Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Justice, Lawyering, Politics

President Obama Declares “There Is No Precedent That Anybody Can Find” For The Flynn Motion [He May Want To Call Eric Holder]

President_Barack_Obama Former President Barack Obama is being quoted from a private call that the “rule of law is at risk” after the Justice Department moved to dismiss the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Obama reportedly told members of the Obama Alumni Association that “There is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free.”  Without doubting the exhaustive search referenced by President Obama, he might have tried calling one “alum”: former Attorney General Eric Holder.  Holder moved to dismiss such a case based on prosecutorial errors in front of the very same judge, Judge Emmet Sullivan. [Notably, CNN covered the statements this morning without noting the clearly false claim over the lack of any precedent for the Flynn motion]

 The Obama statement is curious on various levels.  First, the exhaustive search may have been hampered by the fact that Flynn was never charged with perjury. He was charged with a single count of false statements to a federal investigator under 18 U.S.C. 1001. I previously wrote that the Justice Department should move to dismiss the case due to recently disclosed evidence and thus I was supportive of the decision of Attorney General Bill Barr.
Second, there is ample precedent for this motion even though, as I noted in the column calling for this action, such dismissals are rare.  There is a specific rule created for this purpose.  Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48(a) states the government may dismiss an indictment, information or complaint “with leave of the court.” Moreover, such dismissals are tied to other rules mandating such action when there is evidence of prosecutorial misconduct or fundamental questions about the underlying case from the view of the prosecutors.  I wrote recently about the serious concerns over the violation of Brady and standing court orders in the production and statements of the prosecutors in the case.

Third, there is also case law.  In Rinaldi v. United States, 434 U.S. 22 (1977) which addressed precedent under Petite v. United States, 361 U.S. 529 (1960) dealing with the dangers of multiple prosecutions.   There are also related cases in Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U. S. 121 (1959), and Abbate v. United States, 359 U. S. 187 (1959).  The Rinaldi decision involved a petitioner convicted of state offenses arising out of a robbery, who believed that the government should have moved to dismiss a federal offense arising out of the same robbery under the Department’s Petite policy. The Court laid out the standard for such motions.  The thrust of that controversy concerned double jeopardy and dual jurisdictions. However, the point was that the rule is key in protecting such constitutional principles and that courts should be deferential in such moves by the Department: “In light of the parallel purposes of the Government’s Petite policy and the fundamental constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy, the federal courts should be receptive, not circumspect, when the Government seeks leave to implement that policy.”

There are also lower court decisions on this inherent authority.  For example, in the D.C. Circuit (where the Flynn case was brought), the ruling in United States v. Fokker Servs. B.V., No. 15-3016 (D.C. Cir. 2016) reaffirms the deference to prosecutors on such questions. The Court noted that this deference extends to core constitutional principles:

“The Executive’s primacy in criminal charging decisions is long settled. That authority stems from the Constitution’s delegation of “take Care” duties, U.S. Const. art. II, § 3, and the pardon power, id. § 2, to the Executive Branch. See United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 464 (1996); In re Aiken Cnty., 725 F.3d 255, 262-63 (D.C. Cir. 2013). Decisions to initiate charges, or to dismiss charges once brought, “lie[] at the core of the Executive’s duty to see to the faithful execution of the laws.” Cmty. for Creative Non-Violence v. Pierce, 786 F.2d 1199, 1201 (D.C. Cir. 1986). The Supreme Court thus has repeatedly emphasized that“[w]hether to prosecute and what charge to file or bring before a grand jury are decisions that generally rest in the prosecutor’s discretion.” United States v. Batchelder, 442 U.S. 114, 124 (1979); see Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 364 (1978).

Correspondingly, “judicial authority is . . . at its most limited” when reviewing the Executive’s exercise of discretion over charging determinations.  . . . The Executive routinely undertakes those assessments and is well equipped to do so.”

Fourth, there are cases where the Department has moved to dismiss cases on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct or other grounds touching on due process, ethical requirements or other concerns.  One that comes to mind is United States v. Stevens where President Obama’s own Attorney General, Eric Holder, asked the same judge in the Flynn case to dismiss that case.  That was just roughly ten years ago.  As with Flynn, there was an allegation of withheld evidence by prosecutors.

