Report: Flynn to Implicate Trump (Holy Crap)

[Guest]

[_EAllusion]

Can't link it right now but a newly released email proves the Trump transition team said Russia "threw the election" for Trump. This is huge folks. Someone link it please, I'm on phone.

I already linked that story. The real damning part it is it is in the context of advising to weaken sanctions due to said Russian assistance.

As I said, the best possible defense of that story, when combined with the other stories we already know, is that this was sarcasm.

[_EAllusion]

Trump's team is claiming that Trump's tweet in which he basically confesses to obstruction of justice was actually authored by one of his lawyers. That arguably makes it worse, not better for him. On an aside though, it's funny that lawyering for Trump means falling on your sword and being portrayed to the entire nation as one of the least competent lawyers ever.

[_EAllusion]

WaterDog, who increasingly appears to be straight trolling, is taking the defensive approach that there's no evidence that Russia was behind the election hacking.

Here's Matt Tait (i.e. Pwnallthethings) breaking down how painfully clear it was that Russia was behind the hacks:

http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/01/coul ... desta.html

There's more evidence than this, but that's already getting quite obvious.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Of course he'd be prioritized, but not over everybody, and this doesn't serve to simplify his complex business relationships. Vetting him would require a lot of resources. His having not been cleared yet isn't to say that he won't be. I personally know a guy with a felony murder conviction and he holds a TSSCI. It would take something pretty big to get Kushner denied. I think it's ill advised for him to be involved either way though. Ironically the guy who seems to hate Jared the most is Steve Bannon, lib enemy numero uno.

No.

- Doc

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

From r/goodlongposts:

wyldcat 493 points 16 hours ago*

All Seth Abramson's tweets in this thread are interesting, too much to quote here.

