Dissident Veteran For Peace

Yesterday, the AP and NPR both reported that the US Justice Department "is dropping the criminal case" against Michael T. Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser. This is not quite correct.

The criminal case against Flynn was made when he pled guilty three times to the charge of lying to FBI agents although, more than two years later, he tried to withdraw his guilty plea. What actually happened yesterday was that the DOJ filed a motion in United States v. Flynn asking the trial judge "to dismiss the criminal information" against Flynn.

So, the ball is in the judge's court, not the DOJ's as has been implied in media coverage. And I wouldn't be completely surprised if Judge Emmet Sullivan declines to grant the DOJ's motion. In any case, the gist of the DOJ's motion is not so much that Flynn didn't lie to the FBI agents, though they do cast doubt upon that, but that Flynn never should have been questioned by the FBI in the first place.

As a long time Russiagate skeptic, I am sympathetic to this argument and I can see a case to be made in Flynn's favor on the grounds of procedural, but not substantive, justice. And make no mistake procedural justice is important.

However, there are a lot of aspects to this case that, barring additional evidence, temper any sympathy I have for Flynn or make me skeptical that dropping the case is really warranted in the name of procedural, let alone substantive, justice.

It's worth pointing out that Flynn wasn't some naive apprentice carpenter from Kalamazoo who fell in with the wrong crowd. Flynn was a long-time, loyal servant of the Empire operating at the highest levels of a corrupt system, including a stint under Obama as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Here's my list of, for lack of a better term, aggravating circumstances:

1. No one held a gun to Flynn's head to force him to: a) meet with FBI agents in his White House office, b) without his attorney present, and c) without recording the interview.

2. Flynn pled guilty, in open court, on two separate occasions to the charge of "making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001 and also signed a written plea agreement to that effect, not to mention his public mea culpa. Here it's worth considering key portions of the transcript of Flynn's abortive sentencing hearing (click on images to enlarge them):


Many of the claims that Flynn and the DOJ are now making in favor of letting Flynn off the hook were already addressed by Flynn himself at his sentencing hearing.

3. Flynn reportedly cooperated fully with the Mueller investigation when he thought it served his interests to advance the Russiagate farce. It's worth pointing out that the Mueller investigation began during the Trump administration and was opened by none other than Rod Rosenstein, a Trump appointee.

4. The Trump administration possesses but refuses to release the actual recordings or transcript of recordings, in redacted form or otherwise, of Flynn's conversations with Russian ambassador Kislyak. These recordings were reportedly made during the Obama administration under a FISA warrant. This is particularly irksome because of all the well-founded complaints about the Obama administration's abuses of power.

5. William Barr took over as Attorney General on February 14, 2019. The investigative phase of the Mueller probe ended on March 22, 2019, and the office was completely shut down on May 29, 2019. Yet, the Trump-Barr DOJ steadfastly prosecuted Flynn until yesterday and, although Mueller recommended no prison time for him, the Trump-Barr team reversed course and called for him to be locked up just last January.

6. Finally, like Trump and nearly all DC politicians, Flynn is a partisan and/or tool of the Israel Lobby. Flynn's first substantive post-election conversation with Kislyak was doing the bidding of Israel in trying to get a UN Security Council vote against Israel's illegal settlements blocked (see here and here). This aspect of the case was detailed in two pages (pp. 167-168) of the first volume of the Mueller Report, buried among the hundreds of other pages of text, and has been largely ignored in the mainstream US media (but not as much in the mainstream Israeli media).

Furthermore, it has even been covered up in some legal pleadings filed against Flynn. The criminal information that the DOJ now seeks to have dismissed says that: "the defendant falsely stated and represented to agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in Washington, D.C., that ... On or about December 22, 2016, FLYNN did not ask the Russian Ambassador to delay the vote on or defeat a pending United Nations Security Council resolution ..." No mention whatsoever is made in the information of which country was the subject of that resolution or why Flynn would reach out to the Russian ambassador to discuss it.

