DOJ dropping criminal case against Gen Flynn (UPDATE: DC Cir. dismisses case) (4 Viewers)

[BobE]

 

[SaintForLife]

Probably depends on the competency of the person who used the software. Typically, there is a backup or copy that no one knew about or forgot. As someone who has worked in IT for over 25 years I can tell you people do the dumbest things. The other part is if anyone outside the server received the email they would have a copy.

Were those 33,000 emails ever recovered by anyone? I know the DNC refused to hand over their server to the FBI, but I don't remember if Hillary turned her server over.

 

[Nebaghead]

Were those 33,000 emails ever recovered by anyone? I know the DNC refused to hand over their server to the FBI, but I don't remember if Hillary turned her server over.

My understanding was the server was Hillary’s from back when she was Sec of State. I think the DNC was using Gmail so there is no physical server. That hack was likely social engineered. Someone clicking on a long allowing a hacker to compromise their account till someone figures it out. I thought I remember seeing Tom Perez’s email address having a gmail domain.

 

[FullMonte]

My understanding was the server was Hillary’s from back when she was Sec of State. I think the DNC was using Gmail so there is no physical server. That hack was likely social engineered. Someone clicking on a long allowing a hacker to compromise their account till someone figures it out. I thought I remember seeing Tom Perez’s email address having a gmail domain.

Exactly...here we are 4 years later, and people are still using clearly debunked talking points.

 

[TaylorB]

Pointing to when Trump called for Russia to find Hillary's emails as evidence of collusion is so nonsensical it's hard to take seriously. If Trump was truly colluding with Russia, do you think that a press conference would be the choice to send the message that Trump and Putin would surely want to be secret?

There's nothing nonsensical about what I've said about this story. I take issue a presidential candidate calling on a foreign country to interfere in our democracy while secretly engaging with that country to seek business deals, coordinate timing of release of harmful info, obtaining "dirt," sharing data to assist in interference operations, offering leniency on sanctions, etc... I don't take issue with it because it's "collusion," or because it's illegal. I take issue with it because it's got great potential to be harmful to democracy.

Also: "collusion" is, by definition, a secretive act. But it's also a word I don't normally use, because it invites bad faith goalpost shifting. I distinguished the things that happened in public versus the things that were happening secretly. Surely you knew that I took greater issue with the secret actions -- like the Trump Tower deal I can't get you to address, sanction leniency, etc. -- than with the public ones?

Manfort gave polling data to Kilimnik who was actually a State Department source. Mueller didn't find any conspiracy with Russia & polling data. Mueller pointed to financial motives behind Manafort sharing polling data with Kilimnik to impress clients and people he owed money.

Who did Manafort owe money to? How much money did he owe? What was it about the polling data that Manafort expected would make it that valuable to the person he owed money to?

 

[TaylorB]

Pointing to when Trump called for Russia to find Hillary's emails as evidence of collusion is so nonsensical it's hard to take seriously. If Trump was truly colluding with Russia, do you think that a press conference would be the choice to send the message that Trump and Putin would surely want to be secret?

"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press," Trump said in a July 27, 2016 news conference.

Did we really expect Russia to be able to find the 33,000 emails that Clinton's staff deleted with Bleachbit? Considering how the press was in the tank for Clinton, is it realistic to assume that the press would reward Russia if they were able to magically find the emails deleted by bleachbit?

Manfort gave polling data to Kilimnik who was actually a State Department source. Mueller didn't find any conspiracy with Russia & polling data. Mueller pointed to financial motives behind Manafort sharing polling data with Kilimnik to impress clients and people he owed money.

The reason I talk about the multi-billion dollar Trump Tower Moscow deal so much is that it's a fairly obvious piece of leverage Putin could use to manipulate Trump. By all accounts, Trump has been fixated for many years on major real estate deals in Russia and the former USSR, and this would have been bigger than anything he'd ever done over there. By all accounts, Putin has the final say-so over whether major real estate deals actually happen in Moscow. Trump has had extensive dealings with people connected to Putin such that he certainly would've known that Putin's blessing was key to Trump Tower Moscow actually happening.

Russia would have been reasonable in seeing Trump as someone they could potentially work with, or manipulate, when they saw him as a candidate in 2015. He's never been moored to any permanent set of ideological principals other than self-promotion. His politics seem to be guided mostly by immediate transactional benefit. He's bankrupted several businesses and been bailed out under questionable circumstances by foreign investors. He's never been shy about large real estate transactions with undisclosed purchasers, financed by banks known for laundering money of oligarchs. He's publicly described himself as "greedy." His descriptions of other countries often involve how much they benefit him personally.

