RUSH: No, no, the bottom line is that Flynn wants this guilty plea. He’s told a judge. He and his lawyers have told the judge. The judge has offered them an opportunity to go a different route here, and Flynn doesn’t want to go the different route. So, Flynn not wanting to go the different route is gonna be a very determinative factor here in the sentencing, which has yet to happen. The judge is telling Flynn that, you know, this is a very bad thing you did here. You lied to the FBI while you’re in the White House. That’s a very, very bad thing.
But Flynn is saying to himself, “I did worse than that,” or, “They’re charging me with worse. They’re charging me with not registering as a foreign agent! They’re charging me with a bunch of stuff. I don’t want to go there. They’ve agreed to take all that off of table instead of lying to the FBI. I want to stick with this, Judge.” Flynn’s admitting he knew that lying to the FBI was a crime. What this is all about — and the reason why we are even talking about this — is because James Comey has been out bragging for about a week now what he got away with!
He got away with setting Flynn up, and he’s made no bones about it and so a lot of people have said, “Well, for crying out loud, this judge has already sanctioned previous lawyers — many of them the same on Mueller’s team — for similar tactics in other trials.” And so a lot of people are hoping that the judge will recognize similar prosecutorial misconduct here and throw it out. That’s what people were hoping would be thrown out. Flynn doesn’t want it thrown out. I don’t think Flynn thinks everything against him would be thrown out.
So, he’s adamant. This is how they… I think Flynn’s scared to death, folks. In his situation, there’s no way he can battle these people. He’s already down. He’s lost his life’s work. He’s lost much of his financial security. He’s lost his house. The last thing that happened was that Mueller threatened to go after his son. So, I mean, you reach a point where no matter how principled you are, you don’t have the resources to carry on such a fight, and I don’t think Flynn wants to go the GoFundMe route or any of that.
But it’s clear that he was set up here. In fact, let me give you the scenario of what happened. This is in… I’m still confused whether what we’re talking about was during the transition or shortly after Trump was inaugurated. But Flynn was in the White House, and I think it was during the transition. But it could have been after. It was in January at some point, pre- or post-inauguration, and Flynn was either the incoming or national security adviser for Trump.
Now, you remember at this point in time, we’re just two or three months removed from the election and the media and the Drive-Bys are going crazy with Russian collusion. “Russians affected the outcome of the election! Russians stole the election! Did Trump work with them on that?” Everybody is trying to make the case that the election is illegitimate, ought to be overturned. “Trump’s not legitimately president! The election was stolen!” You remember all that.
I mean, this was in the early days of that when there were four or five stories a day from anonymous sources in the intelligence community in the CNN broadcasts and the Washington Post/New York Times pages, and we were just being hit from every angle with this. And so this is when McCabe calls Flynn! Andy McCabe at the FBI calls Flynn, and he doesn’t talk to him about Russian collusion. He doesn’t ask him about that. He says, “Look, I’m seeing stuff in the media that you might have talked to the Russian ambassador about sanctions.”
See, Obama had placed sanctions on the Russians after the election as part of the farce that the Russians had tampered. So Obama had to make it look real; so he expelled 35 Russian diplomats/spies, sent ’em packing and instituted economic sanctions on Russia, and so the media is reporting that Flynn was talking to the Soviet ambassador — the guy that basically all this guy ever did was go to lunch with people — Sergey Kislyak.
McCabe calls Flynn and says, “Look, I’m seeing all this stuff in the media that you’re talking to Russians about the sanctions stuff and I just want to get it straight from you what’s going on. How about I send a couple people over?” Flynn says, “Fine, fine.” Flynn’s thinking, “Hey, this is gonna be a cakewalk because this isn’t even about what everybody’s all hot to trot about, Russian collusion.” So the two agents get over there and you know what Flynn says to ’em? Flynn says, “I don’t even know why you guys need to talk to me. You know all of this.”