Similarly, most Americans have no idea that Israel was the country funneling arms to Iran as part of the illegal Iran-Contra affair. Likewise, the name of the country whose forces killed them fails to appear in the posthumous Navy Cross citations of Philip McCutcheon Armstrong and Francis Brown. Nor does it appear in the Medal of Honor citation of William Loren McGonagle. The marker for the five sailors and one Marine killed in the attack on the USS Liberty and buried in a mass grave at Arlington National Cemetery also gives no indication of who killed these men or the other 28 buried elsewhere who died with them on June 8, 1967.

In sum, I am by no means convinced that ending the case against Flynn satisfies any norms of procedural justice and the attempt seems to me to be primarily a political act of one group of crooks looking out for one of their own. Flynn appears to be clearly guilty of the substantive matter for which he was charged and repeatedly pled guilty.

On the other hand, I would definitely support investigating and prosecuting, as warranted, the allegations of FBI and prosecutorial misconduct in Russiagate (FWIW, I think the creation and release of the whole second volume of the Mueller Report was an abuse of power). Congressional action against law enforcement and prosecutorial abuse, not to mention mass surveillance, is long overdue. How about repealing the Logan Act and the Espionage Act, too? I won't hold my breath waiting for any of these things to happen.

Last revised: 13 May 2020

Labels: crime, Empire, Israel, Israel Lobby, Michael T. Flynn, Obama, Robert S. Mueller, Russia, Trump

So, the Mueller report is finished and the findings are starting to be released. Given their track record in covering the Mueller investigation it is likely that mainstream media outlets such as National Public Radio and the New York Times will be unable to adhere to the truth when discussing the report.

By this, I mean that, initially, they are likely to get the bare bones of the report correct then they will devolve into spins, distortions, and fabrications. I am not suggesting that the people who write, edit, and report the news will deliberately be dishonest—although there will likely be some of that—but rather that they will be overcome by their own bias.

Just about two weeks ago there was a striking example of this cognitive impairment in action. The Daily is a program produced by the New York Times that airs on National Public Radio stations. On March 11, The Daily aired "Part 2: What to Expect When You’re Expecting (the Mueller Report)". Host Michael Barbaro spoke with "Michael S. Schmidt, who has been covering the special counsel investigation for The New York Times."

Here's an excerpt from the transcript of the program (the highlights in bold below are mine):

Michael Schmidt: ... So if Mueller says, there's nothing here to be seen, then the Republicans — we know where they're going to be. They're going to be standing next to the president.

Michael Barbaro: So in that case, do you expect the Democrats would proceed with these [Congressional] investigations, but they would kind of limp along and there wouldn't be a ton of political support for anything approaching impeachment, no matter what is found? Or is it possible these investigations would literally just start to shut down?

Michael Schmidt: I don't think they shut down. I think that they limp along, because the Democrats will still have a base that thinks that Trump has done a lot of things that are terrible. And there will be pressure on them to continue to press. Democrats will say, Mueller may not have enough evidence to show the president broke the law, but we know that he has abused his power and done X and Y and Z. And they'll go on and on and on, and they'll say we can not ignore this.

In the next segment Barbaro raises the possibility that Mueller's findings will do something other than fully exculpate or fully inculpate Trump.

Michael Barbaro: So Mike, what could possibly be the third option? Because in our legal system, when it comes to the special counsel, there only seems to be two options — charge the president with a crime or not charge the president.

Michael Schmidt: For lack of a better term or to make up a term, I would call it the Comey hybrid.

Michael Barbaro: What is — (CHUCKLES) what is the Comey hybrid?

At this point Barbaro and Schmidt discuss former FBI Director Comey's July 2016 press conference. Their conversation is interspersed with recordings of Comey from the press conference. I'm going to skip most of that and get to my point.

Archived Recording of James Comey: There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position, or in the position of those with whom she was corresponding about those matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.

Michael Schmidt: But that at the end of the day —

Archived Recording of James Comey: Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.

Michael Schmidt: It didn't meet the high bar of indicting her.

Archived Recording of James Comey: We cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts.

Michael Barbaro: So a Comey hybrid is to come out and say no charges are going to be filed against the subject of an investigation, but here are all the things we found. Here are all the implications — essentially not prosecution, but a kind of scolding.