Eric_Holder_official_portraitAt the time of the motion Holder declared “The Department of Justice must always ensure that any case in which it is involved is handled fairly and consistent with its commitment to justice. Under oftentimes trying conditions, the attorneys who serve in this Department live up to those principles on a daily basis.”  What is obvious is the new guidelines issued at the time were honored in the breach during the Flynn prosecution.

While people of good faith can certainly disagree on the wisdom or basis for the Flynn motion, it is simply untrue if President Obama is claiming that there is no precedent or legal authority for the motion.

The rare statement by President Obama is also interesting in light of the new evidence. As I discussed in a column this morning in the Hill newspaper, the new material shows that Obama was following the investigation of Flynn who he previously dismissed from a high-level position and personally intervened with President Donald Trump to seek to block his appointment as National Security Adviser. Obama reportedly discussed the use of the Logan Act against Flynn. For a person concerned with precedent, that was also a curious focus.  The Logan Act is widely viewed as unconstitutional and has never been used to successfully convicted a single person since the early days of the Republic.  Now that is dubious precedent.

560 thoughts on “President Obama Declares “There Is No Precedent That Anybody Can Find” For The Flynn Motion [He May Want To Call Eric Holder]”

  1. Point #1: Former President Obama after graduating from Harvard practiced civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development in Chicago ( very narrow field not contributing to wealth of knowledge of practicing law in general ); Point #2 : Former President Obama forfeited
    his law license in 2007 ( self-explanatory ); Point #3 : to expect a professional commentary on law matters from a person who is as far from from the field as any lay individual not being jet-propulsion engineer commenting on specific NASA projects .

  2. Stalin and Mao always got the answers and confessions the demanded before they hanged the victims. The FBI under Mueller and Comey also got Flynn to answer correctly.

  3. I am really not that harsh about some things. Maybe Obama simply forgot about the Stevens case, and isn’t lying. But there is little doubt that somebody in his circle is going to point this article out to him. So for me, the question is, will Obama correct himself and apologize for this misstatement?

    I am hoping he will, but I am not holding my breath.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

      1. Good cites! I like this statement in one of them:

        “Whether what he says bears any relationship to the facts is politically irrelevant. A talented con man or a slick politician does not waste his time trying to convince knowledgeable skeptics. His job is to keep the true believers believing. He is not going to convince the others anyway.”

        That ties in with what I said the other day about one function of the main stream media being to provide “social support” for those in cognitive dissonance to continue to believe, and even become more committed to the false belief:
        ————–
        Disconfirmed expectancy was famously illustrated in the 1956 book When Prophecy Fails by Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken, and Stanley Schachter. The book gave an inside account of a doomsday cult led by Dorothy Martin (given the alias “Marion Keech” to preserve her privacy), of Chicago. Martin claimed to have received messages from aliens forecasting a flood that would end the world on December 21, 1954. Festinger and his researchers took the chance to pretend to be a part of the cult in order to observe its behaviors and reaction when the flood failed to occur. Furthermore, Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance, which would be published the following year, predicted that the failure of the prophecy would not break the cult. Instead the group members would look for ways to justify their actions and maintain confidence in the cult.[1]

        Some members abandoned the group when the prophecy failed to be fulfilled, but most stayed. Those who stayed did not have weakened resolve. There was in fact an increase in their proselytization and their fervor for the new religion. The prediction of the Earth’s destruction became a disconfirmed expectancy which resulted in the dissonant cognitions “the world is going to end” and “the world did not end”. Those who left the cult accepted that they were wrong and discarded their false cognition. Those who stayed instead looked for ways to explain the event in a way that would maintain their beliefs. Eventually they came to the agreement that the planet was spared because of their prayers and actions. Festinger et al. theorized that five conditions must be present for this to occur; that is, there are five conditions that must be met such that a disconfirmation can lead to increased strength of belief: strong belief, commitment to the belief, the possibility that the belief is false, recognition of the disconfirmation, and strong social support (these are detailed below).[2]

        5. The individual believer must have social support

        The fifth condition is especially important as it states the specific circumstance under which the belief can continue after disconfirmation. Points one and two are necessary conditions that are likely to influence the believer to be resistant to changing the belief. Points three and four are the factors that indicate the belief is flawed and should be absolutely discarded. Thus, the believer is subject to a large amount of cognitive dissonance: “I believe something that is not true.” In the absence of adequate social support, it is likely that the belief will be discarded to alleviate this pressure.[3]

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disconfirmed_expectancy

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

    2. Squeeky– Little recognized–and seldom admitted when it is recognized–is the fact that Obama does not know much law.

      Don’t know much ’bout history neither, as the old song goes.

