Gregg Jarrett on Fox News:
The collusion house of cards has finally and fully collapsed.
In a stunning turn of events Thursday, the Justice Department dropped its case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Exculpatory documents concealed by the FBI and federal prosecutors for more than three years showed that the retired Army lieutenant general never lied or committed a crime.
The FBI knew Flynn did not collude with Russians. He is a patriot, not a traitor.
Andrew McCarthy on National Review Online:
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. They are the most important revelations to date about the FBI’s Trump–Russia investigation, code-named Crossfire Hurricane.
The new disclosures, in conjunction with all we have learned in the last week, answer the all-important why question: Why was Flynn set up?
The answer to the what question has been clear for a long time: 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), perhaps even to prosecute him. On that score, the new disclosures, startling as they are to read, just elucidate what was already obvious.
But why did they do it? That has been the baffling question. …
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. The investigation would hamstring Trump’s capacity to govern and reverse Obama policies. Continuing it would allow the FBI to keep digging until it finally came up with a crime or impeachable offense that they were then confident they would find. Remember, even then, the bureau was telling the FISA court that Trump’s campaign was suspected of collaborating in Russia’s election interference. FBI brass had also pushed for the intelligence community to include the Steele dossier — the bogus compendium of Trump–Russia collusion allegations — in its report assessing Russia’s meddling in the campaign.
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.
Greg Re on Fox News:
President Obama was aware of the details of then-incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn’s intercepted December 2016 phone calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, apparently surprising then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, according to documents released Thursday as exhibits to the government’s motion to dismiss the Flynn case.
Obama’s unexpectedly intimate knowledge of the details of Flynn’s calls, which the FBI acknowledged at the time were not criminal or even improper, raised eyebrows because of his own history with Flynn — and because top FBI officials secretly discussed whether their goal was to “get [Flynn] fired” when they interviewed him in the White House on January 24, 2017.
Obama personally had warned the Trump administration against hiring Flynn, and made clear he was “not a fan,” according to multiple officials. Obama had fired Flynn as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014; Obama cited insubordination, while Flynn asserted he was pushed out for his aggressive stance on combating lslamic extremism.
Kylee Zempel on The Federalist:
Brandon Van Grack, a former special counsel’s team member and a top Department of Justice prosecutor, moved to withdraw Thursday from the case against former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Van Grack’s removal, documented in a court filing, coincides with his abrupt withdrawal from other unrelated federal cases. That, along with recent damning revelations about government corruption in the Flynn case, raises questions about Van Grack’s future with the Justice Department.
Van Grack [had] failed to produce to Flynn’s attorneys and the court the newly unsealed documents revealing that the FBI had closed its Flynn investigation in January 2017 after it “did not yield any information on which to predicate further investigative efforts,” only to have it reopened by former FBI agent Strzok, who was later fired for misconduct.
U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Jensen in the Wall Street Journal:
Through the course of my review of General Flynn’s case, I concluded the proper and just course was to dismiss the case. I briefed Attorney General Barr on my findings, advised him on these conclusions and he agreed.
The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal
The documents filed on Thursday in federal court vindicate the general’s reversal [of his guilty plea]. Justice said the FBI’s interview of Mr. Flynn was “untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn,” and that the interview was not “conducted with a legitimate investigative basis.”
We recommend the filing for readers who think this couldn’t happen in America. The filing recounts how the FBI had concluded in late 2016 that there was no evidence that Mr. Flynn had colluded with Russia. But the FBI kept the investigation open after it received a transcript of Mr. Flynn’s conversation with the Russian ambassador to the U.S.
Messrs. Jensen and Barr deserve credit for a brave decision that will not be popular with some prosecutors and certainly not with the Democratic media. But as the filing notes, the cause of justice is paramount, even after a guilty plea has been made, if the evidence demands a reversal.
There is still much we don’t know, and many Russia-related documents we still do not have, and we hope Mr. Barr will continue to make them public as he cleans up after one of the most shameful episodes in FBI and Justice Department history. For now, at least Michael Flynn can get his life and reputation back.
The United States of America hereby moves to dismiss with prejudice the criminal information filed against Michael T. Flynn pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48(a). The Government has determined, pursuant to the Principles of Federal Prosecution and based on an extensive review and careful consideration of the circumstances, that continued prosecution of this case would not serve the interests of justice.
After a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information appended to the defendant’s supplemental pleadings,1 the Government has concluded that the interview of Mr. Flynn was untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn—a no longer justifiably predicated investigation that the FBI had, in the Bureau’s own words, prepared to close because it had yielded an “absence of any derogatory information.”
The Government is not persuaded that the January 24, 2017 interview was conducted with a legitimate investigative basis and therefore does not believe Mr. Flynn’s statements were material even if untrue. Moreover, we do not believe that the Government can prove either the relevant false statements or their materiality beyond a reasonable doubt.
“The advocacy function of a prosecutor includes seeking exoneration and confessing error to correct an erroneous conviction.” So in the final analysis, irrespective of Mr. Flynn’s plea, “prosecutors have a duty to do justice.” Federal prosecutors possess “immense power to strike at citizens, not with mere individual strength, but with all the force of government itself.” For that reason, “the citizen’s safety lies in the prosecutor who … seeks truth and not victims, who serves the law and not factional purposes, and who approaches [the] task with humility.” Based on a careful assessment of the balance of proof, the equities, and the federal interest served by continued prosecution of false statements that were not “material” to any bona fide investigation, the Government has concluded that the evidence is insufficient to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. The Government therefore moves to dismiss the criminal information under Rule 48(a).
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