Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the contradictions revealed in recent disclosures, including the list of officials seeking to “unmask” the identity of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. There seems a virtual news blackout on these disclosures, including the fact that both former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden followed the investigation. Indeed, Biden’s name is on the unmasking list.
Here is the column:
The declassification of material from the Michael Flynn case has exposed more chilling details of an effort by prosecutors to come up with a crime to use against the former national security adviser. This week, however, a letter revealed another unsettling detail. Among over three dozen Obama administration officials seeking to “unmask” Flynn in the investigation was former Vice President Joe Biden. This revelation came less than a day after Biden denied any involvement in the investigation of Flynn. It also follows a disclosure that President Obama was aware of that investigation.
For three years, many in the media have expressed horror at the notion of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia to influence the 2016 election. We know there was never credible evidence of such collusion. In recently released transcripts, a long list of Obama administration officials admitted they never saw any evidence of such Russian collusion. That included the testimony of Evelyn Farkas, a former White House adviser who was widely quoted by the media with her public plea for Congress to gather all of the evidence that she learned of as part of the Obama administration.
The media covered her concern that this evidence would be lost “if they found out how we knew what we knew” about Trump campaign officials “dealing with Russians.” Yet in her classified testimony under oath, she said she did not know anything. Farkas is now running for Congress in New York and highlighting her role in raising “alarm” over collusion. As much of the media blindly pushed this story, a worrying story unfolded over the use of federal power to investigate political opponents.
There is very little question that the response by the media to such a story would have been overwhelming if George Bush and his administration had targeted the Obama campaign figures with secret surveillance. That story would have been encompassing if it was learned that there was no direct evidence to justify the investigation and that the underlying allegation of Russian collusion was ultimately found to lack a credible basis.
But the motives of Obama administration officials are apparently not to be questioned. Indeed, back when candidate Donald Trump said the Obama administration placed his campaign officials under surveillance, the media universally mocked him. That statement was later proven to be true. The Obama administration used the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to conduct surveillance of Trump campaign officials.
Yet none of this matters as the media remains fully invested in the original false allegations of collusion. If Obama administration officials were to be questioned now, the coverage and judgment of the media may be placed into question. Even this latest disclosure of the unmasking request of Biden will not alter the media narrative.
Unmasking occurs when an official asks an intelligence agency to remove anonymous designations hiding the identity of an individual. This masking is a very important protection of the privacy of American citizens who are caught up in national security surveillance. The importance of this privacy protection is being dismissed by media figures, like Andrea Mitchell, who declared the Biden story to be nothing more than gaslighting.
While unmasking is more routinely requested by intelligence officials, with a reported 10,000 such requests by the National Security Agency last year alone, it is presumably less common for figures like Biden or White House chief of staff Denis McDonough. Seeking unmasking information that was likely to reveal the name of a political opponent and possibly damage the Trump administration raises a concern. More importantly, it adds a detail of the scope of interest and involvement in an investigation that targeted Flynn without any compelling evidence of a crime or collusion.
The media portrayed both Obama and Biden as uninvolved. But now we know they both actively followed the investigation. According to former acting attorney general Sally Yates, she was surprised that Obama knew about the investigation and knew more than she did at the time. Obama called upon former FBI director James Comey to stay after a meeting to discuss the investigation. Comey had mentioned using the Logan Act to charge Flynn, even though the unconstitutional law has never been used successfully in a prosecution since the country was founded.
Biden has repeatedly denied knowledge of the investigation. Just a day before the latest disclosure, George Stephanopoulos asked Biden in an interview what he knew of the Flynn investigation. Biden was adamant that he knew nothing about “those moves” and he called it a diversion. But that is not true if he took the relatively uncommon action for a vice president of demanding the unmasking of Flynn information.
Yet none of this matters. A Democratic administration using a secret court to investigate the opposing political campaign does not matter to many in Congress or in the media. An investigation continuing despite the lack of credible information supporting collusion does not matter. A president and a vice president who take personal interest in the surveillance of their political opponents also does not matter.
There was a time, however, when all of this did matter. There was once a time when this would be viewed as the story of the century, including the unmasking of Biden himself in this investigation. But these are not those times, and this cannot be the story. Russian collusion is the story and, as Biden stressed, the rest is just a diversion. It is up to the public to decide who has been ultimately unmasked by the Flynn investigation.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates online @JonathanTurley.
JT: “For three years, many in the media have expressed horror at the notion of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia to influence the 2016 election. We know there was never credible evidence of such collusion. In recently released transcripts, a long list of Obama administration officials admitted they never saw any evidence of such Russian collusion.”
