Calling Mr. Lock Her Up
Here is what Donald Trump, Gen. Michael Flynn’s old boss, said in a tweet the other day, as Trump continues to be the king of Twitter if not the world, which is what he apparently thinks he was elected to be: “Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!”
This is the same Donald Trump who had a vastly different idea about immunity when he thought it might once involve friends of Hillary Clinton, back in those innocent days when we were supposed to think a private email server was the closest thing to treason.
“If you are not guilty of a crime, what do you need immunity for?” Trump said in 2016.
Flynn himself said pretty much the same thing about immunity, at about the same time, in those days when he was leading the “Lock her up!” chants like he was the leader of the pep squad. Both Flynn and Trump seemed to be in agreement that if you needed immunity, you had to be a very bad boy. Or girl.
Clearly a lot has changed now that the subject of immunity involves Flynn himself, once anointed by Trump as his very first, front-of-the-line, top national security adviser. Only then Flynn was like a pitcher who couldn’t get out of the first inning and resigned. This was after it came out that he had misled Vice President Pence about conversations he had with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak back in December, conversations that were at least in part about this country’s sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Flynn said it was all about “incomplete information.” Now you have to wonder why, if there is this big witch hunt against Flynn, he had to resign in the first place. And wonder at the same time why the President would accept the resignation of an innocent man now being persecuted this way by the media and by Democrats.
You especially wonder why the National Enquirer, owned by a pal of Trump’s named David Pecker, is now calling out Flynn as the kind of Russian spy you rarely find outside of “The Americans,” or a John Le Carré novel, and acting as if Trump saved himself and the republic from Michael Flynn.
No matter. Flynn still goes to Congress panhandling for immunity, and with the suggestion that he has a story to tell, the way guys do when they’re looking to flip in a New York City RICO case.
But before he gets anywhere with a deal, the news gets even worse for him. Now it comes out that not long before resigning from Trump’s White House, it slipped Flynn’s mind that he had received speaking fees from businesses tied to Russia, and that he had received more than $45,000 to speak at a 2015 event for RT, a Kremlin-run network. This all came out in an amended filing after Flynn was out of a job.
This has nothing to do with Flynn’s service to his country, by the way. This is about the shade he now throws on his own service, and his rank, by turning into a political hack. Someone like Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee now acting like a White House concierge, he has no reputation to ruin. Nunes is just the kind of hack who makes Americans hate politics and politicians.
Nunes has never served anything except his own political ambition, though that isn’t going to matter when he runs for reelection. Michael Flynn served his country, before he was more worried about his own price than the cost of the decisions he was making about Russia.
This is the man who actually led the “Lock her up!” chants about Hillary Clinton at the Republican National Convention. This is the man who said, “If I did a tenth of what she did, I’d be in jail.” Now he and his lawyer are the ones looking for immunity. You always have to flip these things — flip being the operative word in Flynn’s case — and wonder how all of his admirers in the bullhorn media would be acting if Hillary Clinton had won, and someone as close to her as Flynn was to Trump had this much explaining to do about Russia.
In the end, Flynn is nothing more than a sideshow to the main event, which is Donald Trump’s administration. For all of his talk about making America great again, and even though he does have a great American like Gen. James Mattis as his secretary of defense, where is the other greatness around him?
You want to know why even people who supported Trump look at this White House and think that kids have taken over the principal’s office, and with the full consent of the principal? It’s not just because of guys like Steve 1 (Bannon) and Steve 2 (Miller). It’s also because of Gen. Michael Flynn.
It’s never much of a witch hunt if, even using Flynn’s math, onetenth of the witches are real. UN AMBASSADOR Nikki Haley said Sunday she is convinced Russia meddled in last year’s presidential election, even as President Trump continued to tweet about the “phony Russia story.”
“Certainly, I think Russia was involved in the election. There’s no question about that,” Haley said in an interview with ABC News’ “This Week.” “And I think when they finish with all of this process, yes, they need to address Russia. They need to act.”
“We don’t want any country involved in our elections, ever,” she added. “We need to be very strong on that.”
Trump has said he believes Russian operatives hacked Democratic Party emails during the election, but any suggestion that he or his team had any connections to Russia has been met with two words: “Fake news.”
“It is the same Fake News Media that said there is ‘no path to victory for Trump’ that is now pushing the phony Russia story. A total scam!” Trump tweeted Saturday. A day later, Trump continued his rant.
“The real story turns out to be SURVEILLANCE and LEAKING! Find the leakers,” he wrote.
Despite Trump’s attempts to downplay any Russia connection, Haley said the President has never pushed her to stop “beating up on Russia” for its actions in Crimea and its dispute with Ukraine.
“There’s no love or anything going on with Russia right now,” said Haley, who was the governor of South Carolina before Trump picked her to represent the U.S. before the United Nations.
“They get that we’re getting our strength back, that we’re getting our voice back and that we’re starting to lead again, and, honestly, at the United Nations, that’s the No. 1 comment I get, is that they’re just so happy to see the United States lead again.”
While Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied his country played any role in last year’s contest between Trump and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, U.S. intelligence agencies have reported that Moscow did try to help Trump’s campaign effort.
The FBI as well as congressional committees are investigating whether the Russian government coordinated with Trump associates during the campaign.
The White House is also trying to play down reports that the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, had help from the administration to view secret intelligence reports that he says pointed to inappropriate leaking.