Layers of the onion

Andrew McCarthy, scales removed from his eyes, is now peeling back the layers on GotterMuellerung:

Yes, it was clear that [FBI Agent Peter] Strzok engaged in serious misconduct: The married G-man’s reported extramarital affair with his married FBI colleague Lisa Page was scandalous not only for the obvious reasons but as potential blackmail material against counterintelligence agents. Plus, Strzok appears to have been the main investigator in the Hillary Clinton emails case that the FBI and Justice Department bent over backwards not to prosecute; and there is reason to believe his rabidly anti-Trump text messages with his paramour crossed the line from arrogant political banter to unprofessional investigative decision-making.

But there were dissonant notes, too, cutting against the neat ditty about a high-ranking government agent acting on a corrupt partisan agenda. For one thing, I was hearing from people with good national-security credentials that Strzok was a highly effective counterintelligence agent.

And then there was Mike Flynn.

You remember Mike Flynn. He was briefly Trump's National Security Adviser. The guy our Lord and Savior* Robert Mueller got to cop a guilty plea. The guy who lied to the FBI. Or did he?

The first revelations about Strzok’s texts came only days after General Flynn, who had fleetingly served as President Trump’s first national-security adviser, pled guilty in the Mueller investigation to a charge of lying to FBI investigators. Strzok had conducted the interview with Flynn. Combine that with the fact that he had been a principal in all the important FBI interviews in the Clinton caper, and the presumption crystalized: Political hack Strzok went kid-gloves on the Hillary Gang and scorched-earth on Trump World.

That’s not reality, though. 

There is a problem here. Strzok didn't think Flynn lied. But Mueller and his band of avenging angels went scorched earth on Flynn. Back to McCarthy:

Flynn’s case is back in the news thanks to Byron York’s important Washington Examiner report yesterday. He retraces the history: Because Flynn was a Trump transition official and incoming national-security adviser, there was nothing at all inappropriate about his discussing Obama-imposed sanctions against Russia with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Nevertheless, then–acting attorney general and Obama partisan Sally Yates seriously considered prosecuting Flynn under the absurd, never-invoked Logan Act. This misconception that Flynn had done something wrong led Yates and Comey to have Flynn interviewed as if he were a criminal suspect. Apparently unconcerned, Flynn agreed to be interviewed without counsel. Strzok came away from the session believing that Flynn had told the truth. Comey, Byron York reports, “told lawmakers that the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe that Flynn had lied to them, or that any inaccuracies in his answers were intentional.”

Yet, ten months later, with Yates, Comey, and Strzok now out of the picture, Mueller decided to charge Flynn with lying to the FBI anyway. And Flynn decided to plead guilty — perhaps because he was guilty . . . or perhaps because he lacked the resources to sustain the legal fight . . . or perhaps because he feared Mueller’s team would otherwise prosecute his son.

But there's more. McCarthy noticed something that seems important:

The judge who accepted Flynn’s guilty plea was Rudolph Contreras. Mysteriously, just days after taking Flynn’s plea, Judge Contreras recused himself from the case. The press has been remarkably uncurious about this development. No rationale for the recusal has been offered, no explanation for why, if Judge Contreras had some sort of conflict, the recusal came after the guilty plea, not before. We can note that Contreras is one of the eleven federal district judges assigned to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

We do not know if Judge Contreras signed one or more of the FISA warrants the Justice Department sought for Trump campaign figures Carter Page and Paul Manafort (or even if signing a FISA warrant would constitute grounds for a conflict in Flynn’s case). We can note, however, that Contreras is one of just three FISA court judges who sits in the District of Columbia, where it is likely the Trump-Russia FISA warrants were sought.

That's. . . odd. But this is worse:

When Judge Contreras pulled out, Flynn’s case was reassigned to Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. We now know that one of Judge Sullivan’s first actions on the case was to file an order directing Mueller to provide Flynn with any evidence in the special counsel’s possession that is favorable to Flynn, whether on the issue of guilt or of sentencing. Significantly, the order stresses that if Mueller has such evidence but believes it is not “material” and therefore that Flynn is not entitled to disclosure of it, Mueller must show the evidence to the court so that Judge Sullivan may decide whether to mandate its disclosure.

Did Mueller's team tell Flynn that Strzok didn't think he'd committed the crime. If he had, why would Mueller be charging him in the first place? And if he had, what are the chances Flynn would have pled guilty? Back to McCarthy:

Now, it could be that this is just Judge Sullivan’s standard order on exculpatory information, filed in every case over which he presides. But it is noteworthy that Flynn had already pled guilty, and in the course of doing so had agreed to Mueller’s demand that he waive “the right to any further discovery or disclosures of information not already provided” — in addition to forfeiting many other trial and appellate rights. (See plea agreement, pages 6–7.) It certainly appears that Sullivan’s order supersedes the plea agreement and imposes on the special counsel the obligation to reveal any and all evidence suggesting that Flynn is innocent of the charge to which he has admitted guilt.

It's important to understand -- getting Flynn's scalp is Mueller's biggest accomplishment. Paul Manafort's alleged crimes happened well before he signed on to the Trump campaign, while George Papadopolous was at best a low-level functionary, no matter what his fiancee says. And no one has charged Carter Page with anything. If it turns out that Mueller's team withheld exculpatory evidence to get Flynn to cop a plea, this thing could blow sky-high.

*If my tongue were planted any further in my cheek, it would come out my elbow.