Turley’s pulling no punches. That’s gotta hurt. We see the usual shills doing their song and dance here, but their effect is zilch. Meanwhile, Turley’s posts/tweets are showing up all across the media. Even Democrats are coming to the realization that they’re the “baddies.”
WHO IS TURLEY KIDDING..???
Here the Professor tries to tell us the entire Russia Probe was a hoax. This insults our intelligence!
We know what we saw!!
We saw Donald Trump call on Putin to hack Hillary’s emails. We saw Trump praise Wikileaks. We saw Trump dismiss Russian interference as ‘fake news’ while every member of his cabinet acknowledged. We saw Trump fire James Comey, then admit to Lester Holt he fired Comey to stop the Russia Probe. That next day we saw Trump welcome the Russian Ambassador to assure him Comey was gone. We saw Trump onstage in Helsinki Finland deferring to Putin while siding against U.S. Intelligence. We know Trump tried to shake-down Ukraine’s Zelenksy the day ‘after’ Mueller testified to Congress. And in that shakedown, Trump tried to pressure Zelensky into parroting Putin’s lies.
So where does Turley get off in trying to tell us we just imagined all these things?
Below is a video capturing that moment Trump sided with Putin onstage in Helsinki.
https://youtu.be/mBtsNNXjBPw
Why in the last few weeks of the Obama admin would there be any dire need for anyone in the Obama admin to still be requesting unmasking names of US citizens during the Trump transition into office?
Does anyone really believe that General Flynn is anything other than a patriot? I mean really? I question Obama’s loyalty to this country far more. Many Americans do. We are American citizens first and foremost and we want our president to be looking out for our interests, not giving speeches all over the world apologizing for America. Or giving speeches at the corrupt United Nations that outright diss America. Oh but Obama and his thugs want us to question General Flynn’s loyalty and allegiance to his country? That’s just absurd. None of it makes sense.
Re: “Why in the last few weeks of the Obama admin would there be any dire need for anyone in the Obama admin to still be requesting unmasking names of US citizens during the Trump transition into office?,” why on earth would you expect them not to?
Unmasking requests occur on the order of 10,000/year. From the AP:
“The number of unmasking requests began being released to the public in response to recommendations in 2014 from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. There were 9,217 unmasking requests in the 12-month period between September 2015 and August 2016, the first period in which numbers are publicly available. The period was during the latter years of the Obama administration. The number rose during the Trump administration. The 9,529 requests in 2017 grew to 16,721 in 2018 and 10,012 last year.”
If Trump loses the election, will you subsequently ask “Why in the last few weeks of the [Trump] admin would there be any dire need for anyone in the [Trump] admin to still be requesting unmasking names of US citizens during the [Biden] transition into office?”
“Does anyone really believe that General Flynn is anything other than a patriot?”
Yes, absolutely. Odd that so many Trump supporters don’t think this, given that Flynn lied to V.P.-Elect Pence and other members of the Trump transition team, that he lied to the FBI about his discussions with Kislyak, that he was an unregistered foreign agent and lied on his FARA filing, … Those are not the acts of a patriot.
Suggest you listen to this entire conversation. Might help undo your BSNBC brainwashing. Matt Taibbi and Aaron Mate are journalists who also happen to be progressive in their political views, but they don’t let that get in the way of following the facts. They know Rachel Maddow is a pitiful joke at this point and that Adam Schiff is a pathological liar.
I don’t watch MSNBC, but don’t let that stop you from resort to ad hominem instead of dealing with what I actually wrote.
I do follow facts, as should be clear from the extent to which I provide evidence for my claims.
If you have any facts to refute what I wrote, present them.
OMG!
Is Mr. Shill’s novel nom de déguisement “CommitToHonestDiscussion?”
As one ponders, it must be.
Taibbi and Greenwald are the Camille Paglias of political commentary – claiming to be progressive, but too hip for Democrats and somehow always attacking them, not the reactionary GOP which they often mimic. Taibbi’s been playing this game his entire career.
All comrades must wear a mask for the good of the collective.
Call 1-888-IMA-NAZI to report any deplorable kulak untermenschen not wearing a mask.
Let the enemedia keep digging and don’t give them any helpful hints or tips regarding Sniffy Cornpop mint condition lunchbox Biden.
Only useless idiot true believers still listen to the enemedia and most know that headspace is too valuable to let CPUSA operatives in.
Are you ready and willing to take on the entire British Empire, Mr. Washington?
What wage will you pay your troops?
