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2020-05-02 -Land of the Free
Roger Simon: Why Michael Flynn Was Set Up
In case you haven't had enough about Flynn. This has a little dash of Persia....
[EpochTimes] Attorney Andrew C. McCarthy said on Tucker Carlson Thursday night that Flynn wasn’t the target. It was Trump. Flynn was just a “seasoned intelligence professional” (McCarthy’s words) who had to be implicated and put out of the way in order to reach the president, the real bull’s eye.

That’s likely true, but it’s also likely that wasn’t the only reason. Flynn was by himself a target.

During the transition, it is said Obama gave Trump two pieces of advice on whom he considered to be the current greatest threats to the United States, so the new president could be forearmed—Kim Jong-un and Michael Flynn.

Michael Flynn? (I’d add several exclamation points and question marks, but it’s tacky.). Why would he be of anywhere near that importance to be put in the same conversation as the nuclear-armed dictator of North Korea?

The answer, I believe, is a four letter word: Iran.
Posted by Clem 2020-05-02 00:00|| || Front Page|| [8 views ]  Top

#1 Another possible reason Flynn was targeted:

Trump aides, and a lot of good reporting, long have pointed to a coming review of the entire U.S. intelligence community, but particularly of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. For one, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who was a Trump confidante and first national security advisor, had advocated a major re-design of intelligence processes as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. His ideas were rejected and, famously, for many reasons he was not promoted into the loftiest ranks of U.S. military officers. (In recent months, many intelligence leaders have praised the Obama administration’s recent reorganizations, which aimed to modernize the CIA by adding a digital directorate and to help America’s spy agencies diversify their workforce.)
Posted by Besoeker 2020-05-02 00:24||   2020-05-02 00:24|| Front Page Top

#2 "diversify their workforce"

Zero and ValJar strike again.
Is there no institution these zealots did not screw up?
Posted by Lex 2020-05-02 00:40||   2020-05-02 00:40|| Front Page Top

#3 Andy McCarthy's interview is worth watching.
Why Was Flynn Targeted? – A Timeline Review of the Three Phases….

Also McCabe had an ax to grind against Flynn w.r.t. a sexual harassment complaint filed by an FBI agent against McCabe.

Quite the Peyton Place the FBI was running.
Posted by Phusotle Dingle5823 2020-05-02 00:47||   2020-05-02 00:47|| Front Page Top

#4 Wasn't McCabe also rogering Lisa Page?
More like Bob& Carol, Ted & Alice
Posted by Lex 2020-05-02 00:53||   2020-05-02 00:53|| Front Page Top

#5 McCabe got in a few licks, between Strzok's.
Posted by Phusotle Dingle5823 2020-05-02 01:06||   2020-05-02 01:06|| Front Page Top

#6 According to Circa, Flynn apparently enraged McCabe a few years back after he intervened on behalf of an FBI Special Agent, Robyn Gritz, who had accused McCabe and other top FBI officials of sexual discrimination.

Interesting find.

Flynn’s intervention on behalf of Supervisory Special Agent Robyn Gritz was highly unusual, and included a letter in 2014 on his official Pentagon stationary, a public interview in 2015 supporting Gritz’s case and an offer to testify on her behalf. His offer put him as a hostile witness in a case against McCabe, who was soaring through the bureau’s leadership ranks.

The FBI sought to block Flynn’s support for the agent, asking a federal administrative law judge in May 2014 to keep Flynn and others from becoming a witness in her Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) case, memos obtained by Circa show. Two years later, the FBI opened its inquiry of Flynn.

The EEOC case, which is still pending, was serious enough to require McCabe to submit to a sworn statement to investigators, the documents show.

SSA Gritz was well-known, liked and respected in the military counter-terrorism community for her energy, commitment and professional capacity, and over the years worked in several interagency groups on counter-terrorism targeting initiatives,” Flynn wrote May 9, 2014.

