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© Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.Trump pardons Flynn, taking direct aim at Russia probe
By ERIC TUCKER WASHINGTON©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
53 Comments
takeda.shingen.1991@gmail.com
Okay, now there's no excuse. Michael Flynn can testify to Congress, no pleading the 5th for the Dictator lover.
JJ Jetplane
A presidential pardon is a great motivator to stop people from implicating you in a crime.
PTownsend
Trump continues to be worried about Russia. What's he hiding this time? He knows the various intelligence agencies have lots of info on Russia's 'meddling' and is aware once he and his 'deep state' are gone they'll be able to more easily release that info.
Yrral
Trump Russian agents
Numan
There is also another for the timing. trump can not stand the fact that Biden is getting all of the attention now. His ego cannot stop him from wanting to be the center of attention. He is burning up because he is still president, but the country and the world are already talking about the future without him. trumps relevance is fading!
He is pathetic and many of his supporters are too; thus, they like his childish and selfish behavior.
1) First example, trump gave a one-minute press conference to brag about the Dow Jones topping 30,000, which only happened after it was clear he wasn't going to be president anymore.
2) Now, he made this announcement came a little time after Biden made an announcement to the public about unity and bring the nation together.
trump is a hater and sore LOSER! You have been FIRED!
Graham DeShazo
Mike Flynn lied to the FBI to cover up Trump campaign contacts with Russians during the transition.
That’s a felony. Nobody entrapped him. He did that knowing it was wrong.
Pleaded guilty to save himself, then failed to cooperate, then tried to withdraw his guilty plea.
THEN the Barr directed the DOJ to withdraw the prosecution which is just unheard of.
THEN the judge rejects the withdrawal.
I think that Flynn is covering up even worse information for Trump.
This is a disgrace to American justice.
Fortunately, the truth will out. Flynn now loses his 5th Amendment rights. The DOJ can put him on the stand and ask him anything about Mueller’s investigation and he must answer. If he lies, that’s a new - unpardoned crime.
BTW, Obama warned Trump not to hire Flynn. Trump ignored him. How very Trumpy of him.
Numan
If trump is no longer a useful asset then he will get burned by Putin. He will use Flynn and his other deplorables to attempt to repeat 2016; however, I think the public is smarter now, and he will not run or win again.
He will just continue to dangle a carrot to get his ignorant supporters to send him money (75% of his election fraud defense is going directly to his family and friends/he has been golfing the pass couple weeks to get the taxpayers to pay millions of dollars to his failing golf courses).
The Secret Agents protecting him may be required to save his life, but they are still required to report any suspicious or illegal activity by the former president. That include Russian agents who will try to communicate with him.
Numan
trump is in the WH Bunker stalking Biden. Basically, everytime Biden makes a public announcement; the attention starved trump is going to jump out of the bushes like a "one man band" begging everyone to look at him!
A 70+ year-old troll that got beat by "Sleepy Joe"!
Trump's staffers are reportedly now avoiding him to stay out of legal jeopardy
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-staffers-reportedly-now-avoiding-083411740.html
ulysses
A president who promised to drain the swamp created a bigger swamp with the vilest of creatures.
Now when Biden is about to drain his swamp,he is allowing these vile creatures to escape !!!!!
Criminality is normalized under trump!!!!
Mickelicious
Spaseeba.
IloveCoffee
You gotta love the extraordinary ability humans have to justify and rationalize literally anything.
So, to sum up:
Russian interference in America = bad.
American interference in China = good.
Americans conspiring with Russia = traitors.
Chinese conspiring with America = heroes.
Remember folks, in a sick society, hypocrisy is only a problem when it conflicts with somebody else's hypocrisy. That being said, i am fairly confident that this is rather a natural outcome of being exposed to nothing but one-sided information your entire life. The biggest irony of all is that Chinese netizens have more nuanced and informed view than probably majority of American netizens. How ironic.
bass4funk
Now y’all knew this was coming. Best Thanksgiving gift.
I don’t think he thinks about Russia at all, I think the Democrats talked themselves 24/7 nonstop Russia, Russia, Russia so much they’re actually starting to believe it.
Well, Mueller thought he was hiding as well as did 19 Trump hating Democrat lawyers and after 3 years of 500 witnesses and 500 subpoenas and found Trump was hiding nothing, so it’s nothing that’s what the intelligence agency knows and even if the Dems try to come up with junk at this point no one cares anymore, but they tried their best, all you can ask for.
Attilathehungry
Trump has a ways to go yet. Obama pardoned more than 200 people, Trump so far less than 30.
sunfunbun
bass4funk Mueller did not find Trump hiding nothing.
He said, 'if we had had confidence the president had not committed a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the President did commit a crime'.