Michael Schmidt: It's not even about scolding. It's — we're not going to charge, but I'm going to give you a rare look underneath the hood.

Archived Recording of James Comey: Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence that classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system in violation of a federal statute that makes it a felony to mishandle classified information, either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way.

I have omitted about two minutes of the program here. The next part is the really striking bit.

Michael Barbaro: So the conclusion was that it [i.e. Comey's press conference] was an unnecessary, kind of gratuitous sullying of Hillary Clinton, even though there was no evidence she had committed a crime.

Michael Schmidt: Correct. They're saying if the F.B.I. investigated the average American and found that that person had not committed a crime, we don't then stand up and say, hey, look at all the unsavory things they did — which we didn't think rose to something they should be charged with.

In case you missed it, just moments earlier Barbaro and Schmidt had listened to a recording of Comey saying: "there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information". Comey also makes a case of sorts that Clinton was grossly negligent in her handling of classified material which he later points out is a violation of the federal statute.

In other words, Comey clearly indicated there is evidence of a criminal violation. Yet less than three minutes later Barbaro is on to "there was no evidence she [Clinton] had committed a crime" and Schmidt is agreeing with him.

In coming days, we can expect the mainstream media and Democrats to do a sort of inversion of this. It will probably go kind of like this: 'Well, yes, Mueller found no evidence of collusion but he clearly failed to exonerate the President on obstruction of justice.' They will focus on the possible obstruction of the investigation of the non-existent crime of collusion. Then, in short order, they will omit or undermine the finding that Mueller found no evidence of collusion between Russians and the Trump campaign.

As somewhat of an aside, Dana Milbank, writing in The Washington Post last Monday, has given us more evidence of the extremes to which Trump Derangement Syndrome has driven liberals, Democrats, etc.

In "Trump is right. This is a witch hunt!" Milbank actually takes up the defense of witch hunts (Milbank is not alone). He asserts: "The treatment of Trump by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and other investigators does have characteristics of a witch hunt. This is because Trump has characteristics of a witch."

He continues, quoting a community college history professor: "if what is happening to Trump is a witch hunt, 'it is only in a good sense, that is, this is society policing the boundaries that they believe to be ethically and morally right.' " You see, "witch hunts weren't all bad, and their targets weren't always innocent."

See also:

• "Critical Analysis On Russiagate"
• "Cohen's Testimony Against Trump"
• "Video: Clinton vs. Comey"
• "The Shoddy Legal Reasoning Used to Clear Clinton" on fee.org

Labels: Clintons, critical thinking, media, National Public Radio, politics, Robert S. Mueller, Russia, Trump

In "Cohen's Testimony Against Trump" I mentioned that Aaron Maté and Glenn Greenwald have done some good reporting on the dubious Trump-Russia collusion story (see quote below). There are a few more people doing good work on this subject.

Gareth Porter, Ray McGovern, and others at Consortium News have written several pieces on the subject. Caitlin Johnstone has done extensive reporting and analysis at CN, Medium, and elsewhere that is worth consideration.

I recently learned about "Russiagate In Flames: No Evidence Of Collusion, New Findings Challenge DNC Hack Narrative" by Elizabeth Vos at Disobedient Media. There is also "Mueller's Investigation is Missing One Thing: A Crime" by Peter Van Buren at The American Conservative.

In addition to Maté's work, The Nation has also published "Russiagate or Intelgate?" and other on-point articles by Stephen F. Cohen and "Amid ‘Russiagate’ Hysteria, What Are the Facts?" by Jack F. Matlock Jr.

If you know of any critical reporting on the subject that I should read then feel free to leave a comment.

Now, I want to bring this back to the alleged Russian collusion and simply say that most while most of the reporting on the matter has been driven by Trump Derangement Syndrome there has been a tiny bit of worthy reporting on it from the Left. Most notably it has come from Aaron Maté, writing for the The Nation and The Intercept.* Maté has written: "Trump didn't get to the White House via Russia, but by falsely portraying himself as a populist champion. The only con he will be undone by is his own." ...

