically target Trump campaign aide Carter Page for “colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 election for President of the United States.” However, Rosenstein already knew that these allegations, based on the anti-Trump “dossier” –composed by ex-British spy Christopher Steele – had been discredited by the FBI. Seven months earlier, bureau agents had located Steele’s primary source of information. That source debunked the “dossier” as exaggerations and fabrications, according to the findings of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. At that point, the FBI should have shut down its probe. Instead, Comey persisted. When Comey was fired in May 2017, Rosenstein appointed Mueller to launch a new investigation – even though the deputy attorney general well knew there was no credible evidence that supported the appointment of a special counsel under federal regulations. Mueller knew this as well, since he was given the FBI files. On “Hannity” on Fox News on Wednesday, Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., stated that “the legal foundation to justify Mueller’s appointment in my view does not exist. … That’s why this (scope) memo is so important.” Graham is correct. The Mueller investigation was illegitimate from the outset, even though it eventually found no evidence of a collusion conspiracy. Rosenstein misconstrued – and thereby misused – the special counsel regulations. An “articulable criminal act” must first be identified. It must antecede the appointment, not vice versa. But when Mueller was appointed, the FBI had developed no such evidence. That was confirmed by Steele’s source, as well as the subsequent testimony of Comey and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page. The evidentiary premise of a crime was conspicuously missing. Thus, Mueller began his investigation in search of a crime, reversing the legal process mandated under the regulations. None of this seemed to matter to Rosenstein. He was determined to get rid of Trump. Evidence shows he plotted to secretly record the president and then use the recording as evidence to try to remove the president from office under the 25th Amendment. As a result, Rosenstein should have been disqualified from any involvement in the special counsel case. It was not possible for someone so noticeably antagonistic to the president to be an unbiased and neutral party overseeing that investigation. Not only was the naming of a special counsel unauthorized, but the FBI’s original investigation launched in July 2016 was improper. In an interview on Fox News last month, Attorney General William Barr called the three-year Russia probe “one of the greatest travesties in American history.” Barr made it abundantly clear that it should never have happened. He said: “Without any basis, they started this investigation of his (Trump’s) campaign, and even more concerning, actually is what happened after the campaign, (There was) a whole pattern of events while he was president … to sabotage the presidency … or at least have the effect of sabotaging the presidency.” Barr has vowed “to get to the bottom of it.” With his appointment of Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, the attorney general has committed his department to holding individuals accountable. “If people broke the law, and we can establish that with the evidence, they will be prosecuted,” Barr promised. There is no doubt that Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Rosenstein, Schiff and a great many others were intimately involved in the scheme to sabotage Trump. They managed to initiate the Trump investigation with no evidence of a crime and then convince the country that an unparalleled investigation was necessary. Their phony collusion narrative was a conspiracy in and of itself, contrived as a political instrument and then weaponized by unscrupulous government officials. Now that their house of cards has collapsed, it is time for a reckoning.

Indeed..  LTG Michael Flynn, Ret., has been 100% exonerated, and this whole so-called Russia “collusion” has been proven to have been a complete hoax on the American people by corrupt officials at the FBI from James Comey on down, Hillary Clinton (and her campaign), the DNC, members of the dominantly liberal mainstream media, and many Democrat politicians hell bent on bringing down Trump no matter the cost.  And, in the process, lots of these people committed crimes.  Now it’s time for payback.  Hopefully Sidney Powell and the rest of Flynn’s very capable legal team are working on that.  The man is owed millions..and that’s just the civil side of things.  Lots of these folks should go to jail.  We’ll, of course, be keeping a close eye on this developing story.  Thanks to Gregg Jarrett for his spot on legal analysis.  He was one of the few legal commentators in the media that has been right about this story all along.