The policy of his office determined a President cannot be charged with a federal crime, while in office. He explained that an investigation of a president is allowed, but the criminal justice system cannot accuse the President of wrong doing. But his statement that the President was not exculpatory with his involvement with Russia and Russian election interference does not say Trump hid nothing, and in fact, quite the opposite.
Mueller had no choice, in his mind, but to hand the report to William Barr, who is a Trump lackey. And thus, no truthful determination of whether the President actually committed a crime. Mueller due to his staunch convictions and interpretation of the law. Barr, because he's a weasel.
In the years to come, when the full report comes to light, it will likely show 'if we had had confidence the president has not committed a crime, we would have said so' that Trump and sons were directly involved with Russian interference in the US election process.
Jsapc
Some people seems to habitually and willfully forget that the only reason Trump was not removed from office is because his own party, by loyalty and/or cowardice, acquitted him. He was absolutely found guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanor" and explicitly not exonerated by his acquittal (this part is very important). He was also determined to be an unindicted co-conspirator in the Michael Cohen case. Which is already very bad in itself.
This needs to be posted again and again as long as some people try to rewrite history to make the future ex-president to be an innocent man.
bass4funk
And they couldn’t prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, we don’t go by probabilities, either there is concrete evidence or there isn’t, speculations of what could possibly be is not in any shape or form an indication that a crime was committed.
True, but even if there was substantial and incriminating evidence, we would have known about it. Remember, we are talking about Democrats, the very people that despise Trump.
Because he had nothing....19 lawyers, all Democrats and nothing.
Uh-huh...lol
egads man!
Probably more pardons coming for friends of the President.
Numan
@Atilitathehungry
How many of the people that Pres. Obama were his business partners that helped hi break the law?
The answer is ZERO!
Attilathehungry
I am sure you are right egags. As there always are. Plus an unknown number of sentence commutations, which are arguably even more dangerous.
Numan
@Attila
Like, Roger Stone, right? Maybe, Bannon? How many scams and political terrorism has been charged with again?
takeda.shingen.1991@gmail.com
What an absurd comment. People aren't upset at the number or pardons, they're upset at who was pardoned.
How many people in Trump's orbit has he pardoned? How many members of Obama's administration did Obama pardon? Yeah no, not even comparable?
bass4funk
That’s with every President on both sides and that will always continue. Obama pardoned people that set the GOP hairs on fire and vice versa so both sides just have to deal with it. Anyway, Flynn is free, the Dems aren’t happy, too bad, life goes on. I’m sure Biden will pardon people that will tick off Republicans as well.
Well....
Midnight Sun Tribe
At least Putin's puppet is on the way out... I am used to seeing US presidents work with dictators... but never for one until Trump. Ugh.
takeda.shingen.1991@gmail.com
No no. 0 people from the Obama administration were pardoned by Obama. Scores of Trump administration staff have had to be pardoned by Trump.
To my memory, that's never happened before. Ever. And if you they have, certainly not at the Donald has.
Attilathehungry
True, Obama only commuted the sentences of people like Oscar Lopez Rivera, convicted Marxist terrorist implicated in more than 100 bomb attacks across the US and Puerto Rico.
More ironically, Obama also pardoned... a Marine General (General James Cartright)...convicted of lying to the FBI...
So all presidents do it, as Bass said. It is a last way to reward loyalty and being tight lipped.
Numan
@Attila
But, Pres. Obama did not have to pardon anyone in his own administration acting on behalf of the Pres. before his first term (only term for trump) is over! The only term that trump also got impeached and lost by a landlside for re-election!
LOL! Apples and Oranges!
ulysses
The best thanksgiving gift is the stand up comedy going on in Pennsylvania !!!
It is a gathering of the dim witted!!!
Numan
@Ulysses
You should have heard the idiot in the WH. He did not show up because he was embarrassed for losing, but he called in like he was on Fox and Friends! Needless to say, it was more whining and playing the victim like a spoiled brat!
He does not have to worry about his legal team making him look like a fool. He has been doing it all by himself!
lincolnman
Probably the only promise Trump has kept in four years....talk to Russians and lie about it, and I'll make it go away...
Flynn will be a just another Fox talking head spouting nutty conspiracy theories before the end of the year...
Put him, Newt, and Rudy on the same Fox show and you have more crazy than the entire psycho ward at Rikers Island..
takeda.shingen.1991@gmail.com
Lololol No, all presidents don't do it. General Cartwright was never an Obama administration employee. Keep trying.
Strangerland
Not for long. The media will get bored of him. And once he’s not president, Twitter will ban him for violations, rather than just labeling his tweets. He’ll lose his platform then. After that he’ll be regulated to the Qers on Parler, whining himself into irrelevance.