      He is a well-pressed suit stuffed with bull s**t.

      1. Young is a Trump follower criticizing another president for ignorance of the law and history.

        Obama knows more law and history than any other president since at least Nixon, with a close call with Clinton.

        He also was the Harvard Law Review Editor – supported in that by the conservative law students – and a professor of law lecturing on constitutional law at the prestigious and conservative U of Chicago. No doubt Young’s resume will be more impressive once he graduates middle school.

          1. And not much liked by other professors who saw him as a poseur.

          2. Statement Regarding Barack Obama
            The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as “Senior Lecturer.”

            From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School’s Senior Lecturers has high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.

            https://www.law.uchicago.edu/media

        2. Book– He was a Harvard Law Review editor and broke with tradition by not publishing an aricle in his own name. Another member of the team said she thought Obama wanted the title but not the actual job.

          How many other legal scholars think they have been to 57 states and pronounce ‘corps’ as ‘corpse’ and think Austrians speak ‘Austrian’, and on and on. His education is only a showy glaze with nothing of substance beneath it.

          Re middle school remark. You and Seth are often incapable of making a point without tagging on an insult. You haven’t liked it much when you have been treated with your own rules.

          What made you such nasty creatures?

          1. Braford Berenson, law school classmate, associate WH counsel under Bush, past Federalist Society officer

            “…You don’t become president of the Harvard Law Review, no matter how political, or how liberal the place is, by virtue of affirmative action, or by virtue of not being at the very top of your class in terms of legal ability. Barack was at the very top of his class in terms of legal ability. He had a first-class legal mind and, in my view, was selected to be president of the Review entirely on his merits.

            … I never regarded him as kind of a racial special pleader, or a person looking for race-based benefits, either for himself or others. I think as a policy matter, he supported affirmative action and believed in the arguments for it. But unlike many people on the left, he was also willing to acknowledge that it had costs, and he could at least appreciate the arguments on the other side. …

            Just in a political sense, what kind of a person were you looking for [to serve as president]? …

            The block of conservatives on the Law Review my year I think was eager to avoid having any of the most political people on the left govern the Review. I mean, the first bedrock criterion, I think for almost all of the editors, was to have somebody with an absolutely first-rate legal mind who would be able to engage competently with the nation’s top legal scholars on their scholarship and on these articles, and who would provide the intellectual leadership for the Review that it always needed. That was non-negotiable for almost everybody right or left.

            But there were a number of people that would have met that criterion. There were at least a large handful who probably had the intellectual and personal characteristics to be good leaders of the Review. From among those, the conservatives were eager to have somebody who would treat them fairly, who would listen to what they had to say, who would not abuse the powers of the office to favor his ideological soul mates and punish those who had different views. Somebody who would basically play it straight, I think was really what we were looking for.

            Was that hard to find?

            It was very hard to find. And ultimately, the conservatives on the Review supported Barack as president in the final rounds of balloting because he fit that bill far better than the other people who were running. …

            We had all worked with him over the course of a year. And we had all spent countless hours in the presence of Barack, as well as others of our colleagues who were running, in Gannett House [the Law Review offices], and so you get a pretty good sense of people over the course of a year of late nights working on the Review. You know who the rabble-rousers are. You know who the people are who are blinded by their politics. And you know who the people are who, despite their politics, can reach across and be friendly to and make friends with folks who have different views. And Barack very much fell into the latter category. …

            [After Obama is selected,] he does a very able job as president. Puts out what I think was a very good volume of the Review. Does a great job managing the difficult and complicated interpersonal dynamics on the Review. And manages somehow, in an extremely fractious group, to keep everybody almost happy.

            Some of the people who are not as happy as others, I think much to their surprise, are some of the African American people who believe that now it’s their turn.