_____________________________
“Privates in 1776 earned $6 a month plus a bounty at the end of their service. That pay would equate to $157.58 today, a pretty cheap deal for the poor Continental Congress. Unfortunately for soldiers, Congress couldn’t always make ends meet and so troops often went without their meager pay.”
– Business Insider
It does not matter that we we know know that there is no evidence of collusion found. Back then it was highly disturbing that Putin was interfering with our election, and that Americas were having back channel chats with the Russians. It was defiantly worthy of investigation and unmasking.
Molly, collusion is not a legal term and Mueller under oath stated they did not look into it. They looked in criminal conspiracy, a much higher bar, which they found no evidence for. Do not confuse the 2, which is of course the goal of Trump and his defenders like JT who constantly makes the same mistake. Hard to believe he doesn’t know this as a law professor.
Just to be clear, Mueller’s team did find evidence of conspiracy, but they determined that the evidence wasn’t sufficient for indictments.
Unmasking isn’t the crime, the leaking is the crime. James Comey leaked. Andrew McCabe leaked. Those are crimes. So find and prosecute the leakers. Every one of them should be prosecuted and put in jail.
The Obama admin went after leakers and prosecuted them. Obama used the Espionage Act to go after reporters.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/flashback-obama-prosecuted-staff-leakers-gave-lie-detector-tests-paranoid
Nothing is preventing Barr from indicting Comey or McCabe or anyone else if he believes they have sufficient evidence.
And there are many other crimes, such as conspiracy and obstruction of justice. No doubt you also want the DOJ to “find and prosecute” people like Trump who’ve engaged in obstruction. We just have to wait til he’s out of office, in light of the OLC opinion against indicting sitting presidents.
For my edification, can you tell me what Trump’s obstruction of justice was? Was it the use of his executive powers that all President’s have the “legal” right to use?
If obstruction of this type were a crime, Adam Schiff would be in jail, for hiding exculpatory evidence for years.
“For my edification, can you tell me what Trump’s obstruction of justice was?”
Here you go, focus on Vol. 2: https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf (use the Table of Contents or do a text search on “obstruction” to help you find the relevant passages)
If that’s too much reading, here’s a helpful summary (and there are other such summaries out there): https://www.lawfareblog.com/obstruction-justice-mueller-report-heat-map
“Was it the use of his executive powers that all President’s have the ‘legal’ right to use?”
No.
There was evidence of conspiracy. But Mueller’s team were the conspirators.
They should go to prison and Mueller should go to confined assisted living so he won’t wander away and get lost. Perhaps Biden has an extra cot in his basement.
Can you enlighten me? The only evidence of collusion I recall, and Mueller didn’t bother with, was the phony dossier that Hillary and the DNC paid to get from Russia…
Some of Mueller’s team may soon find themselves being referred for prosecution of their own criminal actions. Wait for it….
“Just to be clear, Mueller’s team did find evidence of conspiracy”
And what evidence is that?
A catering firm placed Facebook ads.
The evidence discussed in Vol. 1 of the SCO’s report:
https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf
Mueller found nothing of the sort. He could not link every day facts together to come up with conspiracy. If there was proof of conspiracy we would have seen it already. The only conspiracy that existed was the one perpetrated by the Obama Administration.
Why do you say things that aren’t true?
Committ, specifically in the report:
“[a] statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.”
and during the Congressional hearing:
When Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) asked if the decision not to bring charges of conspiracy against members of the Trump campaign “does not mean your investigation failed to turn up evidence of conspiracy,” Mueller responded: “That is correct.”
Both ambiguous answers since he does not say they did find it. The report noted that they were hindered in their investigation into this charge.
“Putin was interfering with our election,…”
Foreign Interference – You don’t say!
_____________________________
Foreign Election Interference in the Founding Era
The Incident
In the fall of 1794, American delegates signed the Jay Treaty with Great Britain in an attempt to resolve outstanding trade and territorial issues, while keeping the fledgling republic from being drawn into ongoing hostilities between Britain and France. The Directory, the five-member committee governing France at the time, viewed the treaty as an abandonment of prior French-U.S. commitments. In June of 1795, as President George Washington debated moving the treaty to the Senate for approval, the Directory sent a new minister to the United States with specific instructions identifying the Jay Treaty as France’s “foremost grievance” against the country.
