News
‘Very Damning’ ‘Lied. A Lot’: Mueller Just Released Flynn’s FBI Interview and Twitter Is All Over It
‘If I Were Flynn’s Lawyers I Would Be Very Concerned About the Sentencing Tomorrow’
The judge who will sentence Michael Flynn on Tuesday ordered a redacted version of the FBI’s January, 2017 interview transcript with the former Trump National Security Advisor released tonight.
It’s a whopper.
Or, more accurately, the lies Flynn allegedly told are whoppers.
The interview notes (in FBI terms called a “302,”) should (but won’t) end the right wing conspiracy theories that Flynn didn’t lie, the FBI intentionally got him to lie, and wrongly convinced him to admit to lying. As usual, the far right has been turning itself into pretzels to support Trump and his cohorts.
This is one more set of facts that make clear Flynn and many, many others are in a lot of trouble.
If you’d like to read the transcript yourself, you can access it here (thanks to Buzzfeed’s Zoe Tillman.) Talking Points Memo also has it.
Twitter is digging in to the transcript and has some observations. Basically, CNN’s Chris Cillizza sums it up: “Michael Flynn lied. A lot.”
Michael Flynn lied. A lot. https://t.co/SKkpDX3gRz
— Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) December 18, 2018
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes:
These are very damning for Flynn. https://t.co/fhc45CK79M
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) December 18, 2018
He sounds like someone trying not to get caught doing something he should not have been doing. Which is weird because the thing he did isn’t, on its face, so bad.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) December 18, 2018
National security lawyer:
So I’ve gone through the Flynn 302 twice now.
1) Flynn was more than sufficiently warned about the context.
2) The agents repeatedly tried to give him hints to refresh his memory. He kept lying.
3) maybe now this stupid conspiracy can die
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) December 18, 2018
Here, Moss is mocking two of the top people at the right wing website The Federalist:
That sound you hear is @seanmdav and @MZHemingway cursing and crying that the Flynn 302 isn’t the massive deal they thought it would be and that Flynn will in fact still be sentenced tomorrow by the judge.
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) December 18, 2018
More:
I mean, I could be wrong. I have been before. And federal judges are dangerous and unpredictable, like a wounded rhino.
But if I were Flynn’s lawyers I would be very concerned about the sentencing tomorrow.https://t.co/AYaEuTyB9F
— BigCrimeHat (@Popehat) December 18, 2018
Tillman details some of the lies Flynn was caught telling the FBI agents:
Here’s a description of one of the lies Flynn admitted to — in the 302, the agents describe Flynn saying he didn’t ask Kislyak to have Russia vote a certain way on a UN resolution. That was a lie (302 on the left, statement of offense on the right) pic.twitter.com/UMIzx0J4Do
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) December 17, 2018
Here’s the other lie Flynn admitted: In the 302, the agents describe asking Flynn if he asked Kislyak not to escalate things in response to US sanctions. Flynn says not really, he doesn’t remember, but if it came up, it wasn’t “don’t do anything.” That was a lie, per guilty plea pic.twitter.com/7Rz4rxPZyq
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) December 18, 2018
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