            Absolutely right, absolutely right. I think Barack took 10 times as much grief from those on the left on the Review as from those of us on the right. And the reason was, I think there was an expectation among those editors on the left that he would affirmatively use the modest powers of his position to advance the cause, whatever that was. They thought, you know, finally there’s an African American president of the Harvard Law Review; it’s our turn, and he should aggressively use this position, and his authority and his bully pulpit to advance the political or philosophical causes that we all believe in.

            And Barack was reluctant to do that. It’s not that he was out of sympathy with their views, but his first and foremost goal, it always seemed to me, was to put out a first-rate publication. And he was not going to let politics or ideology get in the way of doing that. …

            He had some discretion as president to exercise an element of choice for certain of the positions on the masthead; it wasn’t wide discretion, but he had some. And I think a lot of the minority editors on the Review expected him to use that discretion to the maximum extent possible to empower them. To put them in leadership positions, to burnish their resumes, and to give them a chance to help him and help guide the Review. He didn’t do that. He declined to exercise that discretion to disrupt the results of votes or of tests that were taken by various people to assess their fitness for leadership positions.

            He was unwilling to undermine, based on the way I viewed it, meritocratic outcomes or democratic outcomes in order to advance a racial agenda. That earned him a lot of recrimination and criticism from some on the left, particularly some of the minority editors of the Review. …

            It confirmed the hope that I and others had had at the time of the election that he would basically be an honest broker, that he would not let ideology or politics blind him to the enduring institutional interests of the Review. It told me that he valued the success of his own presidency of the Review above scoring political points of currying favor with his political supporters.

            https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/choice2008/obama/harvard.html

            1. Obama without a teleprompter is a stuttering okie doke. There is no way Obama could stand and answer reporter’s questions on the fly the way Trump does. Obama uh’d and stammered along answering two questions an hour! It was exhausting listening to him filibuster every single question! But of course the media praised Obamas endlessly. Let’s just say that Obama does NOT have a way with words UNLESS they have been ‘prepared and put on a teleprompter for him to read.

          2. Young, you’re a sociopath. To present yourself as a ‘victim’ after all your smear attempts is about as obnoxious as it gets.

            1. Seth of Lovely Nails Salon– I am not the only one who has your number. Love the cute posts at the top of this thread.

            2. “Young, you’re a sociopath. ”

              There you go again Paint Chips. You don’t learn. When you name call you do that to hurt another person so that was your intent with the above statement. Are you so stupid you can’t learn that fact of life? Now when you call my friend a sociopath I have to stand up for him and let him know that a woman said you have all sorts of quirks. She questions your sexuality and you are known around the nail salon as Buttercup. This is known as a type of quid pro quo, something in earlier days you claimed to know a lot about.

              So far we have only been talking about your best features.

        3. He also was the Harvard Law Review Editor

          No, he was the ‘President’ of the review, an office-political position not analogous to review editors at other schools. See Wm Dyer (BeldarBlog) on how law review editors are ordinarily selected and how his position differed. See in particular Dyer’s remarks on how few case notes Obama wrote while on the review (only one has been identified). Recall also the contemporary at the Review who said that Obama behaved as if he wished to ‘be’ the President of the Review as opposed to accomplishing anything with the job.

          professor of law lecturing on constitutional law at the prestigious and conservative U of Chicago.

          No, he was a 40% time lecturer. NB lawyers and faculty are meticulous about titles and status. See Dyer on this point. Defenders of Obama have made it a point to emphasize that the terms of his employment did not require he publish or attend faculty meetings – because he did not publish or (per Richard Epstein) attend faculty meetings. The up-or-out system which applies to ordinary faculty did not apply to him.

          See Dyer on constitutional law. Dyer avers that it can be taught well, but an unschooled professor can fake it in constitutional law more readily than in any other branch of law. Dyer said he’d have been more impressed had Obama taught commercial law or tax law, where you have to know your onions. Fun fact: Anita Hill was a specialist in commercial law during her time at the Univ. of Oklahoma.

          Of course, the University of Chicago is not ‘conservative’. It just has departments which are open to libertarians and it has been somewhat resistant to certain faculty fads.

          You just cannot get it right.