French intervention in American politics was not without precedent. As early as the Revolutionary War, French agents had routinely used bribery and other pressures to influence the Continental Congress. One particularly notorious incident occurred in 1793 when war broke out between Britain and France. Without first consulting the president, the French minister to the United States, Edmond-Charles Genet, began commissioning privateers out of Charleston, South Carolina to fight the British. The “Genet Affair” divided Washington’s cabinet, especially between Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson who favored France and Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton who favored neutrality. In the end, Washington issued a neutrality policy and his administration demanded Genet’s recall.
In 1795, the minister, Pierre-Auguste Adet, began bribing senators to derail the Jay Treaty, but the French government’s lack of funds hampered these efforts, and the Senate narrowly approved it. Using his diplomatic status to obtain a copy of the Treaty text, Adet had it published. The release provoked a public outcry throughout United States and sharply divided Americans.
…
– Lawfare
“Back then it was highly disturbing that Putin was interfering with our election…”
What’s the evidence for this? $50,000 in Facebook ads? B.S. Crowdstrike? They’ve walked back their claims of having ANY evidence.
“and that Americas were having back channel chats with the Russians”
Flynn was doing his job…diplomacy.
“It was defiantly worthy of investigation and unmasking.”
By Jan 4, the FBI itself had determined that they had ZERO derogatory information on Flynn and were therefore closing the investigation. They then went after Flynn using the Logan Act which anyone with a brain knows is illegitimate.
Flynn was not doing his job, he was not NSA yet. And he was talking to the Russians without the knowledge of Trump or anyone else.
Obama attempted to overthrow the duly elected government by conducting a coup d’etat in America. You’re right. America should focus on Flynn’s maliciously contrived misdemeanor while Obama must permitted to get away scott-free with a capital crime.
That is not true.
————
Dec. 28, 2016: Kislyak reaches out to Flynn
Kislyak reached out to Flynn to discuss logistics of setting up a phone call between Trump and Putin to take place after Inauguration Day, according to Spicer’s Jan. 13 briefing.
Dec. 29, 2016: K.T. McFarland, according to later CBS confirmation, while at Mar-a-Lago and with other top officials including Reince Priebus, Kellyanne Conway, Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, tells Flynn to communicate to Kislyak about the U.S. sanctions. Flynn calls Kislyak.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-flynn-timeline-contacts-with-russia-ouster-guilty-plea/
————-
More info at the link.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
And we have Sean Spicer to base this belief on.
Waiter, check please!
To those of you who are inclined to slice and dice the column, I suggest that we all look at the big picture here. At a time when the mainstream media continues to deflect attention from facts that discredit the false narrative, I am grateful to have Professor Turley’s writings about these events. Sadly, as Professor Turley writes, the media is too invested in protecting the narrative. I wonder how history books will describe this ugly chapter if it is covered at all.
This is in part why the media has little interest in digging into the real story here….because they are part of the scheme….they know who the leakers are….the press got the leaked classified info and ran with it…the ‘story’ of Flynn possibly being a “Russian agent” (how absurd) was then all over the air waves…just as the Obama admin wanted to happen.
Cassidy, unfortunately history depends on who writes it. Since so many historians today are on the far left of the spectrum, I would guess that it will only contain a bit of what really happened.
If this blog has exposed anything about the law, it’s how unscrupulous people will use it both offensively and defensively as a weapon in the quest for political power. Of course that’s not new. At one point in our history, domestic lawfare was covert and once exposed, would be universally condemned. Today, the lawfare is far more overt and supported along partisan lines.
This nation is covered from coast to coast in a forest of laws. The political class and their army of lawyers see the forest. At best, they control the narrative by getting everyone else to focus on one tree at a time. What has become tragically apparent is that the everyone else group aren’t even seeing the trees anymore. They are deep in the weeds of identity politics. While they’re busy whacking away on the latest ism, the political class is clear-cutting the laws that secure us as a constitutional republic.
@Olly- well said.
😎
Olly, If one of those trees happens to fall on a Republican will anyone hear it?
🤔 Only if it hurts them too.
New crime…letting the AMERICAN people know what people are doing in secret with foreign governments For money! I sick of this Trumpian distraction machine. People are dying but he’s creating more distractions and the GOP DEATH PANEL loves it. Maybe he should be focusing on the pandemic but never mind unless it threatens him it’s a hoax!
So is unmasking Biden a crime also? This is all a ridiculous dance choreographed to distract.
The felony crime was the *leaking* of it to the WaPo, not the unmasking. Find out who leaked the info to the press, prosecute the crime, and put that person in jail. That is how the ‘system’ should work.
“So is unmasking Biden a crime also?”
