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Sally Yates, Defending DOJ, Says Michael Flynn Talks Neutered U.S. Russia Policy

j brown's body

j brown's body

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Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates defended a sensitive Justice Department investigation into onetime Trump aide Michael Flynn on Wednesday, telling lawmakers Flynn was essentially "neutering" American sanctions and undercutting the Obama administration by "making nice" with a foreign adversary after Russia's unprecedented attack on the 2016 election.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Yates said Flynn's lies to the FBI were "absolutely material to a legitimate investigation" — contradicting the rationale the Justice Department has now offered in seeking to dismiss the case.
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Sally Yates Says Michael Flynn Talks Neutered U.S. Russia Policy : NPR

Its kind of a no brainer, isn't it?
 
She knocked down a bunch of GOP talking points today.

Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates told lawmakers Wednesday that neither President Barack Obama nor Vice President Joe Biden attempted to influence the FBI’s investigation of incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn during a January 2017 Oval Office meeting with top national security officials. ...Yates also rejected assertions that a discussion of a potential violation by Flynn of the Logan Act — a largely obsolete 18th-century law intended to prevent private citizens from interfering in foreign policy — was a central focus of the FBI’s reason for pursuing its Flynn investigation. Rather, she said, Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak and subsequent lies about those calls both publicly and to FBI agents investigating Russia’s efforts, were an obvious counterintelligence risk.

Yates corrected Graham for incorrectly asserting that the FBI had closed its case on Flynn before it interviewed him on Jan. 24, 2017. She also called it highly irregular that the Justice Department recently dropped the case against Flynn, who reversed course and sought to withdraw his guilty plea earlier this year. And Yates also emphasized that there was no effort to monitor Flynn’s communications. Though she said DOJ didn’t permit her to share exactly how the FBI obtained a recording of Flynn’s calls with Kislyak, monitoring of foreign operatives like Kislyak on U.S. soil is a routine practice. “There was no surveillance of General Flynn,” Yates said.
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Yates says Obama, Biden didn’t influence Flynn investigation - POLITICO

Apparently the DOJ would not let her say just who they were monitoring, but that she is willing to do so. Makes you wonder who they are protecting.
 
jmotivator said:
... you mean preliminary diplomatic talks by the incoming administration weighed on the policy goals of the lame duck administration?

Well, that only always happens. :lol:
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Is that what Flynn was indicted for?

Could you provide other examples of this happening?
 
j brown's body said:
Sally Yates Says Michael Flynn Talks Neutered U.S. Russia Policy : NPR

Its kind of a no brainer, isn't it?
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That was the biggest bull**** argument I heard all day. When they interviewed Flynn the election was already over, Trump had won and his administration would be conducting their own foreign policy. If Flynn "neutered" anything then it was doing so for 30 days until Obama left office. Beyond that, his urging to "only act reciprocally" can only be construed as "neutering" existing policy through extensive mental gymnastics. That testimony belied a deep political interpretation rather than any substantive legal interpretation.
 
Lutherf said:
That was the biggest bull**** argument I heard all day. When they interviewed Flynn the election was already over, Trump had won and his administration would be conducting their own foreign policy. If Flynn "neutered" anything then it was doing so for 30 days until Obama left office. Beyond that, his urging to "only act reciprocally" can only be construed as "neutering" existing policy through extensive mental gymnastics. That testimony belied a deep political interpretation rather than any substantive legal interpretation.
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Read the article:

Yates also rejected assertions that a discussion of a potential violation by Flynn of the Logan Act — a largely obsolete 18th-century law intended to prevent private citizens from interfering in foreign policy — was a central focus of the FBI’s reason for pursuing its Flynn investigation. Rather, she said, Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak and subsequent lies about those calls both publicly and to FBI agents investigating Russia’s efforts, were an obvious counterintelligence risk.

Maybe he shouldn't have lied to the FBI then, which is a crime.
 
Lutherf said:
That was the biggest bull**** argument I heard all day. When they interviewed Flynn the election was already over, Trump had won and his administration would be conducting their own foreign policy. If Flynn "neutered" anything then it was doing so for 30 days until Obama left office. Beyond that, his urging to "only act reciprocally" can only be construed as "neutering" existing policy through extensive mental gymnastics. That testimony belied a deep political interpretation rather than any substantive legal interpretation.
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Nice spin! Trump had deliberately chosen a "dead ender", the failed, former director of the largest U.S. Intel agency, the DIA, for one of the most sensitive policy and intel positions in the excutive branch, precisely because even Trump anticipated Flynn could not pass vetting for a Senate confirmed position. Flynn had taken money from RT in 2015, lied about it and was photographed sitting next to Putin at an RT anniversary dinner, just a year after the invasion and Russian occupation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine!

post said:
DarkWizard12 said:
Democrats are really going to allow this to go all the way to scotus?