          1. I refer TIA and Young to the U of Chicago and conservative Harvard classmate statements above.

          2. Absurd, for as long as I can remember you’ve been pushing this quasi-racist narrative that Barack Obama is a total mediocrity who somehow became the ultimate token Black.

            In order to buy your narrative, we’re supposed to believe that a man who speaks in perfect paragraphs isn’t really all that smart. As though any pimp-like hustler can talk in perfect paragraphs when not using slang.

            In short your narrative is utterly ridiculous in every sense.

            1. You refer to it as quasi-racism, because it is your racist mindset that translates non-racist language into something you can understand. In other words, if all you have is a hammer…

            2. TIA’s puny mind cannot allow that some opponents are actually accomplished – by far more accomplished than he or the buffoon in office currently. In contrast to that smallness of spirit, lets acknowledge Trump’s accomplishments and qualities, starting with winning office in an election he lost, inheriting a bunch of money, being dashing and flashy until he went to seed. being a middling reality TV star, but a world class self promoter and con man.

              Hear hear!

              1. Book– ” TIA’s puny mind.” There it is again. You are incapable of framing an agument without insults. Estovir could probably tell us what is wrong with you but I can suggest only that you have grown nasty because in personal life you are ignored or shunned as a kook and you respond like an adolescent kook.

            3. Seth– You say it is racist to say someone is mediocre. Sounds like you have an ingrained racist stereotype. “Mediocrity = Black”. Shame on you.

            4. I can remember you’ve been pushing this quasi-racist narrative that Barack Obama is a total mediocrity who somehow became the ultimate token Black.

              Actually what I give you is a fairly dry precis of his work history. What your handlers tell you to give me in reply is red herring. Because that’s your only stock-in-trade.

              What BO might have done in order to be taken seriously by outsiders was (1) teach in a specialty where you can’t fake it; (2) contribute to scholarly literature; (3) support himself practicing law; (4) hold an executive position without perpetrating some disaster; or (5) some combination of the above.

              1. Absurd, Obama was an Illinois State Senator for 10 years while teaching part time at the University of Chicago. And you would have us believe that any slacker could finagle that situation. No wonder you’re ‘Absurd’!

                1. youre that nail salon owner who does fuchsia as your favorite color

                  You are a deranged yapping mongrel

                2. It’s quite unremarkable for state legislators to have outside employment. It used to be unusual for them to not have such employment.

                  Again, he was a 40% time lecturer. A meticulous faculty member will spend about seven hours on a lecture, six to prepare and one to deliver. (Less if you can recycle your syllibi). You prepare 42 lectures and two examinations and you’re close to 300 hours a semester. Another 70 hours to correct papers and tests. You teach one course a semester. You need a few weeks in the summer to prepare your syllibi.

              2. Absurd– Good 5 tests for not being an air bag stuffed into a well pressed suit. Obama fails all of them.

              3. What TIA gave us was stupid right wing spin only blind haters like him would believe. By his supposed standards – remember, he’s a Trump supporter, so obvioulsy not a very keen evaluator of either ability or character – absent publishing research Obama’s time as an editor and then Law Review president and graduation magma cum laude are nothing and something that our resident ambulance chasers can rightfully scoff at. Next his already established interest in political activism – he went to Cambridge after Chicago – instead of getting fat on WS, which he continued with maximum success while also by the way, becoming a U of Chicago law professor don’t meet the supposed lofty goals of TIA in his basement. What a sad joke.

                1. The University of Chicago is a research institution. In any research institution, actual research and contributions to the scholarly literature are expected of a regular faculty member if you want to keep your job. This applies for those at selective teaching institutions as well, but with more modest goals. If you’re at a common-and-garden teaching institution, you can get away with an application for tenure with one or two papers. At a place like Chicago, that never flies, even for people with some extra protection. These aren’t ‘lofty goals’. This is expected of any regular faculty member. I once saw a scholar-teacher granted tenure with just four papers on her vita. One of those four was in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, the top journal in that field. Four’s pretty much a lower bound, and Obama was four papers short (really, six or seven papers short. The professor in my family published 19 papers over the period running from 1980 to 1997, brought in scads of grant money, and was on a scrum of dissertation committees. He was awarded full professor, but on a split vote. He’s not at some swank place, but at a solid state university. That’s faculty life at research institutions.