Russia and the former USSR have been undermining US democracy interests for a century -- a leader in the US who might assist in undermining democracy would, therefore, be a godsend. Everything about Trump would have signaled to Russia that he would be the best of any of the 2016 candidates in that regard. He's outwardly critical of foundational democratic principles -- rule of law, integrity of elections, legitimacy of opposition, etc. And he's perpetually critical of organizations or individuals who might counter the influence of Russia -- NATO, the EU, and leaders of the most pro-democracy nations, like Germany, France, Canada, etc. It's not necessarily a fact that Trump decided to be that way as a result of being manipulated by Putin. It's just that democracies have rules and regulations and laws that get in the way of him making money, and he just isn't particularly fond of those rules. So it was predictable to Russia that he would come into office and undermine the functions a lot of democratic institutions -- from the EPA, to the treasury, to law enforcement. All of this is much more beneficial to Russia than a candidate who's inclined to strengthen democratic institutions.

Russia also was facing crippling sanctions over its annexation of Crimea. Hillary was outwardly critical of Putin, and vocalized support for protests after one of Putin's rigged elections. There was no illusion with Putin that he'd have gotten any sanctions relief, or any other favorable treatment, from the Democrats if they'd won in 2016. Conversely, Trump was openly in favor of removing sanctions and working more closely with Russia (as an aside, a foreign policy focused on improving US-Russia relations is not necessarily a bad thing -- I'm just stating the facts as they were in 2016).

It is unclear whether Trump would have been the only GOP candidate Russia would have been OK with, but it's abundantly clear they would have wanted him over Hillary. Everything we know about how Russia interferes in elections suggests that they would have taken action out of self-preservation in 2016 by interfering, and we now know that they did. And we know almost to a certainty that there would have been a multi-lateral effort to signal to Trump, with plausible deniability, that he was their guy. But Putin is former KGB. He's very smart. He's not going to call Trump, or meet him in person, and say "let's collude." Some less overt ways to signal this might be (1) dangling multi-billion dollar real estate deals, (2) sending cut-outs to Trump's house to meet with his son and offer "dirt" on his opponent, (3) signal through campaign officials that Russia is helping him (think Flynn, Stone, Manafort, Don Jr., Kushner, Sessions, Prince, etc.). The collection of these things would have made it unmistakably clear to Trump who they supported.

On Trump's end, he could have very well privately or publicly rejected Russia's help. There's evidence McCain rejected such help in 2008. There's evidence the USSR offered help to Democrats to defeat Nixon in the 60s, but were rejected. But Trump's campaign was hyper-focused on Russia, offering favorable foreign policy speeches, heaping praise on Putin, publicly calling on Russia to interfere, and later, denying Russia's involvement. All of this was happening while Trump knew, but didn't disclose, that Russia was offering financial and electoral benefits to Trump through numerous various means. What was Trump signaling to Putin when Don Jr. agreed to meet with Russians, when Manafort offered to brief them on the campaign and shared polling data, when Sessions denied meeting with them, when Flynn offered sanctions relief, when Cohen continued to negotiate the tower deal, and when nearly every single one of them lied to investigators about all of these things?

[edited to add this paragraph] There are plenty of arguments to be made that Trump and his people violated criminal statutes in the course of the conduct I described above, but I am not sure that any of this is in clear violation of some federal conspiracy or RICO statute, or at least one that could be proven in court beyond a reasonable doubt. But even though there is likely much more to the story that we've never even learned about, I've never suggested that my basis for following this story was dependent upon some explicit agreement like you often suggest. When Russians interfere in elections, they don't necessarily need the help, or explicit agreement, of the candidate they're trying to benefit. In many cases, they want the candidate to know they're offering help so that the candidate feels indebted to them, but it's not even true that all such candidates become aware of the assistance. Here, though, there's a great deal of evidence Russia wanted to communicate to Trump that they were in his corner, and there's a great deal of evidence Trump communicated back to Russia that he was accepting its help. His foreign policy for 3 1/2 years has been a steady stream of gifts to Russia, including -- apropos of the topic of this thread -- forgiving them for interfering in our election via Flynn. And much, much more.

