Senior Justice Department officials were skeptical of the FBI’s criminal case against Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn and the possibility of charging him, according to internal notes, reports Just the News.
“The skepticism about whether Flynn intended to lie during an FBI interview or posed a national security threat was expressed in handwritten notes that were turned over Tuesday to Flynn’s defense team and the judge overseeing his case under a protective order, according to multiple sources,” explained investigative reporter John Solomon.
U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen recently discovered these documents. Jensen was specially appointed by Attorney General William Barr to review the FBI and DOJ’s conduct in Flynn’s case. These documents are part of a trove of exculpatory materials withheld from Flynn’s defense.
The sources told Just the News the new documents included extensive notes taken by senior Justice Department official Tashina Gauhar, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, and former DOJ and FBI lawyer Dana Boente between January and March 2017, long before Flynn’s case was referred to Special Counsel Robert Mueller or Flynn reached a deal to plead guilty later that year.
The notes include records of a late January 2017 meeting where Flynn’s case was discussed by numerous senior FBI and DOJ officials. The meeting occurred nearly three weeks after the FBI agent who had investigated Flynn’s contacts with Russia, including ambassador Sergey Kislyak, had already concluded the Trump adviser had not engaged in any wrongdoing and that the five-month-long investigation should be closed down without any further action.
FBI supervisors overruled the agent and kept the case open, pivoting instead to the idea of seeking an interview with Flynn and pursuing a prosecution under the rarely used Logan Act.
Sources who have seen the notes told Just the News that officials believed the Logan Act wasn’t applicable to Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak during the transition.
Previously released documents indicated that it was Joe Biden who suggested the Logan Act as a pretext for going after Flynn.
These new notes also indicate officials believed Flynn was forthcoming in his interviews, didn’t intend to lie to the FBI, and had not acted inappropriately.
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Matt Margolis is the author of the new book Airborne: How The Liberal Media Weaponized The Coronavirus Against Donald Trump, and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
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