What he meant was that he knew that the Russian ambassador was being surveilled. Everybody knew the Russian ambassador was being surveilled, and Flynn had been carrying on a phone conversation with him. And so Flynn knew that the FBI knew what was being said back and forth. And he says to the agents, “You guys know all this. I don’t know why you need to ask me anything.” So they didn’t tell him that it was official. They didn’t tell him that he needed a lawyer. They didn’t tell him they were investigating anything per se. It was set up very casually. Andy McCabe calls Michael.
“Hey, I’m seeing this stuff in the media about the sanctions and you and Kislyak. Look, I need you to set me straight on some things.” Now, you can argue that the antenna for Flynn should have risen at that moment; he should have been have I suspicious. But at the same time is something that… One of my great fears of social media is what it does to young people in terms of the desire for fame. When that happens to anybody, they change. They become different people — and especially if they think they’ve acquired it. Especially, especially when they haven’t. But if they think they have…
So if you’re on social media and you’ve got 50,000 likes or whatever it is that they measure feedback with, you can easily tell yourself that you have become a big deal, you’ve become a star, that red carpet invitations are just around the corner. If there’s other media attention to whatever you’re doing on social media can further the illusion that somebody — and most people do want fame until they get it and most people do want to be recognized and be asked for autographs. I think a measure of this happened to Flynn at some point after he came out for Trump.
Anything associated with Trump made big news. Jeff Sessions endorsing Trump made big news. Sessions became more widely known and adored by Trump supporters than he’d ever been at any time in his career, and I think the same thing happened to Flynn. Take it from one who knows, folks, because it did not happen to me. (chuckles) I am either too humble or insecure to ever get a big head, but I see it in everybody that’s got it, and it’s instantly recognizable. Somebody who thinks they’re big stuff when they’re not and they act it, and they act like you know they’re big stuff or you think they’re big stuff…
Something happened to Flynn being after he came out for Trump and started attracting all this attention, started speaking at Trump rallies — and he did, within a certain universe, become somewhat of a, quote-unquote, “star.” Prior to that, Michael Flynn had never been any of that. He had been a total (by definition, job title, performance) background guy. He ran the Defense Intelligence Agency. He was a decorated military hero, and those people do not on rare occasion draw attention to themselves. It’s just the exact opposite.
But he started doing that and it just changes people, in some ways not for the better. So I don’t know what Flynn’s attitude was when he was talking to these guys but he clearly said, “You guys know all this,” because he knew that Kislyak’s phone calls were being surveilled, monitored; so that should have been one of the first red flags. Because he realized they already knew what the conversations had been. If Flynn it done something legal — for example, told Kislyak, “Buy time, man. Sit tight.
“We’ll take care of these sanctions that Obama put on you after Trump’s in office. Just don’t do anything. Don’t raise hell. Do not act like you’re really ticked off about it,” and Kislyak Defendant’s Exhibit! Kislyak faded into the background, and this is why Mueller thinks that Flynn lied to them about not talking to them about sanctions. Flynn did not offer a quid pro quo. He did not say, “Look, if you sit tied and don’t do anything, we will lift the sanctions. Donald Trump and I will fix what Obama did and everything will be back.”
He didn’t say that. He just warned Kislyak to take it easy, and Mueller — everybody listening to the tapes of the conversations — considers that to be meddling, sending a signal to Kislyak. Now, depending on what Flynn had said in the verbal interview… Remember the agents who talked to him didn’t think he had lied. So his story must have been somewhat consistent. That brings us to today where Flynn’s being sentenced, and remember, he has spoken for, what is it, 50, 60 hours to Mueller and his team?
And, you know, we have Comey out there at the 92nd Street Y and all these other place saying, “We’d have never gotten away with what we did to Flynn in a more organized White House.” Comey hates Trump. Comey just personally despises Trump. He’s an affront to everything, and Comey cannot help himself. He’s out there bragging engendering laughter from audiences, basically admitting that they got away with setting Flynn up. “We ran a scam on the guy because nobody in the Trump White House had the slightest idea what they were doing.
“Anybody should know when two FBI agents come talk to you, it isn’t casual, and we shouldn’t even be able to get to ’em without going to the White House counsel’s office. We just called up Flynn and he said, ‘Yeah, come on over.'” So Comey’s bragging. So that gives people the impression that the FBI knew that they had behaved at the edges of the law and at the edges of propriety. This has led people to go back and look now at previous trial practices of the Mueller investigators and lawyers in the Enron cases and the Ted Stevens trial.