SFL, every time Trump takes some action (or inaction) that favors Russia, you scramble to come up with a legitimate foreign policy explanation for it. His advisors do this sort of thing all the time: Trump makes some absurd, ill-conceived, whimsical policy pronouncement on Twitter, then someone in the administration has to get up on TV and take grenades from the media trying to defend it, as if it is part of some legitimate method of governance. Like Trump's advisors, you'll almost always find an explanation that's plausible when you defend what he does on Russia. It's just surprising that you're really this convinced that other people's attempts to understand his behavior which differ from yours aren't also plausible. At a minimum, you've never seemed willing to engage in any level of self-doubt, and I suspect that's what leads you to conclude that a position like mine is "nonsensical" despite having conducted very little serious analysis as to why someone like myself might actually think the things I think.

 

[Saintamaniac]

Exactly...here we are 4 years later, and people are still using clearly debunked talking points.

The bottom line is that the current POTUS is a habitual liar and lies daily about everything. His lies have crippled our nation's intelligence and cost people their lives. His lies continue to cost people their lives. The people who work for trump lie and the people who support trump lie as well. Trump's strategy for reelection is to lie blatantly and cheat using every means possible both legal and illegal. Trump is doing more damage to our national security than any spy in American history.

 

[Ayo]

A twitter thread from a couple or reporters live tweeting from this mornings’s proceedings. For those interested.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

The appeals court has denied the DOJs request to dismiss Flynn's case. It goes back to the trial judge.

Appeals court denies Michael Flynn and Justice Department’s effort to end his case | CNN Politics

A federal appeals court ruled Monday against Michael Flynn and the Justice Department in their request to quickly shut down his criminal case.

www.cnn.com

 

[TaylorB]

DC Circuit overturns 2-1 panel, vacating the granting of the writ of mandamus which would have compelled the district court to dismiss Flynn's case:



Although it's per curiam, it's effectively an 8-2 ruling, with the only 2 dissenting votes coming from Rao and Henderson, the judges who voted to grant the mandamus in the first place.

Flynn's guilty plea remains in effect, and the decision whether to grant the DOJ's motion to dismiss Flynn's case is back in the hands of Judge Sullivan, the district judge, and any such decision is still subject to being appealed, as noted in Judge Griffith's concurring opinion.

Setting aside the merits of the Flynn dismissal argument, there was absolutely no legitimate basis to grant mandamus here, and the fact that the en banc ruling was bipartisan and otherwise unanimous should be embarrassing to Rao and Henderson.

 

[JimEverett]

I think that is the correct decision. It was the appointment of the amicus that seemed weird to me.

Regardless - once the guilty plea is entered the idea that the State then has control of the case just doesn't make sense. Their opinion matters, of course - and will/should go a long way towards influencing a judge. But once a plea is entered - the judge is in control.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

I think that is the correct decision. It was the appointment of the amicus that seemed weird to me.

Regardless - once the guilty plea is entered the idea that the State then has control of the case just doesn't make sense. Their opinion matters, of course - and will/should go a long way towards influencing a judge. But once a plea is entered - the judge is in control.

Do you think the judge will take their recent actions into play when rendering the sentence or go by the original recommendations submitted before Barr's crew stepped in?

 

[JimEverett]

Taylor, why do you think the Judge did what he did?
Specifically, are you aware of any reason he did not have the power to sentence with a motion to dismiss filed by the state pending?
He was put in a weird position and I guess I am not being critical, I am just not clear on strategy.

 

[JimEverett]

Do you think the judge will take their recent actions into play when rendering the sentence or go by the original recommendations submitted before Barr's crew stepped in?

Judge should not take it into consideration. Should be the same sentence, although I guess he might be prepared to also find stone guilty of contempt and sentence him for that as well?

 

[TaylorB]

Do you think the judge will take their recent actions into play when rendering the sentence or go by the original recommendations submitted before Barr's crew stepped in?

I don't think the judge in Flynn's sentencing can factor in the DOJ's actions in trying to dismiss the case, if that's what you're asking. I think Flynn's own efforts to undo his guilty plea are factors in sentencing -- it's evidence of a lack of cooperation, which otherwise was a mitigating factor in sentencing -- but he doesn't control what the DOJ does with his case (I mean, not officially ), so the DOJ's motion to dismiss shouldn't impact sentencing. And in either case, the DOJ hasn't asked for more than like 6 months even in light of Flynn's various shenanigans, so he's not facing huge amounts of time like Manafort and Stone (oh yeah and the lodestar of ethical behavior, Steve Bannon ).

