Agent Orange, in his clumsy desperation, is trying to evade #TrumpRussia with his brand of “influence”, reminding us of those “Flynn’s a good guy” statements and Comey’s firing.
But more interesting is whether Lord Dampnut knew more than his feeble distractions can tell us, and why obstruction of justice may be the least of his problems.
Trump seems to think his lack of Mar-a-Lago visitor logs allows him to “make deals” without accountability, but was Jim Woolsey forced to eat the meatloaf.
The plea deal could spell trouble for former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was reportedly offered $15 million to pursue Turkish government interests in the US.
The trader, Reza Zarrab, could have information about Flynn's ties to Turkish President Recep Erdogan that could be useful to federal investigators examining the extent to which Flynn was working for the Turkish government both before and after the election.
And what did Trump know and when did he know it (...about a continuing private nuclear power plan deal worked by Flynn, Kushner, and Bannon among others)
It still hinges on whether Flynn has flipped and more interestingly, there’s the money path that Russians use to go through Turkey (and Cyprus) That’s aside from the Flynn overlap with Cambridge Analytica, among other #TrumpRussia elements that some folks like Malcolm Nance suggest are part of an entire executive portfolio of Flynn campaign responsibilities in terms of cyber-mischief with Wikileaks, hacking, and troll-bottery.
Legal experts said the letter is the first public indication that Mueller is investigating Flynn’s stormy leadership period at the DIA, which ended when he was forced to retire earlier than planned amidst criticism over his leadership.
“It certainly suggests that Flynn is being investigated not just for conduct that postdated his departure” from the DIA, said University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck.
“I think there has been this suspicion since during the [2016] campaign that for all his plaudits and achievement, General Flynn has been part of some pretty shady dealings,” Vladeck said. “I don’t think it’s shocking if some of those dealings in fact predated his departure from the government.”
Was he angry about being retired early and was he leveraging his intelligence agency experience to make money, yet serve interests that have now been shown to have been not in US national interests. But now it seems he may have been subject to kompromat a bit before retirement.
A well-known maverick, Flynn had been asked to “shake things up” at the 17,000-person agency. He brought a more wartime mind-set and ethos to a sleepy Washington bureaucracy, until the bureaucracy pushed back and Flynn’s gung-ho style was deemed too “disruptive” for an administration determined to put the unpleasant memories of Iraq and Afghanistan in the rearview mirror.
[...]
In private emails hacked and leaked to the press, Colin Powell, former secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs, called Trump a "national disgrace and an international pariah" and Flynn “right-wing nutty” for empowering him. "Flynn got fired as head of DIA. … I asked why Flynn got fired. Abusive with staff, didn't listen, worked against policy, bad management, etc. He has been and was right-wing nutty every [sic] since,” Powell wrote, later wondering "how [Flynn] got that far in the Army?"
www.politico.com/...