The Flynn Timeline, A Preemptive Strike, Trump's Other Side
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| Gary Bauer |
As we reported yesterday, new documents in the case of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn show that the FBI set out to entrap him. Other materials create a chronology of events that is very revealing and disturbing. Here's what we have learned:
- Elements of the Deep State had been investigating Michael Flynn for some time in 2016.
- Yesterday news broke that FBI officials drafted a memo on January 4th expressing their intent to close the investigation on Flynn because they found no evidence of wrong-doing.
- Within minutes of this memo being circulated, Peter Strzok emailed the case agent, "Hey, if you haven't closed [the Flynn case] don't do so yet."
- The case agent replied, "What's up?" and Strzok answered, "7th floor involved." For those not intimately familiar with Washington, D.C., that's where the offices of the FBI's top officials (James Comey and Andrew McCabe) are located.
- Twenty-four hours later, Comey went to the White House. He met with Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Susan Rice and Sally Yates. At that meeting, Comey was instructed to go to New York to brief President-elect Trump about the Steele dossier.
- On January 6th, Comey told Trump about claims that the Russians have lurid information they could use to blackmail him.
Once Comey had briefed Trump, the Deep State started leaking. Within days, just before the inauguration, there were multiple stories about the dossier and the ongoing investigation into whether the president-elect colluded with Russia or was compromised in some way.
And the rest is history. All this ended up consuming the first three years of the administration.
But wait. . . There's more.
A Preemptive Strike?
National security expert K.T. McFarland said yesterday that Gen. Flynn and Donald Trump were deeply concerned about the growing power of America's intelligence agencies, as well as the increasing evidence that they were encroaching on the civil liberties of the American people.
McFarland said Flynn had a plan to reorganize and reform all 16 intelligence agencies, to cut out the fat and to safeguard civil liberties. She believes that the Deep State launched "a preemptive strike against Flynn" in order to protect their "fiefdoms."
Now let me remind you of one more thing. Let's back up to January 3, 2017.
That's when Sen. Chuck Schumer infamously warned that President-elect Trump was "being really dumb" to publicly fight with the intelligence community. Schumer said, "Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you."
The Other Side
Kudos to President Trump for a tremendous job at yesterday's press conference!
During an event highlighting the administration's efforts to protect America's seniors from the coronavirus, the president took a few questions from reporters. He demonstrated remarkable knowledge on a wide range of subjects, and refused to take the media's bait when prodded with gotcha questions.
One reporter asked the president about a suggestion that flags should be lowered to recognize those who have died during the pandemic. The president's heart was plain to see in his response. He said:
"I think lowering the flags would be very appropriate. . . I don't think anyone can feel any worse than I do about all the death and destruction that's so needless. . . Nobody has spent more time late in the evening thinking about what has happened to this country in a short period of time."
I felt the exchange showed an incredible degree of empathy and a side of Donald Trump that the media almost never shows. While this president is rightly known for being tough, I have frequently seen this other side of Donald Trump during my visits to the White House, and others have also testified to Trump's compassion.
For example, in 2017, after the son of former Fox News host Eric Bolling died of a drug overdose, President Trump called the Bolling family on Thanksgiving. Just a few weeks ago, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump called a 15 year-old boy with terminal leukemia.
By the way, the president was also asked yesterday about Tara Reade, and I thought he handled the question skillfully, saying that Biden should address her allegations.
The president added, "It could be false accusations. I know all about false accusations. I've been falsely charged numerous times. And there is such a thing."
He then pivoted to how the media handled the accusations against Brett Kavanaugh, saying, "What happened with him was an absolute disgrace to our country."
But here's something interesting to ponder: Until this morning's appearance on MSNBC, President Trump had been asked more often about Tara Reade than had Joe Biden! That tells you everything you need to know.
By the way, multiple people have come forward to say Reade told them in 1993 the same story she is telling now. But as we have pointed out, most left-wing media outlets have ignored the story.
Yet when the Biden campaign announced yesterday it would be making a statement today, the same media that has never informed viewers about the charges gleefully declared that the vice president would be refuting the charges today.
Just imagine how confused millions of Americans must have been. What charges?
Commenting on Biden's performance this morning on MSNBC, Geraldo Rivera said, "I think that the former vice president looked like a deer caught in the headlights." And as Rivera correctly noted, Biden will never face the same kind of vitriolic questioning that Kavanaugh endured.
What About The Science?
There are many people insisting that science must direct our response to the coronavirus. While I am optimistic that science will find a treatment or vaccine for Covid-19, science doesn't have all the answers.
Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, has an excellent column on this subject. Below are a few excerpts.
"Of course, our policymakers should be informed by facts and reason, but science has a limited competency. Once you are outside a lab setting and dealing with matters of public policy, questions of values and how to strike a balance between competing priorities are involved and they simply can't be settled by people in white lab coats. . .
"Science can't tell us how we should think about the trade-off between economic misery caused by shutdowns and the public-health risks of reopenings. It can't determine the balance between shutting down a hospital's elective surgeries so it can prepare for a Covid-19 surge, and tanking its business and forcing it to furlough employees. . .
"We, as a self-governing people, will have to decide the important questions about how to respond to the coronavirus going forward, not the doctors on TV or the researchers in the labs."
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Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer) is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families
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