“Flynn was the first leader to defend me,” said Gritz. “He forwarded a letter to the FBI and I personally think that Comey did not receive it. McCabe knew Flynn and I were friends. I felt that from the beginning it was an issue.”
Posted by Woodrow 2020-05-02 07:23||   2020-05-02 07:23|| Front Page Top

#7 Flynn and Korea as the two greatest threats? Can anyone not see the validation of how powerfully ValJar was in influencing the feckless President in policies harmful to American interests but helping her homeland? Her actions as a deep penetration agent of a foreign power make Roosevelt and Harry Dexter White seem trivial by comparison.
Posted by NoMoreBS 2020-05-02 11:25||   2020-05-02 11:25|| Front Page Top

#8 Michael Flynn? (I’d add several exclamation points and question marks, but it’s tacky). Why would he be of anywhere near that importance to be put in the same conversation as the nuclear-armed dictator of North Korea?
The answer, I believe, is a four letter word: Iran.
.
Let's be rel the answer, I know, is a six letter word: Turkey. Words that I think could best describe Flynn are toxic, incompetent, unethical, ambitious, and liar. The worst sort of ambitious "retired" " patriot" three star that has always been a democrat that was initially a sycophant for Obama and later humped Trump's leg. Do not trust Flynn...any retired three star from the intel community that took $500k plus from Edrogan's Turkey for "consulting" immediately after retirement is likely on the take. I know the FBI is bad in this case, I have no love for their leaders, but that don't make Flynn into a saint because he was gobbled up by one of his own...
Posted by Tennessee 2020-05-02 12:02||   2020-05-02 12:02|| Front Page Top

#9 ^Interesting.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-05-02 12:10||   2020-05-02 12:10|| Front Page Top

#10 ^^Flynn’s Turkish lobbying client complained about Trump’s stance during campaign

I wondered why Trump didn't back Flynn - not backing your own seems a fatal flaw in a chieftain.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-05-02 12:12||   2020-05-02 12:12|| Front Page Top

#11 It was never about Flynn. The real target was OrangeMan, and those Wascally Wusskies.
Posted by Lex 2020-05-02 12:44||   2020-05-02 12:44|| Front Page Top

#12 "...it is said Obama gave Trump two pieces of advice on whom he considered to be the current greatest threats to the United States, so the new president could be forearmed—Kim Jong-un and Michael Flynn."

Whew, sure glad there was nothing from Obama on Russia or China.
Posted by Clem 2020-05-02 12:54||   2020-05-02 12:54|| Front Page Top

#13 "...it is said Obama gave Trump two pieces of advice on whom he considered to be the current greatest threats to the United States, so the new president could be forearmed—Kim Jong-un and Michael Flynn."

Ya know in this case I believe Obama was right. Maybe Flynn was worse than Kim...

Flynn was a cancer within...the worst sort. Willing to meet with Edrogan's son-in -law...yearning to cash in on any opportunity. Turkey? Are their checks good? OK!! Saudi Arabia??? Cha-ching... It appears that Ole Mike thought that the only good Muslim was the one that lined ole Mike's pockets. Who knows the amount of damage done to our Allies in the Middle East if Flynn would've remained as NSA? Not a friend of Israel...well maybe I am wrong...maybe, just maybe, if Israel paid...then he would help them too.

Mike's interests came first and foremost - Flynn then even offered to testify against Trump to save himself...and was turned down. I really, really don't like that guy.
Posted by Tennessee 2020-05-02 14:44||   2020-05-02 14:44|| Front Page Top

#14 Andy McCarthy nails it.

The FBI Set Flynn Up to Preserve the Trump–Russia Probe
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY

Michael Flynn was not the objective. He was the obstacle.

Once you grasp that fundamental fact, it becomes easier to understand the latest disclosures the Justice Department made in the Flynn case on Thursday.

The FBI set a perjury trap for Flynn, hoping to lure him into misstatements that the bureau could portray as lies. In the frenzied political climate of the time, that would have been enough to get him removed from his new position as national security adviser (NSA)...

But why did they do it?

The objective of the Obama administration and its FBI hierarchy was to continue the Trump–Russia investigation, even after President Trump took office, and even though President Trump was the quarry. ..

But how could the FBI sustain an investigation targeting the president when the president would have the power to shut the investigation down?

The only way the bureau could pull that off would be to conceal from the president the fullness of the Russia investigation — in particular, the fact that Trump was the target.

That is why Flynn had to go. ...

