Comey told Congress FBI agents didn't think Michael Flynn lied

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 February 13 after just 24 days in the job.

...

According to two sources familiar with the meetings, Comey told lawmakers that the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe that Flynn had lied to them, or that any inaccuracies in his answers were intentional. As a result, some of those in attendance came away with the impression that Flynn would not be charged with a crime pertaining to the January 24 interview.

Nine months later, with Comey gone and special counsel Robert Mueller in charge of the Trump-Russia investigation, Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the FBI in that January 24 questioning.

What happened? With Flynn awaiting sentencing — that was recently delayed until at least May — some lawmakers are trying to figure out what occurred between the time Comey told Congress the FBI did not believe Flynn lied and the time, several months later, when Flynn pleaded guilty to just that.

None of those congressional investigators has an answer; they're baffled by the turn of events. But they know they find the Flynn case troubling, from start to finish.

www.washingtonexaminer.com...

As usual, seeing as how this info comes from anonymous sources, it should not be taken as gospel.

But if it is true that Comey told congress that Flynn did not lie to them, it raises a lot of questions.

As the article shows, there are a;ready troubling things surrounding the Flynn situation; Yates tryng to get trumped up logan act charges, the releasing of the details of flynns conversation, and now this.

It will be interesting to see the investigators detail why they went against what the FBI originally thought about Flynn not lying.

a reply to: Grambler

They dont get it. They messed up by going after, and then actually pushing on Flynn.

This whole venture is tactically absurd. What on earth did they want to get out of it? Token validation that the investigations arent a waste of every ones time because someone is in trouble at random?

They are crucifying themselves to this Russia BS.

originally posted by: tadaman
a reply to: Grambler

They dont get it. They messed up by going after, and then actually pushing on Flynn.

This whole venture is tactically absurd. What on earth did they want to get out of it? Token validation that the investigations arent a waste of every ones time because someone is in trouble at random?

They are crucifying themselves to this Russia BS.

I’m unsure, I’m yet to see any proof AT ALL of the Russia bs. Got all sorts of corruption spewing out of Washington though. So it seems like it’s deflection from the outrageous amount of foul play these last 8 years, or more, thinking the torch would be handed off to Hillary.

With midterms right around the corner the left might want to stir up a platform and quit talking conspiracies. Because those polls they treat as gospel haven’t been trending in their favor lately. If the economy continues to do well I feel the Republicans will do really well in the midterms. I mean let’s be real, the average American’s main concern right now is the economy and not feelings.

Alright then, what date in March was this?..............

a reply to: Grambler

I am patiently waiting for the Inspector General's report to come out.
Supposedly we will hear that 302's were altered.

Comey was probably telling the truth. The 302's may have been changed after Comey was fired, giving Mueller something to charge another person with, to give the investigation a reason to continue.

If the IG report mentions altered 302's, Mueller is done.

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: Grambler

I am patiently waiting for the Inspector General's report to come out.
Supposedly we will hear that 302's were altered.

Comey was probably telling the truth. The 302's may have been changed after Comey was fired, giving Mueller something to charge another person with, to give the investigation a reason to continue.

If the IG report mentions altered 302's, Mueller is done.

Is the IG looking at the trump investigation?

My understanding is that he was focused on the FBIs handling of the hillary investigation.

It's STUNNING how much the establishment disliked Hillary and detested Trump. They would danced for joy if Obama had found a way to screw America for 4 more years.

What the dems wanted to happen has happened.

The Trump administration came into office while under an investigation that got started by using the steel dossier to get a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign.

What does that do to an administration?

It was meant to tarnish President Trump's administration from the start. I guess they thought they would have already got him out of office by now, because as we can see they have made a mockery out of the FBI, and they are coming up short with answers that make any sense, like how releasing the memo would endanger National Security. Fact is they don't want this Nation to prosper under President Trump, because the game the government has been playing for all this time is, and brilliantly I might add, being exposed for the lvl of corruption that exists in it. Now that Trump has brought the spotlight to D.C. we can actually tell who the enemies of the Nation truly are, and they have gained power precisely the only way President Lincoln said that they could.

a reply to: Grambler

This is disturbing on several levels.

Yates went to see McGahn twice, on Jan. 26 and Jan. 27. On Feb. 13, Flynn resigned. That same day, the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department had pursued Flynn on the grounds of a potential Logan Act violation.

www.washingtonexaminer.com...

So they were desperately trying to find some reason to renew the FISA

Disgusting.

originally posted by: Grambler

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: Grambler

I am patiently waiting for the Inspector General's report to come out.
Supposedly we will hear that 302's were altered.

Comey was probably telling the truth. The 302's may have been changed after Comey was fired, giving Mueller something to charge another person with, to give the investigation a reason to continue.

If the IG report mentions altered 302's, Mueller is done.

Is the IG looking at the trump investigation?

My understanding is that he was focused on the FBIs handling of the hillary investigation.

He is the Inspector General- Justice.
He can look into whatever he pleases, in the Justice Department, AFAIK.
His job description:

As Inspector General, Mr. Horowitz oversees a nationwide workforce of more than 450 special agents, auditors, inspectors, attorneys, and support staff whose mission is to detect and deter waste, fraud, abuse, and misconduct in DOJ programs and personnel, and to promote economy and efficiency in Department operations.  

link
I hope he is not limited.

When you wrote:

"But if it is true that Comey told congress that Flynn did not lie to them, it raises a lot of questions." You were subtly altering what the article says that Comey actually said. I don't know if that alteration was deliberate or accidental.

According to the article, Comey said that the two agents who interviewed Flynn came away, at that point in time, with the impression that Flynn had not lied. Comey did not say that the FBI had CONCLUDED that Flynn did not lie. At that point in time, the FBI investigation on Flynn was just beginning, so no conclusion was warranted. The two field agents who did the interview were not necessarily briefed to the same level of clearance that Comey was and, in any case, any investigative information that came to light after Comey testified to Congress could not have entered into the conversation.

The Congress members who were quoted in the article seem to be mystified by what happened in the (approximately) 9 months between the time Comey testified to Congress and the time he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. The obvious answer is SIGINT, or Signals Intelligence. It doesn't take a stretch of imagination to suppose that between March and late November, somebody found a phone conversation, a text message, or an email between Flynn and someone else that contradicted testimony that Flynn gave in the previous January.

And that SIGINT would NOT necessarily have to have involved a FISA warrant. During that same period of time George Papadopoulos was supposedly cooperating with the FBI; he could easily have given them some information that would have warranted the FBI (or any one of several other agencies, for that matter) monitoring Flynn's communications. The fact that certain Congress members, or you, or I, don't know what that SIGINT might be is neither surprising nor alarming. Neither you nor I nor Congress has a need to know what that information might be, especially if public revelation of it could interfere with an ongoing investigation.

Flynn's lawyers would not have let him cop a plea deal without there being some airtight evidence against him.


a reply to: Grambler

and guess who may have told somebody to "re-arrange" the 302 reports

😎

a reply to: 1947boomer

What if the lawyers were "steered" into false evidence ?

🤔

Can't live with em' can't kill em'

That was established in earlier threads.

When Mueller came on, suddenly it was a lie.