What the **** did flynn do to piss them off so much? Why fight so hard on this?
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What I keep coming back to is there is no actual discussion because there is no reasonable thought process. The uniform reaction is cult-like. (creepy)
There is somehow, despite the evidence, and the history, a common assumption that Trump is a victim because that is his declared defense.
The contradictions in the history and the similar reactions of diverse parties such as Mary McCord, Judge Sullivan, and the original Flynn prosecution team are simply dismissed, along with the actual evidence as if they never existed!

Obama-deep-state plot against Trump, Obama conspiring with the FBI and other alphabet agencies to "coup" Trump, nip his presidency in the bud.
From then on, scripted, cultish assumptions substitute for reasonable discussion. Durham is the "hot fudge" on the cult's sundae!

Opinion | Bill Barr Twisted My Words in Dropping the Flynn Case. Here’s the Truth. - The New York Times
Opinion | Bill Barr Twisted My Words in Dropping the Flynn Case. Here’s the Truth. - The New York Times
By Mary B. McCord
May 10, 2020 - The F.B.I.'s interview of Mr. Flynn was constitutional, lawful and for a legitimate counterintelligence purpose. ... Doug Mills/The New York Times ... Sergey Kislyak and, more specifically, Mr. Flynn's apparent lies about those calls to ... Mary B. McCord, the former acting assistant attorney general for national ...

Ex-Justice Dept. Officials Lash Out at Barr Over Flynn and Stone Cases - The New York Times
Ex-Justice Dept. Officials Lash Out at Barr Over Flynn and Stone Cases - The New York Times
May 11, 2020 - In op-ed articles in The New York Times and The Washington Post, the former officials, Mary B. McCord and ... Ms. McCord accused the government of distorting her account of that period to help justify dropping the lying charge. ... Mr. Flynn had asked Mr. Kislyak's government to refrain from retaliating ...

Trump White House Changes Its Story on Michael Flynn - The New York Times
Trump White House Changes Its Story on Michael Flynn -
May 14, 2020 - Michael T. Flynn, President Trump's former national security adviser, pleaded guilty to lying to F.B.I. investigators.Credit...Samuel Corum for The New York Times ... Sergey I. Kislyak, they concocted a reason to keep the case open for ... Flynn was clearly willing to lie to the vice president,” Mary B. McCord, ...
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https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.191592/gov.uscourts.dcd.191592.198.4.pdf
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Lutherf said:
That was the biggest bull**** argument I heard all day. When they interviewed Flynn the election was already over, Trump had won and his administration would be conducting their own foreign policy. If Flynn "neutered" anything then it was doing so for 30 days until Obama left office. Beyond that, his urging to "only act reciprocally" can only be construed as "neutering" existing policy through extensive mental gymnastics. That testimony belied a deep political interpretation rather than any substantive legal interpretation.
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The President-elect doesn't have the authority to conduct foriegn policy.

The Constitution is pretty specific about that.
 
j brown's body said:
Is that what Flynn was indicted for?
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Flynn wasn't indicted for interfering in foreign affairs, either. :roll:

You folks will need to show the math on how Flynn's request that Russia NOT escalate tension with the US somehow hurt Obama's foreign policy goals (let alone, lame duck policy goals)?

Are you saying that Obama's diplomatic goal was to elicit an escalation of tensions with Russia?

Could you provide other examples of this happening?
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BBC NEWS | Americas | Barack Obama meets Mexican leader
 
TheDoctorWasIn said:
That doesn't normally happen.

What Flynn did was extraordinary and outrageous.
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Absolutely it does. Every incoming president has meetings with foreign leadership either in person, or has his foreign policy team establish connections and policy objectives.

That is how transitions work.
 
Lutherf said:
That was the biggest bull**** argument I heard all day. When they interviewed Flynn the election was already over, Trump had won and his administration would be conducting their own foreign policy. If Flynn "neutered" anything then it was doing so for 30 days until Obama left office. Beyond that, his urging to "only act reciprocally" can only be construed as "neutering" existing policy through extensive mental gymnastics. That testimony belied a deep political interpretation rather than any substantive legal interpretation.
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No, you heard the biggest bull**** argument in your mind's ear as you typed up that swill. Someone testified to yet another thing that shows one of your pro-Trump/anti-left conspiracy theories up for the bull**** that it is, so you have to say something.

Flynn lied about conversations with representatives of the country you all called our "greatest geopolitical foe" in 2012 because it was useful to smear Obama. He did so even though that "greatest geopolitical foe" had been caught interfering in our election. It doesn't matter what his intent was. It doesn't matter if the investigation were unjustified (it was) or who/what it was into.




And PS: it is not compelling argument to make up whatever criteria you invent for purposes of announcing that Flynn did nothing wrong.
 
jmotivator said:
Absolutely it does. Every incoming president has meetings with foreign leadership either in person, or has his foreign policy team establish connections and policy objectives.

That is how transitions work.
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No, it is not.

It is completely out of the ordinary for a President-elect's incoming administration to undermine the current President's administration.
 
RetiredUSN said:
With nothing illegal going on with the calls.

You got nothing but a coerced plea.
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:lamo

All pleas are coerced: the prosecutor demands and the judge typically imposes a sentence significantly higher than was dangled in plea negotiations.