You simply don’t know what you are talking about. “Unmasking” refers to revealing the name of an American citizen who’s on the other side of an intercepted(via FISA) conversation with a foreign surveillance target. Biden was never “unmasked.”
my son graduated from GW – I knew he received a solid education ….
Fortunately this can all be revisited when Judge Sullivan holds his hearing on the DOJ (Barr) motion on Flynn, now a certainty given the unearthing of the intent of the commission – with SC input – which wrote the rule 48 (a) in the early 1940’s. It’s for cases exactly like the Flynn case, in direct conflict with claim in the motion.
A review of the history of rule 48 (a) governing “leave of the court” responsibility and limits to the judges actions in a situation like the Flynn case by a Harvard Law lecturer are at this link.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3599674
In short, the Barr motion in the Flynn case argues that the of the 2 possible reasons for dropping a prosecution this late in the process – to benefit the defendant or to allow the DOJ to then submit new charges – the court’s ability to review the decision by the prosecutors is only available for the latter of the those 2 types. The author finds and cites the history of the commission which devised the rule back in the 1940s, along with SC contributions to the discussion, and finds that it centered entirely on the former type case – where it was for the benefit of the defendant. The reason was why many states automatically require judicial review then and now – to guard against a connected defendant receiving corrupt favoritism. There is no doubt that based on it’s history, that the rule should require judicial review of the motion. Surely, if he doesn’t know this already, Judeg Sullivan will learn of it.
A link to the entire document (12 pages) is at the page I linked above.
Abstract
The conventional view of Rule 48(a) dismissals distinguishes between two types of motions to dismiss: (1) those where dismissal would benefit the defendant, and (2) those where dismissal might give the Government a tactical advantage against the defendant, perhaps because prosecutors seek to dismiss the case and then file new charges. In United States v. Flynn, the Department of Justice argues that Rule 48(a)’s “leave of court” requirement applies exclusively to the latter category of motions to dismiss; where the dismissal accrues to the benefit of the defendant, judicial meddling is unwarranted and improper. In support, the Government relies on forty-year-old dicta in the sole U.S. Supreme Court case interpreting Rule 48(a), Rinaldi v. United States. There, the Court stated that the “leave of court” language was added to Rule 48(a) “without explanation,” but “apparently” this verbiage had as its “principal object . . . to protect a defendant against prosecutorial harassment.”
But the Government’s position—and the U.S. Supreme Court language upon which it is based—is simply wrong. In fact, the “principal object” of Rule 48(a)’s “leave of court” requirement was not to protect the interests of individual defendants, but rather to guard against dubious dismissals of criminal cases that would benefit powerful and well-connected defendants. In other words, it was drafted and enacted precisely to deal with the situation that has arisen in United States v. Flynn: its purpose was to empower the Judiciary to limit dismissal in cases where the district court suspects that some impropriety prompted the Executive’s decision to abandon a case.
To be clear, there may be good reason for the district court to grant the Government’s motion to dismiss in United States v. Flynn. But the fiction that Rule 48(a) exists solely, or even chiefly, to protect defendants against prosecutorial mischief should be abandoned. This brief Essay recounts Rule 48’s forgotten history.
How slick! Circumvent 2020 by writing about the development of Rule 48 in 1942! Sorry but it ain’t gonna fly. Any second year law student, or even a legal assistant like me could cobble that sort of thing together. But it ain’t 1942 no more. The Court can not FORCE the prosecution to prosecute. If there is no case at controversy, then there is no case at controversy. Plus the author did not discuss the development of the law since 1942 which any competent legal author would do.
It is just that simple. Plus, subsequent law has happened since 1942. I provided you the Fokker case the other day, so come back when you have an arguable case.
Dismissed!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Rule 48 (a) is still in force and was referenced in Barr’s motion. That motion has it exactly opposite the intent of the rule, as did the SC dicta in the 1970’s which it cites. The Judge will decide and it will probably be appealed. If it gets to the SC – which it probably should – they will either have to acknowledge reality or pull another totally partisan Bush V Gore type ruling, possibly with a similar disclaimer on precedemt.
No. This is just a last minute attempt to justify what Sullivan is doing because let’s face it, he is being pretty bizarre. I am sure it is embarrassing even to Democratic lawyers, sooo somebody has to cobble some bunch of barely comprehensible legal-sounding crap together so Democrats can save face. They can just say “Oh but look at blah blah blah bah!” which one person in a thousand maybe will even read beyond one paragraph in.
I used to see this kind of pseudo-legal bull when The Birther Think Tank was up and running and I was kicking the Two-Citizen Parent Birthers all around. They would falsely cite Vattel and ignore the clear holding in Wong Kim Ark from 1898.