                  You’ve been denying what Obama defenders like James Hanley of Adrian College freely acknowledge: he was never a regular faculty member. He was never reviewed for tenure and never required to submit an application to remain employed. So, he never produced what faculty at research institutions and swank teaching institutions are required to produce. He was also expendable, because he only taught electives. And, we have reason to believe he performed no university service (Prof. Epstein’s testimony) and was hired contrary to procedure. Ordinarily, by the way, the term ‘senior lecturer’ is awarded to regular faculty who have been appointed to the bench and other positions in government. Richard Posner held the title. Dyer had an explicit discussion of how the title applied to Obama was not like the title applied to Posner.

                  Again, he only practiced law for three years and never did it full time nor did he achieve any professional milestones doing it, such as a partnership. And it took him two years to land a position with a firm. Primarily, he was a law teacher, but, as anyone can see, not much of that.

                2. Next his already established interest in political activism –

                  A waste of time when it’s not actually nefarious. There is nothing Alinskyite twits can provide people on Chicago’s South Side or Chicago’s West Side, or in Gary, East Chicago, and Harvey that will actually improve their material condition. They’ll benefit from public order and skill development. Alinskyite twits stand in the way of them receiving it. As for the vagrant population, they don’t benefit from ‘activism’ either. They benefit from ministry.

          3. Absurd– Thanks very much for expanding on and clarifying Obama’s past. He is flash without a bang.

            Democrats have been salivating about prosecuting an ex president. Their dreams may be fulfilled but not with the ex president they had in mind.

            1. I’m sure they’d be pleased if some Eurotrash lawfare artists had him kidnapped a la Gen. Pinochet.

          4. ABSURD’S FALSE CLAIM ABOVE:

            In his comment above, Absurd claims that the “President of The Harvard Review is simply a political job”. Ironically one of our resident puppets unwittingly rebutted that point in a post much further up. Here is the key passage from that post:

            “At the end of his first year, Obama was selected to be one of 80 editors on the Law Review, a student-run journal of legal research and opinion.

            Midway through his second year, Obama was elected president, the top editing job. He beat out 17 others, including four fellow black students”.

            Passage Edited from: “Harvard Experiences Sculpt Obama Appeal”

            The Associated Press, 1/26/07

            1. Again, read Dyer on how editors were screened at the University of Texas at Austin when he was in the law school there. It required you produce scholarship in the form of case notes. Obama produced a single case note in all his years at Harvard. It’s the only published scholarly work he’s ever produced.

          1. No, but that’s what one particular President was trained to do.

  4. Big surprise that Obama knows nothing about laws, I mean aside from how to break them.

  6. that was truly funny to quote The Gun Runner Eric Holder on anything regarding legal precedent. I believe his precede t was Jackboot Janet Von Flamethrower Reno.

  7. “”While people of good faith can certainly disagree”

    With regard to the Russia Hoax, I am increasingly skeptical that is the case. Maybe, just maybe, some people entered neurosis and have an actual psychiatric condition here. The one’s who don’t engaged in a power play with our judicial system, or were snake oil salespeople who profited greatly from it.

    One has to start coming to grips with how this fiasco started and continued for this length of time.

  9. All across the political spectrum we have people clamoring for a restoration of the rule of law. What is often not asserted in their arguments is equal justice and the protection of rights of the accused. This has become very apparent as more and more evidence reveals the massive abuses by the FBI/IC/Obama administration and the House intelligence committee. And the MSM has dutifully played their propaganda role. So anyone invoking the rule of law in the same breath they dismiss actual evidence revealing abuse of the law, should be treated as an enemy of the state.

    2. That’s right! Presidential cronies should get mulligans. It’s in the Constitution.

      1. Given your history of being on the wrong side of nearly every legal issue on this blog, it would be reasonable to require you to identify which country’s constitution you’re referencing. Hint: It isn’t the United States.

    1. SteveJ, what do you find compelling about this? Farkas wasn’t part of the investigation, so her admitting that fact is …….. what is it? Surely you are not saying that Farkas admitting not being in the loop on the investigation means the investigation found nothing, right?