And they did much the same thing and have been overturned at the Supreme Court on every Enron case, and the Ted Stevens case was thrown out. So up to today (late last week, all through the weekend) a lot of people hoped because the same judge sanctioned these same lawyers for Enron malpractice (my term) and the Ted Stevens case… So a lot of people were hoping the judge — and Mueller, by the way, did not turn over everything the judge requested. The judge wanted every document related to this interview with Flynn.
Mueller said, “Screw you!” and basically submitted a redacted 302. A 302 is an FBI summary of an interview. So a lot of people have been waiting for fireworks to blow. A lot of people have been waiting for the judge today to basically throw the Flynn case out, tell Mueller to let him go and not bother him anymore, and sanction Mueller for their practices. Part of that has been the judge asking Flynn and his lawyers, “Are you sure you want to do this plea? Are you sure you want to?”
Flynn and his lawyers are adamant that they want this deal. Flynn wants to keep this plea. He doesn’t want to change it. He doesn’t want to be subjected to other charges. He’s basically… I don’t know if “scared to death” is the term. He’s a decorated Marine hero, so I don’t know that he’s scared. But clearly he doesn’t want any more Mueller. He’s lost pretty much everything now, and he’s got options on the table which end this. Other than his continued cooperation with Mueller, which he’s already done 50 or 60 hours of. So a lot of people were hoping that this judge would just throw things at Mueller.
Throw the kitchen sink at Mueller, chastise him for the exact behavior that we’ve seen in the Enron cases and in the Ted Stevens trial. But with Flynn maintaining that he wants this deal, if the judge accepts the plea, then that’s pretty much that. Now, the judge could go on and have some harsh words for Mueller and his team over this. I literally have no idea how this is gonna go. But I can tell you this. There isn’t… Well, I was gonna say, “There isn’t a single person in Washington.” I can tell you there isn’t anybody in Washington, D.C., that wants a wall.
There’s not, other than people in the Trump administration who do. I mean, nobody outside the Trump administration. In this whole town, nobody wants a wall, and I don’t think anybody wants to go to bat for Michael Flynn. I think the entire town of Washington, D.C., is hoping that Mueller has something that gets rid of Trump. I think that whole town is just wired in total support of Mueller and hoping that he’s got something. So they’re looking at Flynn accepting the plea and not taking the opportunity to forget it and maybe go a different way.
They’re looking this as a profound and great Mueller victory, which is what they all want. And it’s a tough thing.
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RUSH: There’s one thing that has become true in American law enforcement. The cops and the FBI — the Supreme Court has said so — can lie. They can lie to you. They can deceive you. They can do anything, particularly if they’re pursuing a confession, and it’s been upheld in at least one Supreme Court case. I’ll tell you, let me make… What has happened to Flynn here and a lot of these people, let me make it personal. Imagine a police car following you literally all week. A police car.
Wherever you go, however you get there, whatever you do for an entire week there’s a police car following you. The red light’s not on. It’s just following. It’s going everywhere you go. It’s seeing everything that you do. It’s pretty certain that at some point you’re gonna get a ticket for something along the way. You’re gonna exceed the speed limit by a-mile-an-hour. You’re gonna run a questionable yellow light. You’re gonna maybe do something else, if somebody is surveilling you 24/7 for a week or a month.
Okay. Now imagine that it is the FBI or the Department of Justice. The imagine if CIA agents, if the Senate Intelligence Committee is following you around every day, listening to every phone call you make and get. There’s not a place you can go that they can’t keep track of you. This is what is happening to Donald Trump, and there isn’t… These campaign violations that they’re claiming with these women? I want to dig into that at some point because that is absurd on so many levels.
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RUSH: Now, have you ever gone hunting in the zoo? Because that’s basically what is happening here. The FBI and the DOJ are going hunting in the zoo. I mean, what kind of challenge is it? You’ve got everything you want to catch is entrapped in there and there’s no way they can get away from you and you can kill or get whatever you want. That’s what Mueller and the entire army of investigators are doing to Donald Trump and anybody in his orbit. Here is what every lawyer, every resident of Washington, D.C., knows to be a fact.