Sullivan is out of control and most people know it, even you.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky, how right you are. I was a prosecutor myself, and nolle prossed or dismissed cases whenever justice required it. I never had a Judge do what Judge Sullivan is doing. It is shameful and he should be censored and rebuked by the chief Judge of his curcuit.
justice for all:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3599674
The prosecution isn’t needed anymore. There’s been a guilty plea and sentencing agreed to. Flynn’s lawyers can always appeal, but they’d better hurry because something tells me the Biden Justice Department won’t be so eager to let Flynn walk without a fight. Of course, Trump can always pardon him, which is probably the right outcome for all involved, since Flynn both lied to the FBI, and along with his son, violated FARA.
It’s posts like this which remind one that the discourse within the Democratic Party is completely valueless, as are the people propagating it.
This will not end well.
A liberal friend of mine said she wouldn’t mind if the outgoing Obama administration and Congress did everything in their power to bottle up the incoming Trump administration. I think we can all admit that Obama pumped his head, like the government genie he was, and said, “Wish granted.” If this story ever reaches a point where it becomes a widely accepted fact that the Obama administration did as accused, we need to remember everything they did. Not only did they corrupt our finest law enforcement body, ruin whatever integrity the media had left, and waste $32 million of our hard-earned money, but they also damaged this country for two years. I’m sure my liberal friend would have no problem with the latter, as she felt the Republican Congress did the same to Obama in his final two years. She might consider the first two years revenge for that, the birther movement Trump propagated, and Merrick Garland. Whether it was revenge, or a ploy to prevent Trump from over turning Obama’s legislation, Americans need to remember what these trusted government officials put the country through to achieve their goal, if it ever becomes such a widely accepted fact that Obama supporters ask us all to Move On. org.
Trump challenged Obama to quit playing cat and mouse and release his long-form birth certificate. I have no clue why this irritates partisan Democrats so, bar that just about everything they think or say has an unreal quality to it. Of course, they fancy they own the Supreme Court, so when they don’t get their way, it’s an outrage.
Here another unmasking which would make a good article here:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8327117/Columbia-University-professor-calls-Trump-supporting-student-neo-nazi-enabler.html
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
There are SO MANY qualifiers in mamy of your statements here Jonathan, that make it “opinion light” , One example “Biden was adamant that he knew nothing about “those moves” and he called it a diversion. But that is not true IF he took the relatively uncommon action for a vice president of demanding the unmasking of Flynn information”. You offer no proof that he did. There are a bunch of others. This is clickbait for the right.
Biden’s name is on the form!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Take a look at the unmasking list released by the Intelligence Department last week.
The best stretches are “presumably less common” and “actively following” (the latter is reminiscent of “leading from behind”), along with focusing on Evelyn Farkas, who left the administration in September of 2015 when there weren’t even allegations of collusion yet. When one of your arguments revolves around what Farkas said once on MSNBC, you’re deep into fatuous territory.
As much a the media and the “left” hate Trump, this stinks, is unconstitutional, is un American, biased, and most importantly UNFAIR TO TRUMP and his team… and I won’t even mention how this whole thing is UNFAIR TO FLYNN WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR COUNTRY? TO OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS? And I should note, I did not vote for Obama, but never disliked him, and always thought Biden was a respectable man and Senator… BOY, WAS I EVER WRONG AND MISLED!!!!😡😡😡
None of them will be held responsible unless they’re caught with a dead girl, a live boy, or a chest freezer full of bribe money in their basement. Federal prosecutors only get energetic and creative when they’ve got a Republican in their gunsights.
What we’ve known for seven years. The various aspects of the Democratic Party – the lawyers, the legislators, the journalists, the voters do not care that the tax collectors and elements of the security state were sicced on the opposition. They do not care when ballots marked for Democratic candidates are ‘found’ after the elections. They think this is just their prerogative and they’ll throw up a flurry of chaff when they’re caught. You see that in these threads every blessed day.
You do realize that the current president is accusing his predecessor of illegality and pressuring the majority leader in the Senate to open hearings on both his predecessor and the former vice-president, his opponent in the next election, right? All the while, the current president has also tasked his AG with opening a criminal investigation into former members of the FBI, and blocking release of the unredacted Mueller report and its underlying grand jury evidence. That’s a tornado of chaff.
We have every reason to believe that people doing the bidding of his predecessor are guilty of illegalities. Release the kraken.
