Special counsel Robert Mueller’s first big win was former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s guilty plea about lying to the FBI.
Journalists and Democrats cheered the development because they saw it as the first step towards removing Donald Trump from office.
But now this slip of paper could undo everything and seal Robert Mueller’s doom.
Mueller secured a guilty plea from Flynn on December 1, 2017 for making false statements to FBI agents during a January 2017 interview with FBI agents about his phone conversations with the Russian Ambassador.
Trump supporters viewed the case against Flynn as an outrageous abuse of power.
If Flynn had lied to the FBI, why did it take nine months for Mueller to swoop in and force Flynn to plead guilty?
The answer has come in the form of bombshell revelations that the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe he was being untruthful in the interview.
In a letter from Trump’s lawyers to special counsel Mueller explaining why it was not necessary to interview Trump, the President’s lawyers revealed that Comey testified to Congress that the agents did not believe Flynn was lying.
Trump’s lawyers wrote,
“there was no obvious investigation to obstruct since the FBI had concluded on January 24, 2017, that Lt. Gen. Flynn had not lied, but was merely confused. Director Comey confirmed this in his closed-door Congressional testimony on March 2, 2017.”
Now Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is digging into this matter.
Grassley fired off a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein blasting him for slow-walking document requests about this matter.
Grassley wrote:
“The Committee has waited patiently for much more than a year for the criminal inquiry related to Lt. General Flynn to conclude. It has been more than five months since his guilty plea. Thus, there is no longer any legitimate reason to withhold facts from the Senate about the circumstances of his conversations with the Russian ambassador and his FBI interview.”
If the FBI agents did not believe Flynn had lied, then what basis did Mueller have for pressuring Flynn into pleading guilty?
Grassley also included in his letter the fact that former FBI Director Comey has made inconsistent statements about how the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn viewed the truthfulness of his answers:
“Former Director Comey also has made public statements about the FBI’s actions regarding Lt. General Flynn on his book tour that contradict his previous descriptions to this Committee and the House Intelligence Committee while he was FBI Director. Moreover, newly released information tends to support the version of events former Director Comey relayed to the congressional committees.”
If Comey was lying on his book tour, or the FBI files contain information that would vindicate Flynn, Congress has a right to know.
Rosenstein may be trying to shield Mueller’s case from complete collapse by sitting on Grassley’s requests for documents.
If the truth about Flynn’s FBI interview was known, Flynn’s guilty plea could be thrown out and Mueller’s entire case would collapse.
Do you believe that is why Rosenstein is refusing to follow through on Senator Grassley’s document requests?
Let us know your thoughts in the comment section.