If Paul Manafort had not worked for Donald Trump, if Michael Flynn had not worked for Donald Trump, if Michael Cohen — the rat — had not worked for Donald Trump, not a single one of them would have ever been targeted or prosecuted. Not a single one of them. In fact, Manafort was, and they decided it wasn’t worth pursuing, about four or five years ago… This is his second rodeo on this. The first time they took a look at him, he’s had some questionable behavior in terms of registering as a foreign agent with some of the lobbying that he was doing I think for Ukrainian.
They only looked into it, and they exonerated him. They said nothing to see here, nothing to do. But now you put Donald Trump, who had the audacity to win the 2016 election in the mix, and now everything changes. I guarantee you they couldn’t care less about going after Michael Cohen! Not even SDNY. Not even New York prosecutors would waste time with Cohen, nor Manafort or especially Flynn. This Flynn business… A little side note here. The judge has made it plain to Flynn that he finds what Flynn did to be abhorrent, lying while in the White House to the FBI as a member of an administration.
The judge has spared no words in shaming Michael Flynn. But at the same time, he is pursuing this — according to things that people in the courthouse are saying — in a kind of strange way. He’s making Flynn confirm multiple times that he knows what’s goin’ on here. Now, the prosecutors have recommended no jail. The sentencing window for what Flynn’s guilty of here, what he’s pleading guilty to is zero to six months, and the prosecutors have told the judge they recommend zip.
The judge can do what he wants. This is a prosecutorial recommendation. As I pointed out to you last week, I don’t think that Flynn was ever gonna get jail time. He’s a 30-year decorated American military hero, first offense, questionable offense at that, possibly set up. But Mueller is getting the chance to make himself look magnanimous and good by recommending, “No jail time for this great American who, by the way, has been so overwhelming cooperative with us.” Now, look, I’m not a lawyer, and I have no idea what Flynn has said.
But you don’t sentence these people if you’re gonna lose them at an upcoming trial. If you’ve got somebody and they’ve pled to something, you do not sentence them until they have followed through on the witness stand testifying to what they have assured you they would say. Now, when this happens, when somebody gets sentenced before they have testified, it means that there’s not much value there, that they probably would not have been called as a witness; so then you can say, “Look, okay, 60 hours he talked to Mueller. What did he say?”
And then you have to backtrack and say, “Well, maybe they don’t ever expect to have a trial of Trump because what this is really about is getting Trump to quit, to resign, or get his numbers down to 30 so he loses all support.” You know, that whole drill, which I’ve explained to you a number of times. It could well be that they don’t envision a trial of Trump. But the judge has (it’s remarkable) given Flynn a whole bunch of different opportunities to walk away from this, not accept the plea, which is raising some questions.
Is the judge asking Flynn this so many times because the judge then wants to throw the book at Mueller over how this all happened, again? And if Flynn adamantly demands to accept the plea, then… See, the judge is affirming, and every time he asks Flynn about this, he is making certain that Flynn understands everything in front of him here. He’s asked Flynn I don’t know how many times, “Are you sure you want to plead to this? Do you understand here you might get jail time? Just because they suggested that you don’t, doesn’t mean I’m bound by it.”
And Flynn has said, “I do not want to change this. This is the deal I made. I want to stick to the deal. I want to plead guilty to lying to the FBI,” when he didn’t. The FBI doesn’t even think so. That should tell you… Mueller gave the charge because that’s the leverage he’s got. He can charge anybody with anything, as you know. You never have to prove it in court if you can intimidate the witness or the perp into bending your way. And it’s not hard to do when you can break ’em. When you can bankrupt them, when you can threaten to destroy their family, you can pretty much get any little peon defendant to do anything.
‘Cause everybody becomes a peon up against it mighty Treasury of the United States of America and a hell-bent, politically oriented prosecutor.