Gregg is a Fox News legal analyst and commentator, and formerly worked as a defense attorney and adjunct law professor. He is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-selling book “The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump.” His latest book is the New York Times bestseller “Witch Hunt: The Story of the Greatest Mass Delusion in American Political History“

Trump says new FBI notes are ‘total exoneration’ for Flynn

President Trump said Thursday newly revealed FBI notes “totally exonerate” former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn on his conviction of lying to the FBI. “He’s in the process of being exonerated,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “That [note] is total exoneration. When you read the notes, how could you do anything else?” Bombshell documents unsealed Wednesday night revealed that top FBI officials viewed the goal of interviewing Flynn in 2017 was to “get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired.” A handwritten note disclosed that agents wanted to get Flynn to “admit breaking the Logan Act,” which restricts communication between private citizens and foreign governments, and catch him in a lie. The president said Flynn was a victim of “dirty cops.” “These were dirty, filthy cops at the top of the FBI, and you know the names better than I do. And they were dishonest people,” Mr. Trump said. “Gen. Flynn is a fine man. You don’t get to where he is by being bad. The dirty cops came in.” Mr. Trump fired Flynn a month after taking office, saying he had misled Vice President Mike Pence on the extent of his contacts with Russian officials during the presidential transition. Asked Thursday whether he regretted firing Flynn, the president said, “I wish I had [brought him back], with all the information. This is terrible.” He also blamed CNN for helping to “destroy” Flynn and said he hopes the network “is going to give him a fair shake.”

Don’t hold your breath, Mr. President..

Limbaugh: Timing of Flynn Charges ‘May Not Be Coincidental’ — ‘Look at All the News It Has Swept Off the Front Pages’

Friday on his nationally syndicated radio show, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh questioned the timing of the announcement former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had been charged by special counsel Robert Mueller for lying to the FBI. Limbaugh suggested the timing of the news was to draw the attention away from passage of the tax bill among other items in the news, including the Matt Lauer firing from NBC and the “not guilty” verdict in the Kate Steinle murder trial. “So there you have it – they’re all excited,” Limbaugh said. “Mueller did the deed on the right day. Mueller did the deed to sweep the tax cut deal off the table and to tick everybody off. This is, in Jonathan Martin’s opinion, the swamp banding together – the establishment coordinating its efforts to continue to destroy Trump and muddy the waters. The tax bill is going to pass. As far as [Mitch] McConnell and [Paul] Ryan are concerned, none of this today is a legal problem.” “It’s a bit of a political problem, but it doesn’t present any legal problems to them or their tax bill,” he continued. “The tax bill is going to pass. But I don’t have any doubt that the timing of this thing today may not be coincidental. Just look at all the news it has swept off the front pages and look what it put back on the front page: ‘Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the election from Hillary.’”

As usual, “El Rushbo” knocks it out of the park.  It was NO coincidence this was announced today.  And, Rush is right in that it just sweeps all the other news away, including last night’s shocking and inexplicable verdict in the Kate Steinle murder trial where her murderer was found “not guilty” by a San Fran jury.  Outrageous!  Anyway, despite the orgasms being had over at CNN and MSNBC, this (so far) is nothing.  After all, Flynn was fired by Trump for exactly these reasons; lying.   So, nothing new here at all.  He’s just throwing a hail marry to minimize any jail time..

Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser, puts Iran ‘on notice’

In response to recent provocations by Iran, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn said Wednesday that the U.S. was putting the country “on notice” that its actions would not be ignored. “As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice,” he said at the White House daily press briefing. He did not specify what action the U.S. might take in retaliation, but he said that the U.S. would not allow Iran to continue to be a destabilizing influence in the Middle East or around the globe. Mr. Flynn said that the Trump administration was changing course after what he described as “weak and ineffective” policies toward Iran, which he said had emboldened a country that is the world’s largest state-sponsor of terrorism. The U.S. previously condemned a Iran missile test Tuesday as provocative and irresponsible. Houthi militants banked by Iran also attacked a Saudi naval vessel Monday by ramming it with an explosive-packed ship, killing two Saudi crew members in the explosion.