Open your window and you might hear the anxious cries of “enough” from your neighbors, who were frightened by yet another CNN broadcast of How the Screw Turns. My words are not hyperbole because 69% of the country overall, and 75% of independent voters, no longer trusts what the press reports (source: Gallup). Even worse, 59% of Americans today think there has been partisan bias in the FBI investigation of the Trump administration (source: Harris) – and Mueller’s approval numbers have fallen to 43% (source: CNN). This means we the people have lost confidence in the guardians of our constitutional republic.
Like pride, confidence goest before the fall, and what promised to be an American century looks less likely, because this constitutional republic is being undermined by far-left Democrats and their media cronies. Listen to Elizabeth Warren or Rachel Maddow and you will not hear patriotism. Rather, you will hear the petulant sounds of the blame game.
They blame working-class Americans, who still value the dignity of work. They blame corporate America, which still generates innovation and prosperity. They blame churches, which still foster a culture of morality. They blame the electoral college, even though it is a constitutional construct to preserve a continental United States. The only institution you won’t hear blamed is more central government – – and those who blame are always part of the problem (because leaders that blame do not inspire confidence and trust).
The story of Michael Flynn is an eye-opening parable of the dangers that lurk in the nation’s capitol. He was the first victim of deep state and media apparatchiks, who sabotaged a presidential campaign, destabilized a new presidency, and waged a disinformation campaign to aid an out-party resistance. To wit, liberal pundits belittled Trump’s election non-stop because he did not win a majority of the vote; when, in fact, 51.5% of the popular vote was cast against Clinton (48.5% is only a plurality).
The behavior of this resistance is textbook sedition because it means to undermine the democratic process as prescribed in the Constitution. The founding fathers feared the “fleeting majority” Democrats and their media allies think they are, and created a nation of laws to guard against the angry mob. If any conservative reader does not fear the angry mob, I call your attention to Michael Flynn and how the resistance has ruined his life.
Flynn is atypical of a crooked politician: 30 years of military service and promotion to lieutenant general. His reputation first came under attack in 2014 as President Obama’s director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, when he was “shoved out [after] incurring the wrath of the White House by insisting on telling the truth about Syria” (source: Patrick Lang, Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East). Flynn’s reputation was finally destroyed in 2017, when Obama-era holdovers surveilled, leaked, ensnared and prosecuted him.
As Trump’s national security advisor, Flynn had conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak during the transition. These are routine and legal, but the Obama administration secretly recorded the phone calls, illegally unmasked Flynn’s name on the transcripts, and illegally leaked this information to The Wall Street Journal. That press report provided FBI Director James Comey and his top deputy, Andrew McCabe, with their excuse to entrap General Flynn. Comey recently portrayed his scheme to MSNBC as one he “would never have gotten away with in a more organized” administration.
McCabe personally called Flynn on other transition business and suggested he clear up the “significant media coverage” of the leak with two FBI agents. McCabe advised the agents against telling Flynn they had transcripts of his Kislyak conversations and against giving him the standard warning about lying to the FBI. Even worse, McCabe urged Flynn to talk without a lawyer present. Two hours later, two FBI agents appeared (including the infamous Trump-hating Peter Strzok).
It is now public knowledge that acting Attorney General Sally Yates “was not happy” about Comey’s plan, and that interviewing agents documented their belief Flynn did not lie. And, while it is true Flynn’s recollection of the Kislyak conversation did not completely match the transcript, such information gaps rarely are enough to bring charges of “knowingly and willfully” falsifying material facts. In other words, Mueller was unlikely to win his case against Flynn in front of a judge. This begs the question: why did Flynn agree to a plea bargain?
Like so many individuals that plead guilty in spite of having done nothing wrong, Flynn pleaded guilty because he was out-lawyered and out-moneyed by the US government. Flynn realized his defense was unsustainable. Mueller had threatened to take legal action against his son, and Flynn’s financed were ruined: suddenly unemployable and forced to sell his home to pay legal bills.
As these facts slowly make the light of day, it is increasingly obvious the FBI and DOJ entrapped and financially ruined an innocent and patriotic American (perhaps to undermine a presidency). Thanks to a federal judge, Emmet Sullivan, the deep state will finally come under the microscope.
Judge Sullivan is wise to how Mueller and Comey operate because he got a “wake-up call” in 2008 during Senator Ted Stevens’ trial, which prompted the judge to order an investigation that found Justice Department misconduct. The pertinent facts are twofold: (1) Robert Mueller was the FBI director in 2008, and (2) Judge Sullivan thereafter began every new trial with a Brady order, requiring prosecutors to provide the defense with any exculpatory evidence.
Just this week, Judge Sullivan ordered the Mueller team to turn over “any evidence in its possession that is favorable to defendant and material either to defendant’s guilt or punishment.” Furthermore, the judge will get the un-redacted McCabe memo, as well as the Flynn 302 (an agent’s post-interview report) that was oddly written seven months after the interview. I cannot know how Judge Sullivan will rule, but this much is known. He can reject the plea deal, require Mueller to make a case at trial, ignore Mueller’s sentencing recommendation, or order an investigation into deep state chicanery.
Let’s hope Judge Sullivan stirs Democrats to re-commit to the rule of law – even when it is on Trump’s side. Even Kamala Harris should trust Emmet Sullivan, an African-American judge with fair-minded values. He led NAACP litigation in the seventies to overturn racially restrictive laws, and Bill Clinton nominated him to the US District Court in 1994. Sullivan is clearly no “Trump poodle” after his 2018 order to the DOJ to “turn that plane around” in order to protect a Salvadoran mother and child from deportation.
If House Democrats and their media allies portray the Sullivan court as a “minstrel show” because he finds against the resistance, then that just proves the former is too petty to govern and the latter is too biased to inform an electorate. My opinion has nothing to do with being a Republican, and everything to do with protecting we the people against those who would abuse their power (the FBI) and influence (biased media).