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RUSH: Well, the judge has now announced he’s gonna delay the Michael Flynn sentencing. He’s back on the bench. By the way, he says he misspoke when he suggested Flynn was a foreign agent while in the White House. He didn’t mean to say that, and he never meant to suggest that Flynn committed treason. He told reporters not to read too much into the questions he’s asking.
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RUSH: You know, doesn’t all of this Flynn stuff kind of blow to smithereens the idea that Trump was colluded with the Russians for years? What I mean is, if Trump had been colluding with the Russians, Flynn wouldn’t have to tell Kislyak that everything was gonna be okay with the sanctions and the expelled diplomats. The Russians would already know that, right? There’d have been no need for Flynn to pass off any information to the Russians if they’d been colluding with Trump for years.
This is such… This is such caca, folks. It gets more ridiculous each and every day. Now the judge has delayed the sentencing! Now, we announced that before the conclusion of previous hour. We didn’t know why. The judge now has decided to suggest, “Maybe Flynn you want to wait. Prosecutors, you want to wait until the case is over and you might have to testify.” Exactly what I said! You know, this is starting to approach… This whole thing’s a process crime.
You understand a process crime? Flynn didn’t do anything! So they get him on this nefarious idea that he lied to them in an impromptu interview that he didn’t even know was an interview. The only reason… I don’t know Michael Flynn from a pile of coal and I admit that I’m speculating here. But I know enough to think the reason Flynn wants this deal and wants this over is because he’s been ruined! But there’s enough left that Mueller could run him further, like go after his kid, which Mueller threatened to do.
Flynn desperately wants this to be over. It’s been two years. Do you realize this? Two years over this, and it’s a process crime, and this guy’s a 30-year decorated military hero! His world is upside down! He may have some responsibility for it, but if he had never joined up and signed up with Donald Trump, they wouldn’t care less who he is. In fact, Obama hated the guy and he left the Defense Intelligence Agency. He would be an invisible personage in Washington were it not for the fact that he openly endorsed Trump and started appearing at Trump rallies.
A process crime! So here’s the latest on this. From Doomberg News, “Michael Flynn, who was a campaign adviser to President Donald Trump and briefly his national security adviser, was in Washington federal court for sentencing. … Flynn’s sentencing was postponed after Judge Emmet Sullivan told him to consider pushing it off until after he has completed assisting prosecutors. A status hearing is scheduled for March 13.”
Flynn goes to court today thinking it’s gonna end and it’s all gonna be over and he’s gonna have a good Christmas (scoffs), and now it’s been delayed until March? And I’ll tell you this too. There have been some Drive-Bys out there in the last hour have been publishing pieces to us, aimed at us, going, “Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah! You thought that the judge was gonna throw the book at Mueller, and it hasn’t happened. Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah!”
Now the judge doesn’t want to sentence Flynn yet, and the reason the judge doesn’t want to sentence Flynn is exactly what I said. You don’t sentence these guys until they have testified because you can’t guarantee that they’ll show up and testify after they’re serving their sentence. You always make them pay the piper to get the good sentence or to get the good deal, and paying the piper is testifying. What if Flynn’s got nothing to testify to?
They were monitoring the phone calls he made with Kislyak. They know that he didn’t engage in illegal behavior or conduct because they were surveilling Kislyak and thus they didn’t charge Flynn with that. They had to make up this idea that he lied to the FBI — and again, the two agents that interviewed don’t think that he did. And you’re saying, “Why did he plea to it?” Because they’ve ruined him, folks! Put yourself in his shoes. You always have to try to do that.
When you’re not in the arena, pretend to put yourself there and imagine yourself in this situation, and everything you’ve done is been wiped out, and everything you’ve got has been wiped out. And to pay lawyers to defend you against an enemy that cannot be beaten and will never go away, you want it to end. So you plead guilty to the process crime because of all the things that they could pursue you for it’s the least problematic. It’s a process crime.
Not that that’s unserious. Lying to the FBI is never a good thing, we say dutifully here at the EIB Network. But it’s a far different thing than being accused of treason or working on behalf of a foreign government to undermine your own government. Those are the kind of things that Flynn faced, ’cause Mueller and his team could go after anybody for anything they want if they have any contact with Trump whatsoever, that’s the power prosecutors have. And, remember, prosecutors can lie to you.
