Listen as Larry spoke with Byron York, the chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner and a Fox News contributor, regarding his latest article, Comey told Congress FBI agents didn’t think Michael Flynn lied.
O’Connor: Well your big blockbuster yesterday hit around seven o’clock in the evening about Comey testifying that the FBI didn’t think Michael Flynn lied, that’s kind of a major deal, isn’t it?
York: Yeah it is. If you remember back in the crazy days of January and February of last year, unlike the crazy days of January and February this year, the talk was all about Michael Flynn and his talk with the Russians and did they talk about sanctions and was that illegal and all this sort of stuff. And basically it results in the FBI coming over to the White House on January 24th, which is the administrations fourth day in office, come over question Michael Flynn and then there’s a media speculation that Michael Flynn has lied to the FBI. So, the lawmakers on Capitol Hill want to know what’s going on. I mean, you have this stuff and then they’ve got the leak of this Flynn conversation with the Russian ambassador, that was a very serious thing. And they bring the FBI director to them and the FBI director tells them that the FBI agents who interviewed Michael Flynn did not think he lied in that January 24th interview. So, then fast forward to December, Michael Flynn pleads guilty to doing exactly that, lying in the interview.
O’Connor: So what happened in the intervening months?
York: I don’t know. Part of the article is to really raise this question. It’s not clear what happened. Obviously we know some things happened, the President fired the FBI director, James Comey and as a result there was an appointment of a Special Counsel Robert Mueller. He hired a team of prosecutors, you know, all sorts of things changed in the case but what resulted in that guilty plea, I don’t know.
O’Connor: Now another interesting thing, when we talk about the Mueller investigation and frankly when we talked about this initial conversations or the questioning of Michael Flynn as you state on the fourth day of the new presidency, we often go back to what was the underlying criminal act that was being investigated. When the FBI came to talk to Michael Flynn what was the suspicion because he was part of the transition, I mean people in transitions always have contacts with people, foreign entities, right?
York: You raise a great point. You’re right, Michael Flynn is the incoming National Security Adviser. He’s getting calls from all around the world from representatives of government all around the world…And by the way if Hillary Clinton had been elected her incoming national security adviser would have been getting calls from all around the world and there is nothing wrong with talking to representatives of government surrounds the world and it appears there was actually nothing wrong with Flynn talking to the Russian ambassador even if, as they apparently did, they discussed sanctions imposed by the United States on Russia. So then the question is, what’s this to the FBI? What’s this to the Justice Department? What’s the alleged crime? What we know is that Obama’s Justice Department officials came up with two theories. One theory was that Flynn had violated The Logan Act, which we’ve all heard of, that 200 year old law that’s never ever been successfully prosecuted [cross talk] somehow Flynn would be vulnerable to blackmail and on the basis of those things they send the FBI into the White House to question Flynn.
O’Connor: And let’s just be clear, if people aren’t familiar with The Logan Act. The Logan Act as you said is an archaic law, it’s never been…no one’s been charged with it let alone prosecuted. It says that you can’t conduct a foreign policy separate from the official foreign policy of the United States of America. Right?
York: Yes, that’s correct. There were two people charged with The Logan Act in the 19th century, they dropped the case.
O’Connor: And so when you say officials of the Justice Department, we have to ask who. Because if it’s Rod Rosenstein, if it’s Sally Yates, FBI agents just don’t go on their own.
York: This is pre-Rod Rosentein. This is Sally Yates who’s the Deputy Attorney General in the final days of the Obama administration, meaning she’s kind of the hands on leader of the Justice Department. And then, from January 20th to January 30th, she’s the Acting Attorney General in the new Trump administration. Remember she was fired after she refused to enforce the President’s travel ban executive order.
O’Connor: So Sally Yates as the Acting Attorney General and she’s acting because, Jeff Sessions we all remember his confirmation was being held up for various reasons in the Senate. She says, hey maybe he’s susceptible of bribery, he might have violated The Logan Act, FBI get in there and question Michael Flynn.
York: Correct. Susceptible to blackmail and apparently on the basis of those theories that’s why they went in. And as a matter of fact, when they went to talk to Flynn, Flynn met with the FBI without a lawyer which I think in retrospect everyone would say was not a good idea, but the FBI and Justice Department didn’t tell the White House, didn’t call the White House Counsel and say we’d like to come talk to National Security Adviser, they didn’t call the National Security Counsel’s legal team to say hey we’d like to talk to the National Security Adviser they just made an appointment and came over there. And two days later on January 26th, Sally Yates herself went over to the White House, talked to the White House Counsel and it was the first he’d heard of it. And he wondered what in the world was going on.
Byron York: Comey told Congress FBI agents didn’t think Michael Flynn lied (The Washington Examiner)
In March 2017, then-FBI Director James Comey briefed a number of Capitol Hill lawmakers on the Trump-Russia investigation. One topic of intense interest was the case of Michael Flynn, the Trump White House national security adviser who resigned under pressure on Feb. 13 after just 24 days in the job.
There were widespread reports that Flynn had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about telephone conversations that he, Flynn, had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition in late December 2016. On Jan. 24, 2017, two of Comey’s FBI agents went to the White House to question Flynn, and there was a lot of speculation later that Flynn lied in that interview, which would be a serious crime. [Read More]
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