There's an additional layer of coercion when the defendant cannot make bail: they can easily spend 6-12 months sitting in jail waiting for trial, thus losing their job, their home, their everything, if they assert their right. So they end up pleading guilty even when innocent because as bad as a criminal record is, it's better than being released homeless and hopeless after acquittal.





You don't care about coerced pleas. You don't care if the police pressure an illegal alien sex trafficker into pleading guilty. You only care because someone on Team Trump plead guilty. Like FISA warrants, etc. You lot wax righteous (and wax stupid) about this crap only when the target is an R. It's transparent. Why bother?
 
jmotivator said:
Absolutely it does. Every incoming president has meetings with foreign leadership either in person, or has his foreign policy team establish connections and policy objectives.

That is how transitions work.
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Do those meetings secretly undermine the current administration's foreign policy? Do people on the incoming president's team then lie to the FBI about the meetings? Are the meetings with meetings the incoming administration's party called "our greatest geopolitical foe" in the last election, in order to attack the current administration?
 
Mr Person said:
:lamo

All pleas are coerced: the prosecutor demands and the judge typically imposes a sentence significantly higher than was dangled in plea negotiations.

There's an additional layer of coercion when the defendant cannot make bail: they can easily spend 6-12 months sitting in jail waiting for trial, thus losing their job, their home, their everything, if they assert their right. So they end up pleading guilty even when innocent because as bad as a criminal record is, it's better than being released homeless and hopeless after acquittal.





You don't care about coerced pleas. You don't care if the police pressure an illegal alien sex trafficker into pleading guilty. You only care because someone on Team Trump plead guilty. Like FISA warrants, etc. You lot wax righteous (and wax stupid) about this crap only when the target is an R. It's transparent. Why bother?
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This as about Flynn, not your usual BS of shifting and deflections.

Flynn was setup, so deal with it.
 
Khayembii Communique said:
Read the article:

Yates also rejected assertions that a discussion of a potential violation by Flynn of the Logan Act — a largely obsolete 18th-century law intended to prevent private citizens from interfering in foreign policy — was a central focus of the FBI’s reason for pursuing its Flynn investigation. Rather, she said, Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak and subsequent lies about those calls both publicly and to FBI agents investigating Russia’s efforts, were an obvious counterintelligence risk.

Maybe he shouldn't have lied to the FBI then, which is a crime.
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Yes, she espoused at great length on counterintelligence and while her concerns were apparently quite deeply held they also made no sense. The idea of Russia blackmailing Flynn for lying to Pence is absolutely absurd. If there was no Logan Act violation then there was no "leverage" and that's what the GOP senators were trying to get at, though not particularly effectively. Furthermore, to call anything Flynn told the FBI a "lie" is a stretch and a half. He didn't discuss anything about removing sanctions or anything related to an administration response to sanctions. He merely asked that the Russian response to whatever Obama did be proportional. It's like if your wife asked you why you were talking to the hot chick at the grocery store and you told her you didn't talk to anybody and then she showed you a picture of you exchanging pleasantries with the girl at the checkout.
 
TheDoctorWasIn said:
No, it is not.

It is completely out of the ordinary for a President-elect's incoming administration to undermine the current President's administration.
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I'll ask again: How does asking the Russian government to not escalate tensions by retaliating against the Obama administration's sanctions undermine the Obama administration? Are you arguing that Obama's goals with those sanctions were to illicit retaliations from Russia on his way out of office? :doh

And yes, EVERY incoming Administration has meeting with foreign nations to discuss their upcoming administration policy goals, and the very process of telling those dignitaries what the policy goals of the incoming administration are undermines the outgoing administration. It is the incoming administration that a foreign government will be working with, there is no point negotiating with the lame duck sine they will be gone in a month.

Hell, Obama's open statements as candidate and incoming president regarding the diplomatic reset with the Russian government no doubt undermined any existing Bush administration diplomatic goals because the Russians knew that they would be working with Obama in a matter of months either way.
 
RetiredUSN said:
This as about Flynn, not your usual BS of shifting and deflections.

Flynn was setup, so deal with it.
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Absolutely Flynn was set up... by himself!! And he did it by lying to the Vice President-elect. What's more, the Russians knew he had lied to the Vice President-elect. This fact alone made him vulnerable to exploitation by Russian intelligence. People have betrayed their country for less than the prospect of losing a job they've sought for their entire lives.
 
Lmao, Yates made chubby, greasy Senators from the South cry.


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Thought had by person at the White House: If you can remember, man, woman, car, camera, TV, you are fit to lead a country and no one has anything to worry about
 
TheDoctorWasIn said:
The President-elect doesn't have the authority to conduct foriegn policy.

The Constitution is pretty specific about that.
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The president elect and Flynn weren't conducting foreign policy. The US foreign policy in question were the Russian sanctions. What Flynn discussed was for the RUSSIANS to not escalate. That isn't conducting US foreign policy, that is requesting the Russians moderate theirs.
 
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