The former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency knew how the spy agencies worked. He knew where and how they kept secrets. He had enough scars from tangles with the intelligence bureaucracy that he knew how the game was played — how intelligence officials exploited information, or selectively withheld it.

Someone as smooth as Director Comey might be able to dissuade President Trump from inquiring too deeply into the Russia investigation. But Flynn was different. After 33 years in the Army chain of command, the decorated former combat commander grasped that the FBI, like other executive-branch components, worked for the president. As NSA, Flynn would ensure that Trump ran the intelligence agencies, not be run by them. If Flynn wanted to know what was going on in intelligence investigations, he’d be able to find out — he wouldn’t take Jim Comey’s “no” for an answer. He was loyal to Trump, not to the intelligence establishment or the “policy community.”

... the newly revealed documents include emails between Strzok and other FBI officials from the weekend before the FBI’s January 24 grilling of Flynn.

Most of the press attention has been about the planning for that grilling — about how brazenly the bureau spoke of trying to get Flynn to lie, about the renegade scheme to orchestrate an interrogation of Flynn without informing the Trump White House, as protocol required.

That’s significant, but it misses the bigger picture.

The January 21–22 emails show that the FBI did not start out with that perjury-trap plan. They ended up with the perjury-trap plan because there was no practical alternative if the bureau was to achieve its objective — the withholding of information about Russia from the incoming Trump team, in order to keep the Trump–Russia investigation alive.
Posted by Lex 2020-05-02 15:32||   2020-05-02 15:32|| Front Page Top

#15 /\ Ref #13: Yes, unproven claims which may or may not be true. But a claim for which there is likely no doubt; the man was illegally targeted and nearly destroyed by a crooked FBI leadership and possibly Soetoro himself.
Posted by Besoeker 2020-05-02 15:35||   2020-05-02 15:35|| Front Page Top

#16 Not a claim, but a fact that ole Mike and his son took over $500,000 from Edrogan. Edrogan!
Why? Why, did Turkey give ole Mike a cool half million?

Flynn destroyed himself and caused great damage to the Trump administration. Not an unproven claim that Flynn lied to Pence either...

The corrupt FBI was rightly concerned about Flynn's connection to Turkey...just as we are rightly concerned about Biden and his son's illegal foreign connections and payments.

The FBI leadership was corrupt and so was Flynn. That man is no "Patriot" he is an ambitious sycophant...not, our friend.
Posted by Tennessee 2020-05-02 16:16||   2020-05-02 16:16|| Front Page Top

#17 Flynn's a sideshow. The quarry was Orange.
Posted by Lex 2020-05-02 16:27||   2020-05-02 16:27|| Front Page Top

#18 Ref #16: Not a claim, but a fact that ole Mike and his son took over $500,000 from Edrogan. Edrogan!

May be a "fact" but was it an illegal activity? I don't remember any federal charges stemming from Erdogan money. Perhaps I missed something. I miss a lot these days.

Erdogan wanted a piece of Muhammed Fethullah Gülen's arse. Photo above, Turkoman fella here in the States in excile. Perhaps there was a connection. Flynn thought Gülen should be returned to Turkey. Myself and many others thought otherwise.

Now if you wish to discuss illegal activity, there appears to be plenty of that, thanks to the work of Flynn's lawyer Sidney Powell.
Posted by Besoeker 2020-05-02 16:37||   2020-05-02 16:37|| Front Page Top

#19 B, Whether being on Edeogan’s payroll just prior to being appointed as the NSA is legal, illegal, unethical, or just plain old dangerous to our national security I will leave to the attorneys. Well, maybe not the AUSAs working with the FBI in the NCR... but I know it does not pass the smell test.

I am also familiar with the games that politically ambitious incompetent federal agents and prosecutors play...I really hope that they get the tables turned on them in this whole russiagate deal. Playing with FISAs...and the National tool kit to target political enemies needs to be dealt with as treason. That said, Flynn was a cancer that needed to be removed.

Posted by Tennessee 2020-05-02 18:03||   2020-05-02 18:03|| Front Page Top

#20 /\ Agree. Please give my best to Sir Wintson.
Posted by Besoeker 2020-05-02 19:12||   2020-05-02 19:12|| Front Page Top

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