Unmentioned by JT are these facts:
1. Obviously an unmasking means the request is from someone who doesn’t know who is masked. In this case the unmaking was for who spoke to the Russian Ambassador the day after Obama announced sanctions against his country for election interference and the day before Putin announced he would not retaliate.
2. Senior advisors may request an unmasking and if so it will be charged to their principal. In other words, we don’t know if Biden requested this unmasking.
3. The Biden “request” was made on January 12, or 8 days before he left office.
Shall we demand the Trump administration now releases all information on the some 30,000+ unmaskings in the laST 2 years.
spin spin spin
Sorry, but you guys have been busted!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky, sometimes I like To focus on what you have to say, but you should consider adding a touch of honey. Brashness, be it from a male or female, has a tendency to cause the reader or listener to not be able to focus on what’s being said and instead focusing on the way in which the comment came out.
I know. I come across as a total b!tch sometimes. I am sorry.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky– Keep it up!
Sueeky – maybe I am in the minority here, however coming from the West we appreciate feisty women, especially when they are armed. 😉
Re: “In this case the unmaking was for who spoke to the Russian Ambassador the day after Obama announced sanctions against his country for election interference and the day before Putin announced he would not retaliate,” no, in the data that were released, there is no unmasking request that clearly corresponds to the calls between Flynn and Kislyak. Those calls were on Dec. 29, 2016. Most of the unmasking requests preceded Dec. 29 and so cannot be related to these calls, as the calls hadn’t occurred yet.
Moreover, I just learned that Flynn’s name on the call wasn’t masked in the first place:
Ellen Nakashima: “@rgoodlaw @AshaRangappa_ @emptywheel @benjaminwittes As we first reported here wapo.st/3fS1B7g, it was the FBI– not the NSA–that collected on Kislyak’s call with Flynn. And the FBI’s summary of that call included Flynn’s name in the open. So there was NO NEED to request an unmasking.” [https://twitter.com/nakashimae/status/1261356209707405312 ]
The more I learn about this, the more ignorant Turley’s columns about this appear.
Here’s a much better discussion (this is where I learned about Nakashima’s comment): https://www.justsecurity.org/70199/anticipating-phase-two-of-the-trumped-up-obamagate/
Turley would do well to read that.
Thanks for the link with detailed discussion. The author gives good reasons why Biden would not need to “unmask” Flynn in his call with the ambassador. What information was being sought on Jan 12 and whether it was even Biden remain open questions of no particular import. The list the new DNI sent to Grassley only gives dates. A plausible explanation might be that a senior intelligence officer who reported to Biden requested it about the Russain ambassador after the David Ignatious column, unaware that Biden had been in a meeting a week before in the WH where the call was openly discussed. A stretch, or maybe it was about something else entirely.
Maybe Judge Sullivan will get into it. He now should have an open field for that and other questions.
I doubt that Sullivan would introduce it himself. It’s possible that Judge Gleeson — whom Sullivan appointed as an amicus “to present arguments in opposition to the government’s Motion to Dismiss” — could mention this as part of a pattern of conduct by the Trump Admin., but I’d have to reread the motion to see whether this is relevant to the government’s argument there.
Also, Judge Sullivan invited others to submit amicus briefs, and I’m curious who will file and what they’ll say.
The most important development in my opinion is the unearthing of the intent of rule 48 (a) which lays to waste Barr’s motion regarding the “leave of the court” and those arguing Sullivan has no choice but to accept that motion. On the contrary, according to the linked research, Sullivan has an obligation to review it under rule 48 (a), as do the judges in many states under state law , and expressly to guard against corrupt practices by prosecutors who may be rewarding connected defendants.
Thanks for the link to that discussion of Rule 48(a). As best I can tell, Judge Sullivan is trying to be responsible here, and I’m curious to see how it all plays out.
Why are you two guys sooo distressed??? The Republicans are simply spinning the truth which is what you guys are doing all the time. True, the Obama Democrats unmasked Flynn, right! Forget the context and nuance.
Consider yourselves as Bad Wrestlers who just got whacked over the head with a folding metal chair by the Good Wrestler! You have it coming!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Prof. Turley:
If you’re going to keep writing about this, educate yourself so you don’t continue to misrepresent the nature of unmasking.
You write “Among over three dozen Obama administration officials seeking to ‘unmask’ Flynn …”
No one “[sought] to ‘unmask’ Flynn.” Until the name is unmasked, the identity of the person is unknown. They sought to unmask a person of unknown identity, and all of the unmasking requests that ultimately turned out to be Flynn. As the materials themselves, note, “Each individual [who made an unmasking request] was an authorized recipient of the original report and the unmasking was approved through NSA’s standard process, which includes a review of the justification for the request.”
