Yesterday, we played “remember when” with the FBI’s opening of their investigation into Trump, supposedly on allegations of “obstruction justice” for firing Director James Comey. As newly declassified documents show, the FBI knew when they opened that investigation that top officials at the DOJ had already been talking about firing Comey for months. (Who DIDN’T want to fire Comey?) And this had nothing to do with “Russia Russia Russia.”
Here's another installment from the documents declassified by Trump, this time about Michael Flynn. As you'll see, the Flynn story is quite consistent with what the FBI and other government agencies appear to have in store for anyone who dares to criticize the Biden administration or pose any challenge to its power. Let’s take a look at what Chuck Ross at the DAILY CALLER has found.
Remember when Michael Flynn was plagued with rumors that he'd been having an affair with a Russian woman named Svetlana Lokhova, a researcher at the University of Cambridge? Reports started surfacing in March of 2017, in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL and THE GUARDIAN, and Christopher Steele spread the rumor as well, telling David Kramer, a former State Department official, who, as it happens, was also the person who later passed a copy of Steele’s “dossier” to BUZZFEED, where it was published in full with no verification.
Flynn, it was said, left with Lokhova from a dinner both had been invited to at Cambridge when he was the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, in 2015. That dinner, hosted by Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of British spy organization MI-6 and associate of “confidential human source” Stefan Halper, may very well have been set up to place Flynn and Lokhova together. Recall that Obama opposed Flynn and his ideas on how to run military intel and wanted him gone.
Lokhova has vehemently denied that she left the dinner with Flynn, saying her husband picked her up at the end of the evening and that there was nothing between her and Flynn. (Though Ross’s piece doesn’t mention this, I believe she also sued those who were perpetuating the rumor.)
We talked about this many months ago as part of what Lee Smith reported in his outstanding book THE PLOT AGAINST THE PRESIDENT. One might also say this was the plot against Michael Flynn, too.
The newly declassified summary notes of Flynn’s meeting with the special counsel’s office show for the first time that Flynn was asked about this and cooperated fully, saying the allegations he’d read in the media were “ridiculous.” (There has never been any evidence of a relationship between Flynn and Lokhova.) Two days after this interview, he struck his unfortunate plea deal with the special counsel’s office.
William Barnett, the FBI agent investigating Flynn as part of Crossfire Hurricane, had already said in a January 2017 memo that a tip the Bureau received from an FBI informant about Flynn leaving that event with a Russian national was likely inaccurate. And in September 2020, he told a federal prosecutor that he’d found the allegation of Flynn leaving the event with Lokhova to be “not plausible.”
So, who put the fake story out there? It’s like an Agatha Christie murder mystery --- without the murder, except to the reputations of a couple of people. Was it Sir Richard Dearlove? Cambridge professor Christopher Andrew? One of the few Cambridge students in attendance? Or was it Stefan Halper, a close associate of Dearlove who was not at the dinner but who had been a CHS (“confidential human source”) for the FBI since 2008 and whom we know provided information to the FBI as part of their investigation of the Trump campaign?
Recall that Halper met with George Papadopoulos, Carter Page and Sam Clovis of the Trump campaign and secretly recorded them all.
If I were a betting man, my money would be on Halper. Sure enough, we now know it was Halper who invited Lokhova to that dinner. Also, according to other documents that have just been declassified, Halper told his FBI handler Steven Somma about Flynn and “someone he deemed to be suspicious.” Here’s a little refresher on Somma, also known as “Case Agent 1.”
Flynn was definitely caught in the crossfire of Crossfire Hurricane. According to the DOJ inspector general’s report dated December 19, 2019, FBI agents who met with Christopher Steele on October 3, 2916, offered to pay him “significantly” to dig up dirt on several Trump associates, including Flynn. What a deal for Steele --- he got to go after Trump, whom he couldn’t stand, help Hillary beat him, and get paid “significantly” in the process. Here’s a refresher.
No, we still don’t know what U.S. Attorney John Durham is going to do with any of this. And we’re now stuck with a Biden Justice Department, so justice seems unlikely. But thanks to Trump finally getting this stuff out, we’re filling in the holes and confirming what we knew was done to the President and fine people like Michael Flynn. Sorry to say, the intel community really does have “six ways from Sunday” of getting back at you.
And as part of the new Biden administration, it’ll be on steroids. Look at what the FBI has done already, drumming up phony concern about a small group of extremists called QAnon, which most Republicans (including us) had never even heard of, and also throwing the book at social media influencer and “meme”-creator Doug Mackey (a.k.a. Ricky Vaughn) on charges of INTERFERING WITH THE 2020 ELECTION. (He faces 10 years; check out his story elsewhere in today’s newsletter.) The irony of the FBI going after anyone for “election interference” after what they did both before and after the 2016 election is beyond calculation.
The Department of Homeland Security has focused on Trump supporters, too, offering this warning: "Information suggests that some ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence."
Not that they have evidence of this actually happening THAT THEY HAVE REVEALED. But, as we've seen with the case of Michael Flynn, they're perfectly capable of creating their own "false narratives."
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