I never ceased to be amazed at the dishonesty and laziness of the media when it comes to reporting anything about Michael Flynn and the astonishing miscarriage of justice in bringing charges against him. The documents declassified and released by the DNI last Friday exonerate General Flynn and expose the FBI and the Mueller team as gargantuan liars. Even though Friday’s release of the declassified summaries and transcripts was overshadowed quickly by rioting in Minnesota (you know, if it bleeds and burns it is the lede), the documents reveal General Flynn as the consummate professional keen on serving his country and the Russian Ambassador as disgusted by the petulance and arrogance of the Obama administration.
The declassified material released by newly installed Director for National Intelligence actually consists of two different sets of documents–First, there are five summaries of conversations for 22, 23, 29 (two on the 29th) December 2016 and 5 January. Second, there are the full transcripts of the conversations for December 23, December 29, December 31 in 2016 and January 12 and January 19, 2017.
To summarize–a total of eight different calls between Kislyak and Flynn were recorded between December 22, 2016 and January 19, 2017. Five of the eight calls were initiated by Ambassador Kislyak–Mike Flynn only called Kislyak three times and two of those were in response to calls from Kislyak, who requested a call back or left a message.
Here are the specifics of those calls.
December 22, 2016–This call apparently was made by Michael Flynn to the Russians, responding to a request from President-elect Trump to ask Russia not to support the Egyptian UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel. (Note–Flynn make calls to most members of the UN Security Council).
December 23, 2016–Ambassador Kislyak calls Michael Flynn to report on his conversation with President Putin regarding the previous day’s request. Michael Flynn emphasizes to Kislyak that the mutual goal is/should be stability in the Middle East. Flynn tells Kislyak, “We will not achieve stability in the Middle East without working with each other against this radical Islamist crowd.” Kislyak remarks, “responding to your telephone call, and our conversations we will try to help to postpone the vote and to allow for consultations.”
December 29, 2016–Kislyak calls Flynn and leaves a simple message, “need to talk.”
December 29, 2016–Michael Flynn returns Kislyak’s phone call. First, Kislyak wants to discuss the Middle East policy. The Russians want to convey to the President-elect that the Russians will not be supporting the American colleagues at the Security Council. Flynn says it is good. Second, the Russians are very interested with working with the President-elect’s team to help the peace process in Syria. Thirdly, the Kremlin would like to . . . have a first conversation on January 21 rst between the presidents. Putin’s idea is to congratulate Trump and discuss issues. . . . Flynn tells Kislyak: Do not allow this administration to box us in right now! . . . . depending on what actions the Obama Administrations takes over this current issue of the cyber stuff, . . . they’re gonna dismiss some number of Russians out of the country, I understand all that . . . I know you have to have some sort of action, but to only make it reciprocal; don’t go any further than you have to because I don’t want us to get into something that have to escalate to tit-for-tat. . . . I really do not want us to get into the situation where we everybody goes back and forth and everybody had to be a tough guy here. We don’t need that right now. We need cool heads to prevail. And we need to be very steady about what we are going to do because we have absolutely a common threat in the Middle East.
December 31, 2016–Russian Ambassador Kislyak calls General Flynn. Kislyak tells Flynn, “And I just wanted to tell you that we found that these actions [were] targeted not only against Russia, but also against the president elect. . . . and with all our rights to respond we have decided not to act now because, its because people are dissatisfied with the lost . . . elections and, and its very deplorable. . . . Flynn responds, “we are not going to agree on everything, you know that, but, but I think that we have a lot of things in common. A lot. And we have to figure out how, how to achieve those things, . . .and be smart about it and keep the temperature down globally, as well as not just here in the United States and also over in Russia.
January 5, 2017–Lt. General Mike FLYNN phones Ambassador Sergey KISLYAK to express his condolences on the death of GRU Director Igor SERGUN, who died unexpectedly today from unknown causes.
January 12, 2017–Mike Flynn returns Kislyak’s phone call and discusses possible conference on Syria in Astana.
January 19, 2017–Kislyak leaves voicemail for Flynn, inquiring about scheduling of a phone call between Putin and Trump after the inauguration.