They can deceive you. They can trick you into confessing. And a lot of people confess to end it. So for some reason, the judge says, “You know what? This is not going the way that I anticipated it.” Two things on the judge. He’s back on the bench shortly before the previous hour ended and he told everybody in the courtroom that he misspoke in suggesting that Flynn was a foreign agent while in the White House. He didn’t mean to convey that.
He says he never meant to suggest Flynn committed treason. He said not to read too much into the questions that he asks. “Sullivan resumed Flynn’s sentencing hearing and expressed regret for an earlier statement in which he falsely suggested that Flynn’s activities as an unregistered foreign agent continued into his time as Trump’s national security adviser. Sullivan had asked whether that would be treason.
“‘I feel terrible about that,’ Sullivan said, adding he had never presided over a treason case. Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack confirmed the facts and said that ‘the government has no reason to believe that the defendant committed treason.'” So they “called a recess until 12:30 p.m. to allow Flynn to consult with his lawyers,” ’cause the judge didn’t want to accept plea. They thought this was gonna be over today. The judge kept asking, “Are you sure that you want to accept this plea?” and the judge said, “You sold your country out.”
Nobody has ever said that! But the judge told Flynn, “You sold your country out,” and then he said that — well, the prosecutors said (paraphrased), “Flynn’s continued cooperation is a possibility. Oh, yeah. We may have further need of him, Judge, maybe to ask him some more questions.” The judge says, “Well, what we do here with the plea? Everybody knows I don’t accept the plea until you’re through with the guy and he’s gonna testify.” But Mueller’s got nothing for him to testify to unless… See, this is the rub.
Unless they can do what they do in the Ted Stevens trial and scare the hell out of the lead witness into composing… Now, that actually is… Are you ready for this? That’s actually a legal term: Composing versus testifying. Composing means you make it up. Prosecutors asked their star witness in the Ted Stevens case to make some things up about Ted Stevens and what he expected for a $150,000 payment to remodel his house, and the witness had to do what the prosecutors said.
I mean, they hold all the cards. So this term composing has become remarkably, apparently acceptable. Now, old-line lawyers like Professor Dershowitz are not happy with it, but it’s right along the lines of prosecutors can lie and deceive and trick suspects into confessing, and they do it all the time. Especially if you’ve got two perps side by side and both perps did whatever the deed is; so you go to one of them say, “Yeah, the other one’s in there singing like a bird, and you would not believe what this guy’s telling us about you.
“I mean, you better act fast before this guy finishes. The first guy that makes the deal gets the deal.” That’s how they do it. So got these two perps. They both think they’re both loyal to each other. Then these guys come in and say, “Yeah, your buddy is in there (chuckles) and he’s telling us things we never even suspected,” and they panic and they unload, and then later found out that their buddies were not saying a word. That’s all been proclaimed legal by the United States Supreme Court.
So that’s where we are on this. The judge has delayed Flynn’s sentencing. I feel so for this guy, I can’t tell you. To think today, “Finally, after two years, this is gonna be over.” He’s going to get his life back. The judge asks him multiple times, “Are you sure? Do you understand what you are doing here? Yes, the prosecutors are recommending zero jail time, but that’s all that is. It’s a recommendation; it’s not a demand. I make that call, and I don’t think you committed treason.” (chuckles) Jeez!
The reason I say this is kind of bogus, you remember the Russian troll farms that Mueller indicted? One of them was named Concord Management. They’re over somewhere in Mother Russia, and they were charged with trolling the internet and planting pro-Trump posts and anti-Hillary posts, and Mueller makes a big deal about indicting ’em. Rosenstein goes out there announces the indictment.
And, by the way, it was that press conference, that indictment where Rosenstein said, “Nothing in this document suggests that American citizens were involved. Nothing in this indictment suggests that votes were tampered with, and nothing in this indictment says that the results of any election were changed.” Meaning: The Russians didn’t do anything. They got on the internet and they trolled. By the way, there’s another story about that that I need to clear up today. This happened in Millennial journalism over him the weekend.