Attilathehungry
It is funny how General Flynn is talked about here. Seems like he is the second reincarnation Benedict Arnold! Reality was that the Dept of Justice was already moving to cancel the charges against him.
Numan
@Attila
If that was actually going to work then there would be no need for a pardon. When a person is pardoned they have to admit to committing the crime. Why ruin your reputation if the charges were going to be dropped?
See, how logic works? :)
takeda.shingen.1991@gmail.com
No, the Trump DOJ asked the court to drop the charges. After Flynn pleaded guilty. Why do you think they would do that? In your own words, you've admitted that presidents do this sort of thing to reward people for hiding the truth. If Donald has pardoned nearly half a dozen members of his administration, he is undoubtedly hiding a lot.
Numan
@Ulysses
And the reason why he phoned in instead of showing up was because one of the people tested positive for COVID-19. He truly was defeated by the coronavirus!
Almost everything Trump said at a Republican event in Pennsylvania about the election was a lie or a conspiracy theory
https://www.yahoo.com/news/almost-everything-trump-said-republican-225257961.html
lincolnman
Amazing all the Trump supporters here sticking up for Flynn...
As a member of Trump's transition team, Flynn spoke by phone on December 29 with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The calls happened as President Barack Obama's administration was issuing sanctions against Russia for its alleged interference in the 2016 US election.
When news of Flynn's phone calls became public in January, administration officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, said the conversations focused on logistics, not sanctions.
"They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States' decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia," Pence told CBS.
But US investigators looked into the claim, and the Justice Department last month warned the Trump administration that Flynn had misled administration officials about his communications with Kislyak and could be vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians.
The White House stood behind Flynn -- until it didn't. The retired Army lieutenant general resigned Monday night, admitting he had "inadvertently briefed the vice president-elect and others with incomplete information" about the Kislyak phone calls.
Here was a guy in Dec 2016 while Obama was still President, and who had no official government position yet, called the Russian Ambassador and told him "Trump will be easier on Russia". But he was caught on a secret recording, and when asked about the meeting by the FBI, lied about it, and also lied to Trump and Pence.
And now Trump pardons him....maybe he was doing what Trump directed him to do...
Hmmmm.....
u_s__reamer
Flynn, fired ostensibly for lying to VP Pence, also lied to the FBI, a crime to which he pleaded guilty. Trump pardoned him no doubt as a rebuke to the "Deep State", the ally of Obama, thus the arch-enemy in the paranoid mind of the 45th. Trump's rationale for the pardon must also surely originate from the psychological jungle in the head of an habitual liar like nobody has ever seen, but who is at the same time sufficiently lucid to see that lying is, as Obama knows, "what they do", as when in 2013 James Clapper, Director of the National Security Agency, lied with impunity to Congress about the illegal surveillance of American citizens. Justice matters, but as the poor and, rich man Trump himself knows, not to those who make the law and live above it. Will Biden fix this?
bass4funk
And still couldn’t get their intentional target.
And why not, but anyway, it’s over and Dems will just have to deal with it. Happy Thanksgiving.
Jimizo
It will be interesting to see what he does. He is probably the most talked about person of modern times and that will keep him in the spotlight for the short term future at least. He’s an excellent self-publicist.
One thing people might tire of is that he’s essentially a one-trick pony. It’s basically self-publicizing using inflammatory trash, trolling and conspiracy theories. There isn’t much substance to him and he’s hardly one to give insightful and well formed opinions or offer wise advice
bass4funk
I see, I guess to some people that might be funny, but what’s even funnier now is, Flynn is free, curses and foiled again for the Dems it would seem....
And the Senate acquitted him, so about this jail thing again......ROFL
stormcrow
There should be a limitation on pardons.
Give each president at the start of the term only 3 pardons. No pardons at all if possible.
That would reduce corruption and treason and make things more interesting in terms of squealers who don't get an presidential pardon.
Corruption and treason are now hand in hand.
ulysses
trump was impeached and then soundly defeated in the elections.
It's both satisfying and just
Flynn better enjoy the few days of freedom he has, because petty criminals like him are going to trip sooner or later!!!
ulysses
The Russia probe will get larger, Rudy is already under investigation and not too long before trump is too.
The dim witted mafia is going down spectacularly!!!
takeda.shingen.1991@gmail.com
Lol and 80 million Americans disagree regardless of what Trump fans think.yawn
bass4funk
Yeah, Freedom, Financial independence, less government, less taxes, supporting the Second Amendment, supporting the military, ending all these wars, individual freedoms, is it right to speak out, the right to worship, the right to watch and research what you want, I keep forgetting those are all just so bad things, what a con. ROFL!