This is also very interesting:
“Before General Flynn’s voce message turns on, there is an open line, barely audible chat.
Someone asks Chernyshev, “Which agency are we talking about?” Chernyshev asks as to
confirm if he understands the question and responds in the same time: “Which Agency hackers
did the hacking? Believe me, Americans did hacked this all.”
The full exchange between General Flynn and Ambassador Kislyak throws much light on the subsequent Sunday morning mis-speaking by the Vice-President Pence.
From the first telephone call, Flynn tells Kislyak that President-elect Trump will only be inaugurated 3-weeks hence. Therefore Trump in late-December cannot formally make foreign policy decisions immediately.
In a later exchange about Russia’s proposed Astana Peace Conference to de-escalate ISIS activity In Syria, Flynn responds that Russia has Trump’s backing to begin preparations with the Syrians, Turks et al. On his part, Flynn will begin pencilling-in who would be on a future US delegation.
It goes without saying that Vice President-elect Pence, during this period had a full-time job marshaling the Transition and may not have been in the loop on these tentative Russian peace initiatives. When asked on a Sunday morning talk show, Pence could correctly say President Trump had no “official communications” with the Kremlin. But to later trash & demand Flynn’s dismissal for “lying to him” about the informal phone calls was inappropriate.
Pence could easily have told Americans that President-elect Trump was establishing informal relations, through multiple phone calls, with world leaders and he, Pence, was not party to all of them. No one in the fledgling Trump Administration was lying to him.
Hi Larry.why not tackle this knot from the Russian end.Russia has been fighting in Syria since jisr al shugour massacre in the groves.There naval base on the med was threatened and Gazprom stood to lose control of energy resources flowing out of the me too Europe.That has now been achieved.Not only that but Wagner group are in Libyan with Russian air support.From that point of view what was Flynn’s role in this
” amazed at the dishonesty and laziness of the media”. Dishonesty and laziness are the norm in the media.
That was one superb summary.
I wonder sometimes whether the new administration, from Trump downwards, realised just what they were up against after that unexpected election victory.
Time will tell but something tells me the release of the Kislyak-Flynn transcripts/FBI cuts is also related to Boente’s forced resignation. Here’s sundance’s take – it’s a long read btw – https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/05/30/boom-dana-boente-removed-fbi-chief-legal-counsel-forced-to-resign/
And yes, the hacking comment is fascinating on so many levels. It’s just kinda left hanging out there all by itself, eh?
And a quick off-topic thank you to the Col for posting the Lara Logan clip. All efforts hunting for it yesterday failed. She nailed it.
English Outsider,
Yes, I think that evidence thus far revealed suggests that the sedition was far along, and this even before Trump’s victory – an insurance policy, if you will, and way beyond any opposition research, as much of the “information”, if not at root fabricated, was otherwise illegally gathered.
And immediate that election victory, things went into overdrive as the seditionists’ panicked, doubling and tripling down on their illegal actions to frame a projected impeachment narrative as their next tactic. I hesitate to call it their next strategy, as it was too knee jerk to be characterized in that fashion.
So, no, I think that the new Trump administration had little idea of just how this transition of administration was, counter to most prior precedents, planned to be undermined with the full intent to invalidate the election of President Trump, and if possible, to overturn it.
This was sedition on multiple levels, crimes deliberately embarked upon to destroy the Constitution and the Republic by any means that these traitors deemed efficacious.
May they all rot in Hell.
Petrel,
I believe Trump knew he was being spied on as Adm. Rogers informed him and thereafter he moved his transition organization away from Trump Tower.
In any case why did Trump throw Flynn under the bus? In hindsight that was a huge mistake. Another huge mistake in hindsight was not cleaning house at the DOJ, FBI and the intel agencies early. That allowed Rosenstein and Wray to get Mueller going and created the pretext of the investigation to bury all the incriminating evidence. Trump never declassified anything himself which he could have and broke open the plot. He then gave Barr all classification authority who sat on it for a year. Look how fast Ric Grenell declassified stuff. There was no “sources & methods” the usual false justification.