* Glenn Greenwald has also had a couple of decent pieces in The Intercept ("The FBI’s Investigation of Trump as a 'National Security Threat' is Itself a Serious Danger. But J. Edgar Hoover Pioneered the Tactic" and "Beyond BuzzFeed: The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing U.S. Media Failures on the Trump-Russia Story")

Labels: critical thinking, media, politics, Robert S. Mueller, Russia, Trump

This isn't going to be one of my more fully-developed posts—I may rework it later—but here goes. I didn't vote for Donald Trump (or the evil monster who got the Dem's 2016 presidential nomination). Trump has long struck me as dishonest, greedy, manipulative, opportunistic, and unguided by few, if any, principles except his own perceived self-interest.

As I wrote to some friends in April 2016, Trump: "strikes me as a clever businessman-showman who is adeptly exploiting the well-founded grievances and misplaced hopes of many Americans ..." Days after the 2016 election, I wrote: 'Trump, like Obama, embodies the worthy hopes and dreams of a lot of people. I just don't see a lot of reason to believe that those dreams will be realized."

I think it is no coincidence then that, for decades, he has surrounded himself in his business, family, and political life with a reprehensible collection of Jewish Israel partisans. One wit managed to turn even this against Trump, writing: "I noted recently that virtually all the lawyers working for Trump are Jews, which I consider to be part of his soft anti-Semitism ..."

It is no coincidence either that Trump's only real, known solid ties to Vladimir Putin are via the hardline Zionist Chabad Jewish orthodox movement. In 2017, Politico described the Chabad as "The Happy-Go-Lucky Jewish Group That Connects Trump and Putin". Slate reported on the Putin-Chabad connection in 2014. Chabad has proven influential inside and outside of the Jewish community.

First daughter Ivanka and her family attend a Chabad synagogue in DC. Not coincidentally, Sholom Rubashkin, a Chabad rabbi, was the first recipient of a presidential commutation from Donald Trump.

So, now Michael Cohen (who does not seem to be a member of Chabad himself)—Trump's "Political 'Pit Bull' "and "Jewish Wingman"—has turned against Trump after being convicted, by his own admission, of lying to Congress and committing tax evasion (but not being charged or convicted of anything involving alleged Trump campaign collusion with Russia). Now, this admitted liar is a credible witness to give Congressional testimony which, in truly shameless partisan form, KUOW and National Public Radio preempted regular programming to broadcast.

I read Cohen's written statement and listened to some of the Q & A during the hearings today. What a sad, sad state of affairs Democrats and their ilk have descended to. I generally have a low regard for politicians of all stripes but today I witnessed a new low in the ongoing destruction of the Republic and civil society. It also worthy of note that, again, Cohen's testimony today like his criminal convictions had little or nothing to support allegations about Trump collusion with Russia.

At one point, one of the Dems questioning Cohen today kept hammering on about Trump's association with a known Russian mafioso, Felix Sater (an Israeli citizen, according to Ha'aretz). That Dem was Rep. Harley Rouda, who twice referred to him as "Mobster Felix Sater".
 
Curiously, I did not hear it mentioned that Sater was a boyhood friend of Cohen's who maintained his relationship with Sater long after Sater's convictions in US courts for violence and fraud. Sater is also a Chabadnik and appears to be a key player in any connection between Trump and Russia. The Russian-Jewish-Israel nexus to Trump has been largely buried in the US media.

I don't claim to know if Trump illegally colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election. I very much doubt it but I don't completely deny the possibility. It does seem clear Trump has a lot of other skeletons in his closet he wants to hide, including his apparent relationship with Felix Sater.

In any case, I think what we saw with the election of Trump is a reflection of the well-earned distrust and contempt many Americans have for the Democratic and Republican elites who have continuously betrayed them and the country for decades. These elites have declared war on Trump (and the everyday people who naively elected him).

Democrats are especially incensed that Trump is in the White House for a whole host of reasons I won't belabor here except to say it's not because he's crooked. Many, if not most, establishment Republicans are anti-Trump, too, although, his role as the Republican POTUS constrains them more than the Dems. However, in all but a tiny handful of cases opposition to Trump is not driven by any loyalty to the people of this country and any high principles; rather, it is driven by pique and ambition and none of them oppose him for his pro-Israel policies (except tactically).

