New unsealed documents in the case against former National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn, show that the decorated General was set-up from the beginning.
Handwritten notes by the FBI's former head of counterintelligence Bill Priestap discussed their motivations for interviewing the then-national security adviser in the White House in January 2017. That interview, then FBI Director James Comey later admitted, did not follow the normal protocol.
One of the notes read, "“What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?”
Another handwritten note reveals that an alternate goal is to “get [Flynn] to admit breaking the Logan Act,” a reference to a 1799 law restricting communications between private citizens and foreign governments.
Logan Act is widely viewed as unconstitutional. It violates the First Amendment of the US constitution, and has never been used to successfully prosecute a single American citizen.
Preistap in one of the notes also wrote, “We have a case on Flynn and Russians,” and “our goal is to resolve case.”
This also turned out to be wrong. Special counsel Mueller's multi-year, multimillion-dollar investigation, found that there was zero evidence of illegal collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to steal the 2016 election from Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Flynn worked with the Trump campaign.
The explosive documents strongly suggested the agents weren't concerned about Flynn's intercepted contacts with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, except as a pretext.
Flynn previously charged that top FBI officials, including McCabe, pressed him not to have the White House counsel present during the interview with two agents that ultimately led to his guilty plea on a single charge of lying to federal authorities. One of those agents was Peter Strzok, who has since been fired from the bureau after his anti-Trump text messages with his lover Lisa Page came to light.
The FBI notes also show that the author of the document had misgivings about the FBI’s conduct in interviewing Flynn.
“I agreed yesterday that we shouldn’t show Flynn [REDACTED] if he didn’t admit. I thought [about] it last night, [and] I believe we should rethink this.
We regularly show subjects evidence, with the goal of getting them to admit wrongdoing. I don’t see how getting someone to admit their wrongdoing is going easy on him.”
Apparently aware of how treasonous their conduct was, the note ended with, “If we’re seen as playing games, [the White House] will be furious. Protect our institution by not playing games.”
Flynn has withdrawn his guilty plea and has been seeking exoneration. He said the FBI engaged in "egregious misconduct." He initially pleaded guilty - with making false statements to Mueller's FBI investigators in the interview - in late 2017 as mounting legal fees pushed him to sell his home.
He is currently trying to withdraw that plea, citing ineffective counsel and government corruption in the conduct of his case.
His current counsel Sydney Powell said more documents will be unsealed.
Check back for updates to this developing story