But remember, Sullivan still has to rule on whether to dismiss or not, and Flynn will appeal if Sullivan denies the DOJ motion, and his appeal will have a better shot than his mandamus. This is mostly a comment on how bad his legal grounds were for mandamus, not how good his legal grounds are for appeal. I still think Sullivan will deny DOJ's motion, DC Appeals will uphold that denial (might need to go en banc again), then it goes back to Sullivan for sentencing. And Trump can still pardon Flynn at any time, which I still think is a better than 50/50 proposition before the election. So, I *think* we're still a long way from sentencing, but I could be corrected on that.

Also, since we're discussing Flynn... Flynn took the Q-Anon oath over the 4th of July and posted it on twitter. No word on whether he perjured himself during that oath, too, but something tells me Flynn actually means what he says when it comes to boosting far right wing disinformation and propaganda Trump really had himself a dream team of quality folks, shame they're all so intent on laundering information, money, or both .

 

[TaylorB]

Taylor, why do you think the Judge did what he did?
Specifically, are you aware of any reason he did not have the power to sentence with a motion to dismiss filed by the state pending?
He was put in a weird position and I guess I am not being critical, I am just not clear on strategy.

Jim, are you asking why Sullivan appointed amicus to address the DOJ's motion to dismiss? Not sure I'll be able to respond right away, but just making sure I'm responding to the right question when I do.

 

[JimEverett]

Jim, are you asking why Sullivan appointed amicus to address the DOJ's motion to dismiss? Not sure I'll be able to respond right away, but just making sure I'm responding to the right question when I do.

My questions was not phrased the best way. so I will rephrase it.

Assuming that the judge does not want to dismiss the charges (still a big assumption, but . . .) why appoint an amicus at all. Why not deny the Motion to Dismiss? And/or why not go ahead and sentence.
There are few things more airtight than a voluntary plea. And if the Judge believes that a voluntary plea was made he can ake that that central part of dismissing the Motion to Dismiss.
If he has questions about the voluntariness of the plea then hold a hearing on the Motion to Dismiss to probe that issue

It seems to me that by appointing amicus he is, in part at least, claiming that the State still has a certain degree of control over the guilt phase of the proceedings - which they really only have a limited role: supplying facts as to whether the plea was valid.

I guess I have not followed the case closely enough to understand what is going on and feel that maybe you have.

 

[SaintForLife]

I think that is the correct decision. It was the appointment of the amicus that seemed weird to me.

Regardless - once the guilty plea is entered the idea that the State then has control of the case just doesn't make sense. Their opinion matters, of course - and will/should go a long way towards influencing a judge. But once a plea is entered - the judge is in control.

It did seem like the writ of mandamus was premature considering Sullivan hadn't ruled on the case. Could the writ of mandamus be revisited after Sullivan rules if needed? The fact the the Mueller prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense that contradicted their case should factor in Sullivan's decision, but he doesn't seem reasonable especially after his odd amicus decision.

 

[TaylorB]

My questions was not phrased the best way. so I will rephrase it.

Assuming that the judge does not want to dismiss the charges (still a big assumption, but . . .) why appoint an amicus at all. Why not deny the Motion to Dismiss? And/or why not go ahead and sentence.
There are few things more airtight than a voluntary plea. And if the Judge believes that a voluntary plea was made he can ake that that central part of dismissing the Motion to Dismiss.
If he has questions about the voluntariness of the plea then hold a hearing on the Motion to Dismiss to probe that issue

It seems to me that by appointing amicus he is, in part at least, claiming that the State still has a certain degree of control over the guilt phase of the proceedings - which they really only have a limited role: supplying facts as to whether the plea was valid.

I guess I have not followed the case closely enough to understand what is going on and feel that maybe you have.

My best explanation for the reasons behind appointing amicus are in a prior post:

DOJ dropping criminal case against Gen Flynn (UPDATE: DC Cir. dismisses case)

madaboutpolitics.com

Per that analysis, it’s appropriate to appoint amicus when the government “orphans” an argument by abandoning it. It’s unnecessary in every other plea situation to appoint amicus because the government presumably favors the decision to force the plea and sentencing. When the government abandons the position, even though it’s in the hands of the judiciary after the plea in this case, it’s helpful to have amicus present the abandoned argument because Flynn isn’t without legal remedies, like post-sentencing appeals, or as here, a pending motion to dismiss by DOJ.

If the judge ignored the DOJs motion and sentenced Flynn without officially considering the opposing positions on the merits of the motion to dismiss, it would be a much easier case to overturn on appeal. Appointing amicus doesn’t bind Sullivan to rule for or against Flynn, it simply allows him to consider the merits of both cases — the one by Flynn and Barr, and the one by the DOJ pre-Barr.