WTF Just Happened With Michael Flynn's Case And Why Is Devin Nunes Mooing About It?
Judge Emmet Sullivan just LOVES being told to fuck off. You betcha.
A very strange thing happened Friday in the case against Michael Flynn. The judge in charge, Emmet Sullivan, had ordered the government to hand over and make public some documents, specifically the transcripts of a phone call between Flynn and then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and a voicemail left by then-Trump attorney John Dowd to Flynn's lawyer Robert Kelner, where Dowd very sweetly let Flynn's counsel know Trump still loved Flynn, WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE, not that he was otherwise trying to pressure Flynn into staying onside with Trump instead of cooperating with the government. Sullivan also ordered the government to unredact portions of the Mueller Report related to Flynn's case and make them available to the public.
And the government mostly said ... fuck off! They released the transcript of the call from Dowd (which appeared in the Mueller Report, albeit in excerpt form), but they decided not to abide by the rest of the judge's orders, because #reasons.
Rachel Maddow reported on all of this on Friday night. (Start around six minutes in.)
DOJ Surprises With Omissions In Response To Michael Flynn Document Order | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC www.youtube.com
Is that how this works? We do not think that is how this works.
The government's response to Judge Sullivan, signed by US Attorney Jessie Liu, briefly explained why they were saying fuck off and not releasing the transcript of Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador. You know, the one he lied to Mike Pence and the FBI and a hundred others about, where he inveighed upon Kislyak during the presidential transition to convince Vladimir Putin not to retaliate to the heightened sanctions President Barack Obama had levied in response to the Russian election attack.
The government [...] represents that it is not relying on any other recordings, of any person, for purposes of establishing the defendant's guilt or determining his sentence, nor are there any other recordings that are part of the sentencing record.
Huh? You ... aren't relying on the phone calls between Michael Flynn and the Russian ambassador to determine if Flynn lied about discussing sanctions with the Russian ambassador? HENNNNGH?
As far as telling the judge to fuck off on unredacting sections of the Mueller Report, Liu's response said:
With respect to the Report, the government represents that all of the information in the Report that the defendant provided to the Special Counsel's Office has been unredacted, as has all of the information in the Report that others provided about the defendant.
The prosecutors added that the only redactions left, really, are grand jury-type things, so move along, Judge Sullivan, nothing to see here!
Except ... not really? To be clear, there is a hell of a lot in the Mueller Report about Michael Flynn, and much of it is unredacted. But the order, as you see below, says "those portions of the report that relate to Mr. Flynn." As in, ALL THE PORTIONS.
Pretty sure there's some other stuff Judge Sullivan wants to see.
Part of the issue with the phone call transcripts seems to be that, though literally everybody knows US intelligence intercepted contacts between Flynn and the Russian ambassador, any such recordings are technically classified, which means the government hasn't publicly admitted that they even exist, even though they have been reported in the newspaper one thousand times, Flynn case documents refer to them repeatedly, and so does the Mueller Report. So in a way, the government seems to be saying, "Phone calls? We don't know what you mean when you say phone calls, and if we knew about phone calls, they'd be classified anyway, so anyway, would you look at the time! Gotta go wash all our cats BRB LOL!"
The New York Times quotes A Expert:
"This would be a rare step to make public" such intelligence collection, said Joshua Geltzer, a former Justice Department official. "What you see in today's filing is the government trying to avoid disclosing that material."
We should remind you that Judge Emmet Sullivan is a judge who really likes being fucked with. (That is called SARCASM.) We haven't seen a response yet from Sullivan, but considering how he reacted last December, during what was supposed to be Flynn's sentencing hearing, we doubt he'll stay silent for long. During that hearing, Sullivan was so unamused by Flynn's criminal behavior ("Arguably, you sold your country out!") that he suggested Flynn consult with his lawyers to see if he could cooperate with the government a whole lot more , lest Sullivan throw Flynn in the slammer despite how Robert Mueller's lawyers were recommending no jail time. That's why this is still going on to this day.
So, this could get interesting!
Since the government did comply with the Dowd voicemail request, here it is:
"Let me see if I can't state it in starker terms." Ooh, scary! Might as well have said something about making an offer Flynn couldn't refuse and something something sleeps with the fishes, YOU FUCK MY WIFE? YOU FUCK MY WIFE? "Thanks, Pal." YOU FUCK MY WIFE?
Anyway, obstruction of justice who what now? We are just asking.
Now that we have that full voicemail, paste-eating human pork rinds like Devin Nunes are on Twitter screaming FRAUDSsss!!1!1!gHaZi!!!1!!!!!, because they claim that Robert Mueller excerpted John Dowd's mafia-esque phone call to Flynn's lawyer to make it sound EXTRA DEVIL mafia-esque. We don't know exactly what their problem is, because the full transcript isn't in any way exculpatory, just paints a more detailed picture. Haha oops, we didn't just mean to imply that Devin Nunes had a strategy or a plan, besides just to moo as loudly as humanly possible, in hopes that will make it seem like he is saying something.
For the record, here's how the Mueller Report quoted the phone call:
Literally it seems like what Mueller deleted were the parts where Dowd was like DURRRR ARGH and sounded like he was picking his buttcrack at the time.
But whatever, Devin Nunes, FRAUDSDSSSSSUDZXZZ!!!!!1MOOOOOOOOOOO!
The point of this post is that Devin Nunes is a fuckin' idiot, wait, was that what this post was about?
We don't even remember.
[ Government response to minute order / Washington Post / New York Times ]
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Can I just say that the phone conversation we ARE able to see shows a real lack of competent criming. How can someone so blatantly fuck up a simple coded message?
I saw some 'fair and balanced' bullshit this weekend that seemed to be trying to imply that because he said "not just for the president but for the country" it meant that this was important serious stuff FOR THE COUNTRY. Since the president seems to believe "l'etat, c'est moi Moe" I don't think that's a useful distinction.