By Rick Manning
America’s eyes turned to Iraq and Iran over the past few days as President Trump made a bold decision to take out one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists and faced down the Iranian government and their proxies at MSNBC, CNN, the Democratic Congress and Hollywood.
However, it is another overshadowed story arc which signals an on-going failure of our justice system, and it is this failure that threatens Americans’ basic faith that the federal judicial system is not permanently rigged for the house.
In 2015, Lt. General Michael Flynn made the grievous mistake of becoming a national security advisor to GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, and since then he was targeted by the FBI due to his determination to clean up the nest of vipers that is the National Security Council.
Without rehashing the entire story, when General Flynn became the National Security Advisor to the President in the first days of the Trump Administration, the FBI, led by Deputy Director Andrew McCabe conspired to take advantage of the new White House by sending agents to interview Flynn about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador during the transition period after the election and before the inauguration.
The FBI had taped the conversation, so they knew its content and the only purpose of the interrogation was to try to entrap Flynn by seeing if he would lie about the call. Unlike normal protocol, Flynn did not have White House attorneys with him during the interview as Flynn assumed the meeting was about setting security procedures for the new administration.
Upon returning to the FBI, the agents both reported that they believed Flynn thought he was telling them the truth. Byron York of the Washington Times reported on former FBI Director James Comey’s Congressional testimony on the meeting with Flynn writing, “According to two sources familiar with the meetings, Comey told lawmakers that the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe that Flynn had lied to them, or that any inaccuracies in his answers were intentional”.
This information was withheld from Flynn as the FBI pursued a manufactured perjury case against him. What was also withheld was the fact that another high ranking FBI official changed the original report to make the perjury case against Flynn.
Now, almost three years later the Trump team at the Justice Department not only have failed to drop the ill-gotten charges, but are pursuing the imposition of a six month sentence against Flynn.
With all of the hope that Attorney General William Barr would take on the rats nest at DOJ, it is clear that he is failing. While the Obama holdovers continue to pursue legal vendettas against the Trump team to the fullest extent that the law allows. The plodding investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham into the weaponization of our nation’s intelligence services is running out of time as the 2020 election season unfolds. And it is guaranteed that if President Trump loses his election, those Obama officials responsible for the greatest political abuse of power will walk away scot free — or worse, do it again.
After three years of expressing outrage at the abuse of power by the FBI, State Department, Department of Justice, CIA and others hoping against hope that our system of justice will be restored, DOJ’s continued attack on General Flynn, just confirms my worse fears — those who broke all the rules for political gain are still in charge.
So Attorney General Barr, please spare me any updates or tough statements about investigations moving forward. Until those who led the attempted coup against this President of the United States are being perp-walked in handcuffs, the idea that justice will be done at the DOJ has been shattered — the bad guys won and justice is an illusion.
As for Lt. General Flynn, President Trump should immediately use his Executive power to expunge the prosecution and free this American warrior from the shackles of those who sought to destroy the presidency.
And in his first act after he gets re-elected, the President should pardon everyone who was prosecuted based upon this poisonous tree. After all, if justice is not blind, there is no excuse for not using presidential powers to end obvious abuses by the rogue, unaccountable federal prosecutors.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