  12. Just FWIW, in the case Holder asked to be dismissed, the FBI was also knee-deep in corruption. The “Stevens” was a Republican senator from Alaska. From wiki, on Ted Stevens:
    ————
    In February 2009, FBI agent Chad Joy filed a whistleblower affidavit, alleging that prosecutors and FBI agents conspired to withhold and conceal evidence that could have resulted in a verdict of “not guilty.”[104] In his affidavit, Joy alleged that prosecutors intentionally sent a key witness back to Alaska after the witness performed poorly during a mock cross-examination. The witness, Rocky Williams, later notified the defense attorneys that his testimony would undercut the prosecution’s claim that his company had spent its own money renovating Sen. Stevens’s house. Joy further alleged that the prosecutors intentionally withheld Brady material including redacted prior statements of a witness, and a memo from Bill Allen stating that Sen. Stevens probably would have paid for the goods and services if asked. Joy further alleged that a female FBI agent had an inappropriate relationship with Allen, who also gave gifts to FBI agents and helped one agent’s relative get a job.

    As a result of Joy’s affidavit and claims by the defense that prosecutorial misconduct caused an unfair trial, Judge Sullivan ordered a hearing to be held on February 13, 2009, to determine whether a new trial should be ordered. At the February 13 hearing, the judge held the prosecutors in contempt for failing to deliver documents to Stevens’s legal counsel.[105] Judge Sullivan called this conduct “outrageous.”

    On behalf of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Paul O’Brien submitted a “Motion of The United States To Set Aside The Verdict And Dismiss The Indictment With Prejudice” in connection with case No. 08-231 early on April 1, 2009. Federal judge Emmet G. Sullivan soon signed the order, and since it occurred prior to sentencing it had the effect of vacating Stevens’s conviction. During the trial, Sullivan expressed concern and anger regarding prosecutorial conduct and related issues. Holder, who had taken office only three months earlier, was reportedly very angry at the prosecutors’ apparent withholding of exculpatory evidence, and wanted to send a message that prosecutorial misconduct would not be tolerated under his watch. After Sullivan held the prosecutors in contempt, Holder replaced the entire trial team, including top officials in the public integrity section. The final straw for Holder, according to numerous reports, was the discovery of a previously undocumented interview with Bill Allen, the prosecution’s star witness, that raised the possibility prosecutors had knowingly allowed Allen to perjure himself on the stand.

    In 2012, the Special Counsel report on the case was released. It said,[110]

    The investigation and prosecution of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens were permeated by the systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence which would have independently corroborated Senator Stevens’s defense and his testimony, and seriously damaged the testimony and credibility of the government’s key witness.

    https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/325801/court-report-on-stevens-ethics-case.pdf
    —————-
    Also FWIW, the head of the FBI during that time was none other than Robert Swan Mueller III.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

    1. SF, this is a real bombshell! Who the hell would have known that Mueller, yup, the same Mueller, was in charge of such a rogue FBI agency? I guess that ‘if it weren’t for the whistleblower, Mueller’s agency would have gotten away with a gross injustice, against a sitting U.S. Senator. And for those who think this rogue FBI behavior wouldn’t happen to them, we now have a sitting U.S. President, and a sitting U.S. Senator that has suffered huge injustices by the FBI.
      WE ALL BETTER BE VERY CAREFUL WHO WE TALK TO!

  13. Also, Obama stated in an oval office briefing that he heard about Hillary’s private email server when he read about it in the NY Times…and then IG Horowitz found 4 emails to the same server from Barry. The chosen one has a problem with the truth.

    2. Correct! Remember: “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan”? “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”? 🤣🤣🤣

  14. The former president has been exposed, and he is squirming like a worm on a fish hook

  15. Turley writes:

    ” ….The Logan Act is widely viewed as unconstitutional and has never been used to successfully convicted a single person since the early days of the Republic. …”

    Widely viewed could mean a lot things – some guy in Key West and another in Boise think it’s unconstitutional – but irrelevant. It is on the books, as recently as 1994 was revised by law, and there have been 2 indictments under the law, but dropped but neither due to constitutional questions or issues.

