The ‘FBI made me lie’ defense

Cries of ‘conspiracy’ are knee-jerk now

Do not lie to federal investigators. If you do lie to them and get caught, expect to go to prison. Duh.

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn argued he should not go to prison for lying to the FBI. Why? In part because the FBI agents who interviewed him did not warn him against lying.

I lack the nerve and imagination to make that up. But, hey, I was never a national security adviser.

The Fayetteville policeman who pulled me over once for missing a stop sign did not turn on his blue lights first to remind me the sign was there. I am supposed to feel entrapped now?

To be fair, Flynn had many other — and much better — arguments for mercy in his plea to his sentencing judge. There is a problem, though. People eager to see a FBI conspiracy behind everything seized upon the “nobody warned me” defense. One of them, for instance, wrote Wednesday’s editorial in the Wall Street Journal, headlined “The Flynn Entrapment.”

Let me use my favorite tool, Occam’s razor. I propose a much simpler theory than FBI investigators “entrapping” Flynn by not reminding him to tell the truth when answering their questions.

Flynn had no good explanation for lying to investigators. He apparently decided he needed one to tell the judge. There is a cliché he should have heeded. It is an old one: When you have nothing to say, better say nothing.

Other current and former members of the president’s administration should hew to the same rule. That includes the president. I never saw any group of high-ranking people who need to shut up more and who do it less. Then they shout “bias” when they get called out. It has become knee-jerk.

Take Flynn’s case; Once upon a time, the FBI found out Flynn called the Russian ambassador to undermine U.S. sanctions before the current administration took office. Then-FBI director James Comey suggested that his deputy at the time, Andrew McCabe, call Flynn and say, in effect: Hey Mike. We have some questions. Mind if I send a couple of agents over? Do not ask for a lawyer, though. That would mean red tape. We want to clear this up quickly.

Aha, the sages of the Journal say. See, it was a trap.

If that is a trap, folks, so is “pull my finger.” Suppose the FBI called me up and said “Hey, Doug. We want to send a couple of agents over. Do not call a lawyer, OK?” The first thing I would do is hang up. The second thing I would do is call my lawyer — even if I had not done anything I was willing to lie to the FBI about.

Two investigators questioned Flynn. If one had been Flynn’s best friend and the other his brother, Flynn would have still committed a crime by lying to them. If one had been his worst enemy and the other a paid assassin who lost his nerve before shooting Flynn, Flynn would have still committed the crime by lying to them. Feelings change nothing.

Having McCabe call Flynn is “something I probably wouldn’t have done or wouldn’t have gotten away with in a more organized administration,” Comey said on television last weekend. “In the George W. Bush administration or the Obama administration, if the FBI wanted to send agents into the White House itself to interview a senior official, you would work through White House counsel. There would be discussions and approvals [about] who would be there.” Golly. No kidding.

This whole scenario does not prove FBI conspiracy. It is further proof of administration cluelessness.

A member of an administration put in power to “drain the swamp” should know what an alligator looks like.

Allow me to quote myself from Sept. 1: “The president suffers from scandal envy. He says Hillary Clinton got away with much worse than anything he did. Therefore, his friends and allies getting convicted while he keeps getting investigated seems so unfair to him.

“… Maybe, but there appears to be a simpler factor at work. At the very least, this factor seems to be a major contributing cause to his frustration.

“Perhaps [Hillary] Clinton is smarter and hires much, much better lawyers. Perhaps she can keep her thoughts to herself and her fingers off Twitter, too.”

One last thought: While I have often stared slack-jawed at the Wall Street Journal’s commentary, its news reporting is first-rate.