It is unconscionable how severely Flynn was screwed over. Why is Wray still there? How many of the plotter cohort still remain?
Turkey by signing a deal with Libya gives them access to med gas resources.They are doing this with Russian assistance.Therefore Gazprom will be involved.Whats more Libyan oil resources are now within reach of Turkey and Russia.
Ethiopia is the key to starting a chain reaction to changing the Libyan paradox.Obama was heading in the right direction and Flynn was tied up with rubbish by trump
Therefore Flynn flying free=Democrats are betting the house.
Seen from this point of view covid is a tool in the hands of the Islamists.The riots an extension.Nato needs to make a move now
Libya is the prize.Imho
All in all my saying applies.Won the fight but lost the game
Circumspection is circumcision of the mind
Margot Cleveland has a very lengthy piece which, I believe,
is in near total agreement with your analysis, namely:
It was the Mueller team that deceived, not Flynn.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/01/new-flynn-transcripts-confirm-mueller-team-lied-to-the-court-and-the-country/
While the violence in our cities is capturing people’s attention,
just want to point out an item of “old business” that is worth some attention:
the testimony at 10 AM today of Rod Rosentein before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sundance describes the issues at stake here:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/06/02/rod-rosenstein-testifies-tomorrow-at-1000am-what-questions-would-you-ask/
To view the hearing, visit C-Span:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?472540-1/deputy-attorney-general-rosenstein-testifies-fbis-russia-investigation
Several key questions were not addressed in Rosenstein’s testimony,
e.g., the authorizing of the targeting of MTF Jr. as a way to pressure his dad.
Sundance gives four such omitted issues here:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/06/03/four-issues-highlight-how-lindsey-grahams-senate-hearings-are-a-deep-state-cover-operation/
Someone named Aaron Ames has an interesting and suggestive overlay of dates and events in the following:
http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0620/obamaflynn.html
Just want to give several useful and significant references concerning the Flynn situation’
1. While I certainly don’t agree with the general positions of Benjamin Wittes (the major domo of Lawfare) he does give an excellent play-by-play summary of Friday’s 2020-06-12 mandamus hearing before the D.C. Circuit Court:
https://www.lawfareblog.com/oral-argument-summary-re-michael-flynn
He makes some judgement calls on what is “irrelevant” and “without basis”, but those subjectivities are obvious, and the general summary of the thrust-and-parry of the 100-minute hearing is quite helpful.
2. A very articulate and knowledgeable analysis of the current Flynn situation , from the pro-Flynn side, is given in this one-hour video from Jay Sekulow et al.:
https://youtu.be/tqRwPTkPfMc
The glaring problem with that video is that about half of it is grating (IMO) appeals for financial support.
But the other half contains quite interesting arguments from competent legal professsionals about how fucked-up this situation is.
(After listening to them, that seems the appropriate term.)
For example;
David A. O’Neil, one of the signatories of the Gleeson “friend of the court” brief, was a lawyer for Sally Yates.
https://www.courthousenews.com/lawyer-says-white-house-stopped-yates-testimony/
So a “friend-of-the-court” is a former lawyer for Sally Yates.
Hmmm.
The people in that video raise a number of similar issues.
3. There is a webpage which summarizes that video:
https://aclj.org/constitution/radio-recap-exclusive-analysis-what-comes-next-in-the-michael-flynn-saga
4. Finally, moving away from the Flynn-specific stuff,
Sundance lays out and connects some of the dots in the Obama administration’s use of LE and the IC to surveil the Trump campaign:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/06/14/obama-era-political-surveillance-were-black-files-created/
This reference makes a good companion to the Aaron Ames webpage cited in the comment above, raising and connecting a number of issues which might be collectively described as “Spygate.”
This is abuse of power. Flynn is owed money, reputation and seeing his foes jailed.
As to the riots. This was planned to happen long before it did. All to get Trump out. And Obama clan is behind it. But like the fake virus scare, also planned to damage Trump. It is going to backfire.
DJT has figured out how the children in DC operate. He’s getting better at it.
That said, plan B for them is flipping back the states he flipped with voter fraud. And they will.