The bogus report on the success the Russians had promoting pro-Trump messages on social media, and the whole thing is bogus, and I need to unpack that today before the program ends. Anyway, Mueller’s got nothing on these Russian trolls. He indicts them in Russia. He doesn’t even serve them because he knows they’re never going to be extradited to the United States. Mueller knows that the charges that he has made against them are never going to be tested because the Russians are never gonna show up in court.
So he doesn’t even bother to serve them notice that they have been indicted. Well, the Concord Management group hired an American law firm. Remember this? This is great. The American law firm showed up in court and pleaded not guilty and demanded a trial, and you know what Mueller did? Mueller went to the judge and said (paraphrased exchange), “They can’t do that, Judge! We can’t do that. They’re still doing it! They’re still doing it!”
“What? Gotti was still doing it when you indicted him. That didn’t stop you from indicting Gotti. It didn’t stop you from indicting anyone. What do you mean, they’re still doing it?”
“Well, Judge, we’re not prepared to make the case right now.”
“Well, you charged these people, and they’ve shown up here, and they’ve got an American law firm, and they’re demanding a trial. They didn’t do it, and they want to get their innocence adjudicated.”
Mueller never intended that to happen. I don’t think he ever intended Flynn to testify because there’s nothing to testify to. Flynn didn’t do anything. Flynn is pleading guilty to a process crime, supposedly lying to the FBI. There’s probably nothing for Flynn to testify to unless now they go to him and demand that he compose testimony. This is not the FBI that I always thought we had. It’s certainly not the criminal justice system. This is clearly two-tiered, a criminal justice system for all of us and another for Democrats and denizens of the Washington swamp.
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RUSH: Here’s Robert Wray. Robert Wray was on Fox News this afternoon. Robert Ray is former Whitewater independent counsel. He was on Fox. He got a question: “Is this the ending, or is this just the beginning now for General Flynn?”
WRAY: I think there was just simply a pause today, but that doesn’t mean that things weren’t accomplished today. The judge wanted to be sure that the defendant was pleading guilty because, in fact, he was guilty, and so that’s why he asked the question first: Did you know that lying to the FBI was a crime? And General Flynn answered in the affirmative.
The judge wanted to know and be certain if that was so, because otherwise there’s no crime. And the second thing he wanted to know is, is there any other basis for you to withdraw your plea? Again, the question from the judge was, “General Flynn, is there any reason why you are seeking now to withdraw your plea?” And he answered “no.” So those were important things that Judge Sullivan wanted to satisfy himself about.
FAULKNER: Why?
WRAY: Because as he said in his clear, I have never taken a guilty plea from someone who’s not guilty and I don’t intend to start now.
RUSH: Now, that to me is so damn telling. I think the judge was prepared today to kind of lower the boom on the prosecutors, but Flynn blew that up by insisting that he knew what he was doing and wanted to accept the plea. But the judge… This is a hell of a comment here! “I’ve never taken a guilty plea from somebody who’s not guilty and I don’t intend to start now”? Why in the world say that unless you have some suspicion that the guy’s been forced into it, talked into it?
Because the agents have said that they didn’t think he lied, and the judge reads papers, the judge follows the news. He knows that Comey’s out there bragging about the stunt they got away with here because it was a new administration, disorganized and not knowing how things worked and so forth. There’s one more bite that accompanies this. Catherine Herridge of Fox saying the judge mocked the prosecutors. But I have to wait for a little more time to air that one.
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RUSH: Now, here’s the Catherine Herridge sound bite, and this was just moments ago, probably 10, 15 minutes ago on the Fox News Channel. This is her take on what happened in the courtroom today, the Flynn sentencing. Here again is the summation: Flynn wanted this to end today and thought it was going to. He wanted to plead guilty to a process crime, not any other crime. He wanted to… This was the deal. He sang. He told ’em what they wanted to hear, supposedly, and he gets a recommendation of no jail time for a plea of guilty to lying to the FBI.