Now, I want to bring this back to the alleged Russian collusion and simply say that most while most of the reporting on the matter has been driven by Trump Derangement Syndrome there has been a tiny bit of worthy reporting on it from the Left. Most notably it has come from Aaron Maté, writing for the The Nation and The Intercept.* Maté has written: "Trump didn't get to the White House via Russia, but by falsely portraying himself as a populist champion. The only con he will be undone by is his own." Aside from the glaring omission of the role of Trump's pro-Israel Jewish associates in his rise, I think this is about right.

It bears saying that Trump is not unique among politicians in his alliance with the Jewish elite (and don't forget the $$$). Obama was beholden to and, after diligently comporting himself to them, was eventually lionized by Jews but he generally aligned himself with less openly reactionary elements of the Jewish elite. What makes Trump unique is his high-profile, undisguised, longstanding, and tight association with the smaller (in the US) population of the most openly reactionary elements of the Jewish elite.

* Glenn Greenwald has also had a couple of decent pieces in The Intercept ("The FBI’s Investigation of Trump as a 'National Security Threat' is Itself a Serious Danger. But J. Edgar Hoover Pioneered the Tactic" and "Beyond BuzzFeed: The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing U.S. Media Failures on the Trump-Russia Story")

What follows are links on Chabad, Russia, & Felix Sater and, below that, on Trump's Jewish/Israeli ties and positions. Links embedded in the text above are not generally also listed below (I have flagged the three that do appear in both places with a (☀)).

Chabad, Russia, & Felix Sater

• "Former Mafia-linked figure describes association with Trump" (May 2016; Washington Post)☀
• "The Original Russia Connection" (Aug. 2017: The New Yorker)☀
• "Who Is Felix Sater, and Why Is Donald Trump So Afraid of Him?" (Sep. 2017; The Nation)
• "The Odd Chabad Connection Between Putin and Trump" (Nov. 2017; Washington Monthly)
• "A Brief History of Michael Cohen's Criminal Ties" (Apr. 2018; Rolling Stone)
• "Michael Cohen Gets a Special Visit" (Apr. 2018; Washington Monthly)☀
• "The Countless Israeli Connections to Mueller's Probe of Trump and Russia" (May 2018; Ha'aretz)
• "Active Measures director says Trump's Russian mob ties are his biggest legal vulnerability" (May 2018; CBC)
• "Mueller Finally Starts to Target Trump's Israel Ties" (Jun. 2018; Observer)

Trump's Jewish/Israeli Ties and Positions

• "Trump Has Strongest Jewish Ties of all GOP Candidates" (Aug. 2015; The Forward)
• "Donald Trump meets with billionaire Sheldon Adelson" (Dec. 2015: Business Insider) 
• "Read Donald Trump's Full Speech to AIPAC" (Mar. 2016; Time)
• "In meeting with Orthodox, Trump reveals Israel advisers: His Jewish lawyers" (Apr. 2016; Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
• "Donald Trump insists Israel should keep building West Bank settlements" (May 2016; Daily Mail Online)
• "Trump Names Jewish Financier, Fixer to Major Campaign Positions" (May 2016; The Forward)
• "Trump vs. Clinton: Battle of the Jewish sons-in-law" (May 2016; Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
• "Trump's Jews" (Jul. 2016; Tablet Magazine)
• "Meet the Jews in Donald Trump's inner circle" (Nov. 2016; The Times of Israel)
• "Trump is headed to the White House. Did we just elect our first Jewish president?" (Nov. 2016; Fox News)
• "Trump's Jews and Obama's Jews" (Jan. 2017; Frontpage Mag)
• "Know your oligarch: A guide to the Jewish billionaires in the Trump-Russia probe" (May 2018: Ha'aretz)
• "Robert Mueller's Israel problem" (Jun. 2018; Conservative Review)
• "Trump's Jews" (Dec. 2018; Forward)

Labels: Chabad, Israel, Jews, Judaism, media, National Public Radio, politics, Robert S. Mueller, Russia, Trump, Zionism