1/ First, it's important to understand that Mueller has entered into a plea deal with Flynn in which Flynn pleads guilty to far less than the available evidence suggests he could be charged with. This indicates that he has cut a deal with Mueller to cooperate in the Russia probe.
2/ We've already seen Mueller do this once before in the probe, with George Papadopoulos—who was charged with the same crime as Flynn, Making False Statements, to secure his cooperation with the Russia probe. The Papadopoulos plea affidavit emphasized facts were being left out.
6/ Deals like this are offered only when a witness can incriminate someone "higher up the food-chain" than them. In the case of the nation's former National Security Advisor, the only people above him in the executive-branch hierarchy are the President and the Vice President.
7/ There may be other targets in the Russia probe—such as Attorney General Sessions—at Flynn's same level in the hierarchy, but unless he could incriminate two or more of them, a deal like this would not be offered to him. And there aren't two or more at his level in this case.
8/ What this indicates—beyond any serious doubt—is the following: Special Counsel Bob Mueller, the former Director of the FBI, believes Mike Flynn's testimony will incriminate the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, or both of these two men.
9/ For this reason, what's about to happen in 50 minutes is far and away the biggest development thus far in the Trump-Russia probe, and likely the biggest development in U.S. politics since President Nixon resigned from office during the Watergate scandal.
This is historic.
15/ Flynn met with the Russian ambassador and Jared Kushner in early December 2016 to discuss a "Kremlin back-channel" that some have argued would have constituted an act of espionage. Did Mr. Trump know about this? Did he direct Flynn and/or Kushner to pursue this back-channel?
17/ Indeed, today's plea coming so close on the heels of Mueller asking Kushner to come in and talk about Flynn suggests Kushner is also a target of the Russia probe. Perhaps Mueller didn't think Kushner would flip on family, so he set him up to Make False Statements about Flynn.
18/ This is critical: Flynn pleading guilty today means he was cooperating with Mueller before this. You don't offer value to a prosecution after you plead, you offer it beforehand—via what's called a "proffer" of information (that incriminates others). That's what earns you a deal.
19/ So it's entirely possible that when Mueller called Kushner in to talk about Flynn, he already had everything Flynn planned to give him—meaning he was testing Kushner to see if Kushner would lie about events Mueller was already fully informed about via Flynn's prior proffer.
20/ That proffer may have incriminated not just Trump and Kushner and—perhaps—Pence, but any number of Trump NatSec (or simply "top") aides: Manafort, Sessions, Clovis, Hicks, Lewandowski, Page, and Gordon, to name a few. We may not know, however, until someone else is indicted.
26/ As I've said, we now have reason to believe—to a near-certainty—Flynn can incriminate Trump. And as noted, the range of potential crimes is vast. Did Flynn tell Trump and/or Pence the truth about his Russia contacts as they were happening—despite what the White House claimed?
27/ Remember, besides a long course of conduct involving both Obstruction of Justice and Witness Tampering—of Sally Yates, of Comey, of Jr., of Flynn himself, of Sessions, and of various Congressional investigators—Trump is being looked at for Aiding and Abetting Computer Crimes.
28/ In the Aiding and Abetting Computer Crimes probe, the question is a) when Trump knew Russia was committing crimes against the United States, and b) whether and how Trump offered Russia anything of financial or political value ostensibly for "free" after he had this knowledge.
29/ If Donald Trump learned Russia was committing crimes against America and subsequently offered—unilaterally—policy shifts of political or financial value directly to Russian agents either himself or through intermediaries, he's guilty of a crime as great as the underlying one.
30/ We know Trump knew there was a "high likelihood" (the legal standard in this case) Russia was committing crimes against America as of August 17, 2016, when he received his first security briefing as a presidential candidate. A speech in late July suggests he knew it earlier.
31/ But given that Mike Flynn dined with Vladimir Putin in Moscow in December of 2015—after he'd been a key Trump campaign foreign policy and national security advisor for four months—it's possible Trump had this knowledge as early as the fall of 2015 or the winter of 2015-2016.
35/ Remember that Trump not only tried to get Comey to drop the case against Flynn—suggesting he was scared about what that case could uncover—he also tried to convince his aides to let him re-hire Flynn after his firing and then called Flynn to tell him to "stay strong."
36/ While Trump also exhibited some fear about what Manafort could reveal to investigators—keeping him on as an unpaid advisor through February 2017 after "firing" him as an unpaid Campaign Manager in the summer of 2016—he's shown much more concern about Mike Flynn's situation.
38/ One thing is clear: Mueller charged Flynn with the most innocuous lies he could to shield from the public—and far more importantly, from President Trump and his allies (at least for now)—the extent of what Flynn has told him. A longer charging document would reveal too much.
39/ The first allegation in the single-count charging document is that Flynn lied about asking Russia to moderate its response to the US decision to level new sanctions in December 2016. Presumably, Flynn made this request on a representation Trump would undo those new sanctions.
40/ The second allegation, dating from 12/22/16—the first was from 12/29/16—involves Flynn asking Russia to take a particular stance on a UN resolution. While both these acts violate the Logan Act—private citizens can't negotiate with foreign governments—they're just appetizers.
41/ For Mueller to be so guarded in what information he's willing to reveal in his single-count indictment—as we know Mike Flynn lied to the FBI about far more serious things than Mueller has disclosed—confirms, indirectly, that Flynn's proffer to the FBI was quite explosive.
43/ But remember, when the FBI sat down to discuss Flynn's Russia contacts with him, they would have asked him about all his recent Russia contacts—including, for instance, his December '15 trip to Moscow to dine with Putin. So the topics Flynn lied about could date back years.
Seth Abramson's resumé:
44/ (When I get a number of new readers—as today—people ask me to restate my bona fides: Harvard Law School, 2001; public defender for eight years in two jurisdictions; trained at Georgetown/Harvard as a criminal investigator; represented 2000+ defendants in cases up to homicide;
45/ have worked at 3 public defenders since 1996—one federal—and have testified in federal criminal cases as a defense investigator; current member in good standing of the New Hampshire bar and the federal bar for the District of New Hampshire; I now teach legal advocacy at UNH.)
EDIT: Thanks for the gold :)

[Guest]

[Guest]

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I didn't. I'm not sure why I missed that. I'll take a look.

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

Again, no evidence of Russians. Purely conjecture based on a pattern employed by some other phishing attempts. Which, if I were the one doing this, and particularly if I wanted people to think it was the Russians, I'd follow this same pattern. Cake.

Your argument that both that there is no evidence of Russians and that the hack could simply be made to look like Russians did it in a frame attempt. That's consistent.