But the rub is that he probably didn’t, and the judge said today that the reason he’s uncomfortable with this is because he’s never taken a guilty plea from somebody who’s not guilty and he doesn’t intend to start now. So the judge didn’t accept the plea, and deployed the hearing until March! Poor Flynn thought it was gonna end, thought it was gonna be over today! Except for his ongoing assistance of Mueller.
But his days of jeopardy were going to end today. I cannot tell you how big a deal that is. You’ve been under the lights for two years. They’ve ruined you financially. They’ve taken away your house! You had to sell it to pay your lawyers. They’ve threatened to go after and ruin your son. So you want to bring it to a screeching halt. All you have to do is say you lied to the FBI when the FBI doesn’t think you did, and the judge gave Flynn every opportunity.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing here? Did you know this? Do you know that? Did they tell you that you were lying to the FBI? Did they tell you that’s a crime?” He gave every opportunity, and Flynn would not say anything that would irritate or anger Mueller, is what happened. I think Mueller owns him. I think Mueller owns anybody he wants to own in this thing because of the power that he holds to ruin people and his willingness to use it.
I mean, you support Donald Trump and you will be made to pay the price. You do not turn on Donald Trump, and you will be made to pay the price. You do not help us nail Donald Trump, and get him out of this town, and you will pay the price. That is what the Mueller investigation is, and Flynn wanted out. And pleading guilty was all he had to do and he kept insisting to the judge that he wanted it. The judge ultimately says, “Nope, I know I need you to think about this so more.”
So clearly the judge is not convinced he’s done something here that would even require a plea! That’s my take. Now, the Drive-Bys… You need to be warned that the Drive-Bys are saying the exact opposite of what I just told you. The Drive-Bys are saying that what happened here in court today proves that Mueller is innocent, Mueller didn’t use any trickery, chicanery, Mueller didn’t do anything illegal, Mueller is clean and pure as the wind-driven snow, and this proves it.
It does nothing of the kind.
Here’s Catherine Herridge’s take on it…
HERRIDGE: I want to note that put the special counsel under scrutiny and possibly even on notice. He ask the special counsel whether talking to the Russian ambassador in December of 2016 was a crime and the special counsel representative responded it could be a violation of the Logan Act. And then the judge — sort of in a very unusual way and flip way — said, “Isn’t that the act no one has ever been charged with?” Which was sending a signal as to what was at the heart of this case. So a lot of drama, a lot of opportunity for Michael Flynn to withdraw his guilty plea, to challenge the conditions of his FBI interview in January of 2017, which the judge said he found troubling personally. But Flynn has declined to do so.
RUSH: There you have it. The judge found it “troubling.” I’ll tell you why. They tricked him, and Comey’s out bragging about it that they tricked him. Comey is out there telling anybody who would listen, “In a more organized, competent administration, we wouldn’t have gotten away with this.” What’d they get away with? They sent a couple of agents into the West Wing and they called Flynn. “Hey, Flynn! Andy McCabe here. I’m troubled here by what this stuff I’m hearing in the media about you and the Russian ambassador. Can I send a couple people turnover chat with you?”
“Oh, sure, sure, sure. Have him come on over,” and Flynn even said to these agents, “I don’t know why you need to talk to me, I’m sure you know all this,” meaning that Flynn knew that his conversations with Kislyak were surveilled. They knew what Flynn had said. “So I don’t know why you need to talk to me.” That should have been a red flag to Flynn at that point. I guess his ego is such, “Hey, it’s the FBI. We’re all on the same team here. If they want to come chat with me to get their story straight, I’m more than eager to help.”
He had no idea they were gunning for him. That’s what the judge’s point is here, and that’s what’s troubling to the judge — and the Logan Act? The Logan Act? The judge is absolutely right. Nobody has ever been charged with it because it is not considered to be something anybody could ever be convicted of. The thing is a hundred-and-some-odd years old. The Logan Act is on old that it’s never been used, and for this prosecutor — for Mueller’s prosecutor — to say, “Well, Judge, he might have violated the Logan Act.”
The judge says, “Oh, you mean that thing nobody’s ever been charged with before?”
She’s right. That’s clearly, clearly mocking the prosecutor.
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2018/12/18/i-think-michael-flynn-is-scared-to-death/
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