    Turley can dismiss it and the raw facts of the case as much as he wants but they are that Flynn was a member of the Trump campaign which we now know the Russians acted to help, and the day after Obama placed sanctions on Russia for interfering in that election, he spoke to the Russian Ambassador to pay him for services rendered by telling him not to worry about the sanctions once Trump was in office. Flynn communicated with the campaign later that day.

    On the next day Putin announced that Russia would not respond to the sanctions. That same day, Trump tweeted his thanks: “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he was very smart!” Another round of calls followed between Flynn and Kislyak.

    Since there was an ongoing investigation into a possible Trump campaign and Russian conspiracy, when the FBI heard about Flynn’s call they decided to interview him. During that interview and later, according to Flynn’s own sworn testimony before his sentencing judge, he lied to the agents. A crime he later admitted to and pled guilty to. Why he lied – Logan Act, protect higher ups, avoid politically damaging publicity for the new President – is irrelevant. He lied about a material fact to an ongoing investigation which led to numerous guilt pleas and judgements.

    Turley should pick another crusade. How about Presidential incompetence and malpractice in dealing with the biggest crisis the country has faced in years? Or another Hillary column.

    2. Clapper, Rice and Power in released house documents told Schiff’s Intel Committee there was no evidence of collusion and then went to the hacks at CNN and MSNBC and yelled treason. Comey circumvented the DOJ to arrange the interview with Flynn. Dirty cops at the top.
      Roger Stone lied before congress and should have received a warrant like anyone else, but no the deep state had to invade his house with a swat team and somehow CNN was there to film it all.

    3. You have proven yourself such a shill that nobody except the other shills here are paying you any serious attention.

      You have become the Sound of One Hand Jerking, to paraphrase the Zen Koan.

      Squeeky Fromm
      Girl Reporter

    4. A haiku for BTB:

      For United Clans Know
      Youth Owes Utter Respect
      Some Enjoy Lighting Fires

      ……..And the horse you rode in on.

    1. No, he was nominated due to fashion and status competition among gentry liberal constituencies. He was elected because (1) about 40% of the electorate will pull the ‘D’ lever forever and ever and (2) there’s a general resistance among swing voters to giving an incumbent party a 3d turn at the wheel and (3) he had the media in his pocket and (4) the financial crisis came to a head during the campaign, and a critical mass of swing voters blamed the administration rather than the nexus of politicians actually responsible (e.g. Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd).

  17. This is not a good statement by Obama. It sounds like someone who does not want this matter looked into any further.

    1. Well, since he does not know that the term ‘perjury’ is commonly reserved for sworn statements, no.

      You’ll recall that on completing law school he failed to land (or abjured?) a clerkship, wasn’t hired by a firm for two years, worked as an associate of said 12 lawyer firm for all of three years, then was classified as ‘of counsel’ for six years ‘ere he allowed his law license to lapse. He was hired for a 40% time teaching job a year after completing law school, by some accounts imposed by superordinate administrators in defiance of standard hiring procedures. He didn’t teach any staple courses (he taught courses I’ve heard JDs refer to as ‘___& the law’ and in 12 years there employed produced not one scholarly article. Peer review isn’t a tough hurdle for law faculty, their students edit the reviews. The terms of his employment did not require he be reviewed for tenure. (NB, even a duffer like Anita Hill produced five law review articles during her sojourn at the University of Oklahoma). This empty suit is the man partisan Democrats admire.

      What gets you about both Obamas is the degree to which they’ve had a simulacrum of an adult work life in lieu of the real thing. It’s very peculiar.

      1. I would say that this term “empty suit” is the best two word description for Obama. Now the Democrats nominee is Joe Biden. At this point of his life where he has difficulty putting sentences together what is the best two word description for him?

        1. No clue. A five word descriptor would be ‘future assisted living center resident’.

  19. If Obama faced one one-thousandth of the scrutiny Trump has endured, Obama would be earning .85 an hour at the Lewistown Federal Penitentiary laundry.

  20. How’s that Harvard legal education looking now Barry?
    It’s probably Prof. Dershowitz’ fault.

    1. I asked a Catholic blawger to explain what sort of lawyer Obama was. He said the Obamas were a very common type, law school graduates who had no interest in practicing law.

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Res ipsa loquitur – The thing itself speaks

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