Barbara McQuade, who served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan under Barack Obama, is a law professor and, of course, NBC/MSNBC analyst (funny how they all became ‘analysts’ for liberal media, right?) did her best to argue against the importance of the new evidence regarding Gen. Michael Flynn that led to the dismissal of the charges against him.
We point this out because she repeats common positions on this on the left, plus she’s just utterly wrong, as Undercover Huber points out. She’s also rebutted by the interview that Attorney General Bill Barr gave, explaining the reason for the dismissal.
Newly released documents in Flynn case are not “Brady” material, defined as evidence favorable to the accused that is material to guilt or punishment. Flynn’s crime was lying to the FBI. Agent notes about interview strategy do not negate Flynn’s lie.
— Barb McQuade (@BarbMcQuade) April 30, 2020
Nor do Flynn documents show a “perjury trap,” which is where no legitimate investigative purpose exists for questioning. IG found FBI’s Russia probe was properly predicated. Flynn had told Russia to ignore US sanctions! FBI had legitimate purpose and even duty to ask him about it
— Barb McQuade (@BarbMcQuade) April 30, 2020
So many things wrong right there.
First, while IG Michael Horowitz found that there was predicate to begin an investigation, that doesn’t mean he didn’t find there wasn’t political bias along the way, he did. As U.S. Attorney John Durham said, he has access to more information about the matter than did IG Michael Horowitz and he disagreed with the conclusion that there was proper predicate. Nor does finding that there may have been predicate to start justify everything that followed or the action against Flynn. As Bill Barr explained in his CBS interview, there was no legitimate investigative purpose to go after Flynn.
Second, it’s completely false that Flynn “told Russia to ignore US sanctions,” presumably meaning he argued against American interests/the Obama administration. As Barr also explained, the argument that Flynn somehow said something improper on sanctions is fundamentally wrong, there was nothing wrong in the phone call, as Barr observed. It was perfectly normal for Flynn, as the new national security adviser, would talk with the Russian Ambassador.
Here’s how Barr described it:
And that call, there was nothing wrong with it whatever. In fact, it was laudable. He– and it was nothing inconsistent with the Obama administration’s policies. And it was in U.S. interests. He was saying to the Russians, you know, “Don’t escalate.” And they asked him if he remembered saying that, and he said he didn’t remember that.
How awful, telling the Russian not to escalate the situation! What a crime!
Not only is the statement “Flynn had told Russia to ignore US sanctions” 100% false, it doesn’t even make sense if it were true https://t.co/GIf827GFwg
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 8, 2020
First, Flynn apparently told the Russians not to “escalate”, or respond in a “reciprocal” way to the Obama lame duck sanctions. I say apparently, because nobody has published the transcript of what was actually said by Flynn. So you don’t know.
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 8, 2020
Second, even if Flynn had said “ignore them”, if Putin really does “ignore” the sanctions, that’s a WIN for the U.S
Their guys would have still been expelled, their premises closed, and key people under sanctions, while the US folks would still be in Russia & NOT under sanctions
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 8, 2020
Oh but that was just a delaying tactic so that Trump could eventually lift the Russian sanctions as soon as he got into office, right? Great theory, except his admin imposed *more* Russian sanctions. And helped seriously weaken Russia with US oil/gas drilling expansion
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 8, 2020
Plus Trump dropped bombs on Russian in Syria, pulled out of the Iran Deal (Russia’s surrogate in the Middle East), gave lethal weapons to Ukraine and tons of other moves that blow up the whole Russian asset theory that has now been definitively debunked.
You guys have lost the ability to even think straight due to your obsession with Orange Man Bad
/ENDS
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 8, 2020
But this is Obama DOJ plus MSNBC, double hit of wrong.
HT: Twitchy
Join the conversation as a VIP Member