Completing some unfinished business before leaving office Jan. 20, 2021, 74-year-old President Donald Trump pardoned 61-year-old Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. Flynn was charged with lying to rogue FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka who were ordered by 60-year-old former FBI Director James Comey to interview Flynn without counsel at the White House Jan. 24, 2017, four days after Trump took office. Strzok and Pientka were part of Operation Crossfire Hurricane, an illegal counterintelligence investigation into Trump’s alleged ties to Moscow in the 2016 presidential campaign. President-elect Joe Biden attended a Jan. 5, 2017 meeting at the White House with former President Barack Obama, Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, former Deputy Atty. Gen. Sally Yates and National Security Advisor Susan Rice to discuss investigating Flynn for violating the 1799 Logan Act.
Whether faced or not, it was Biden’s idea to go after Flynn under the Logan Act. Trump wanted Flynn to open a friendly dialogue with 70-year-old fomer Russian Amb. Sergey Kislyak during the transition. Flynn was accused by the White House of violating the Logan Act with Kylyak. Obama and Biden were so concerned about Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak they had Rice unmask Flynn’s phone calls. Rice knew that nothing inappropriate transpired in the phone calls, other than Flynn letting Kislyak know that President-elect Donald Trump wanted to improve U.S.-Russian relations. On Dec. 31, 2016, Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats from Washington for allegedly meddling in the 2015 U.S. election. Relations with the Kremlin hit a Cold War low with Obama’s unfounded actions. Obama, Biden and the rest of their gang decided to set Flynn up in a perjury trap after Trump’s inauguration.
Breaking every known protocol with the White House, Comey went rogue, sending Strzok and Pientaka to the White House to interview Flynn. Flynn was so blindsided by Strzok and Pientka’s interview he thought nothing of responding to their questions. Strzok and Pientka asked Flynn if he talked with “the Russian government” during the transition, to which Flynn said he did not. That’s where they caught Flynn in a perjury trap, because technically his harmless conversations with Kislyak were considered the Russian government. Kislyak was a fixture in Washington’s cocktail scene, hardly someone regarded as the Russian government. So, when Strzok and Pientka interviewed Flynn Jan. 24, 2017, he didn’t think he talked with the Russian government speaking to Kislyak. Rice knew before sending Strzok and Pientka to the White House that Flynn did nothing wrong.
Incoming Secretaries of State or National Security Advisers open up dialogues with foreign governments before entering office. Flynn did nothing wrong talking to Kislyak about Trump’s intentions of improving U.S.-Russian relations. When Atty. Gen. Bill Barr tried to get the charges by 75-year-old former Special Counsel Robert Mueller right May 8, he urged U.S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan drop the case. Barr reasoned that there was no basis for Strzok and Pientka to interview Flynn at the White House other than a clear politically motivated perjury trap. Barr concluded that Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak were proper and there was no basis to the FBI’s claims that Flynn lied to Strzok and Pientaka. In Flynn’s mind, he lied to no one saying he didn’t have contact with the Russian government during the transition, only spoke with Kislyak on a few occasions.
Democrats and the media were consumed by the Mueller investigation hoping that it showed that Trump and his campaign conspired with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election. Mueller’s chief prosecutor Andrew Weissmann went after Flynn but he knew that he did nothing wrong. But Obama and Biden carried a grudge against Flynn for his days as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency [2012-2014], ending badly when Obama fired Flynn for an alleged affair with a Russian intelligence agent. Whatever happened, things turned out badly, with Obama and Biden carying a grudge against Flynn. When Trump named Flynn National Security Adviser in 2016, it was a slap in the face, prompting the fake FBI and Special Counsel investigation over Flynn’s phone calls with Kislyak. Trump had no clue at the time that he was also subject to Comey’s counterintelligence investigation.
Pardoning Flynn was Trump’s way to lash out at Comey’s illegal Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence investigation, followed up with Mueller’s witch-hunt into Trump’s alleged ties to the Kremlin. When Mueller wrote his Final Report March 23, 2020 clearing Trump and his campaign, Democrat and the media doubled down to find another reason to impeach Trump. Atty. Gen William Barr never charged key players in what Trump called the Russian hoax, leaving Trump to use his pardon power to exonerate Flynn and, in some way, to exonerate himself. Trump could very well pardon everyone snared by the Russian hoax, including his 71-year-old former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Pardoning Flynn, and perhaps others related to the Russian hoax, was Trump’s way of pardoning himself, something Atty. Gen. Bill Barr didn’t do for the president and others in his 2016 campaign.