Most of the requests have nothing to do with the investigation of Flynn, as they *precede* Flynn’s call with Kislyak.
Re: “[unmasking requests are] presumably less common for figures like Biden …,” don’t presume. Look it up. Biden is on the NSC; moreover, as was noted in the NYT, “Not all the officials on the list may have made the request directly, according to [Michael Morell, a former acting CIA director]. Sometimes an intelligence officer briefing a senior official makes the request, but those are logged as coming from the senior official.” So you don’t even know that the request came from Biden. This was already pointed out to you in the comments on your previous column about the unmasking.
Re: “Seeking unmasking information that was likely to reveal the name of a political opponent …,”
a) Flynn was not a political opponent.
b) Again, they do not know the identity until the name is unmasked. You provide no evidence (none, zero, nada, zilch) that they would have determined in advance that the person was “likely” to on Trump’s team.
I could list more errors, but I’ll stop here. You are astoundingly sloppy. FFS, you’re a faculty member at GWU. Educate yourself about this if you’re going to write about it.
Commit – Let’s look at this from your standpoint. What phone call transcriptions are they listening to that they are unmasking Flynn’s name? Would these be the taps from the illegal FISA warrant on Carter Page? Why, Occam’s Razor would say yes. So, information from the results of the Page taps went far afield. Given this, Biden is participating in the tapping of phones around Page, including the Trump campaign.
Now, when you say it that way, it seems more insidious, doesn’t it? It gives new meaning to that txt msg “POTUS wants to know everything we do.”
“Would these be the taps from the illegal FISA warrant on Carter Page? Why, Occam’s Razor would say yes.”
No, it wouldn’t. Look at the dates of the unmasking requests. The majority were made on Dec. 14-16 and seem related to Flynn’s involvement in the Saudi nuclear deal effort. The FBI didn’t mask Flynn’s name on its read-out of the Kislyak calls in the first place, so there’s a good chance that none of these unmasking requests (which are NSA requests, not FBI requests) have to do with the Kislyak calls. Moreover, when it comes to the Kislyak calls, Occam’s Razor would lead you to conclude that the FBI had a warrant to surveil Kislyak’s calls when he was in the U.S.
“Now, when you say it that way, it seems more insidious, doesn’t it?”
No, what comes across is that you aren’t paying attention to relevant details.
Only one unmasking request was charged to Biden on Jan 12, and as explained previously, we don’t know if that him or a senior intelligence officer who advised him. It was also explained in the article committ posted, that a request does is not necessarily answered on the same day, making Ignatious’s WaPo column on the same day almost certainly not do to Biden leaking.
Anon – my understanding is that Biden has to use HIS computer to make the unmasking request. It is a secured computer. Only Biden is supposed to have the password.
OMG!
Is Mr. Shill’s novel nom de déguisement “CommitToHonestDiscussion?”
As one ponders, it must be.
I just love it when one of the dems/dims dirty tricks turns around and bites them in the *ss.
It appears that Obama signed off on a phone tap on Flynn which is how they got the Kislyak transcript. Then Obama set up Flynn by expelling the Russians while Flynn was on vacation. There was no “unmasking” for the phone call to Kislyak. It is going all hit the fan. Messy, messy, messy.
I’d point out that John Dean was on the record in 1976 saying that it was ‘probably true’ that Richard Nixon knew nothing of the Watergate burglary beforehand. I think it has been established that Gordon Strachan (one of HR Haldeman’s secretaries) and Jeb Stuart Magruder (John Mitchell’s deputy) were apprised beforehand. Neither reported to Nixon.
See Dean and also Henry Kissinger on how Nixon dealt with subordinates. Only a modest number of people met with the President with any degree of frequency (Dean did so 3x between May of 1970 and September of 1972) and meetings were often scripted in advance and pro-forma (see Henry Kissinger on this point). H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were among the very few who had ordinary business meetings with Nixon. I doubt you could find evidence in the surviving records that Strachan or Magruder had ever met with Nixon or spoken to him on the phone for longer than it took him to say “let me speak to …”
The word “collusion” has been hyped up and out by the news media for years now. Now the question is:. Did Biden collude with the dirty dogs and when did the media know it?
Liberty, I suspect that Biden did collude with Obama and the unpatriotic members fo the administration, to do a bloodless coup. But, in the case of Biden, I also suspect that he was being used as a useful tool, and didn’t really have the mental capacity to understand what he was doing. If his condition then, was as it is now, that is my conclusion.