Hans von Spakovsky, a Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow, explained how the FBI used “entrapment” by way of electronic surveillance against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. He offered his remarks in a Tuesday interview with Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily.
Von Spakovsky said, “The entire basis of the claim against Flynn is that he supposedly lied to FBI agents who were sent to the White House without following the usual procedures — Comey now admits — to interview him about telephone conversations he had with the Russian ambassador.”
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Von Spakovsky added, “Here’s the thing for everyone to understand why this is so outrageous. There was no reason for FBI agents to be talking to Flynn and asking him about that telephone conservation. Why? Because the underlying conduct was perfectly legal. There was nothing unlawful about it. In fact, he was the incoming national security advisor, and it’s typical of individuals coming in in a new administration — whether it’s a Democratic or a Republican one — those who are tasked with foreign policy issues to be talking to foreign diplomats about what the foreign policy is going to be in that incoming administration.”
Von Spakovsky concluded, “So there was no reason for the FBI agents to be there interviewing him about this unless, because they knew, they had a transcript already of those conversations because of electronic eavesdropping. They wanted to somehow try to push him into somehow misremembering so they could bring this kind of charge against him. I think it was entrapment of the worst kind.”
Fllynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about conversations he had with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, while he was on Donald Trump’s presidential transition team. Von Spakovsky wrote of Flynn’s communications with Kislyak: “There is nothing unusual about members of a presidential transition team talking with foreign diplomats about the foreign policy concerns of an incoming administration,” adding, “Some have tried to claim that Flynn’s conversations were illegal under the Logan Act of 1799, (18 U.S.C. §953), which tries to prohibit discussions between Americans and foreign officials. But no one has ever been prosecuted under that act.”
Von Spakovsky also asked, “How did the U.S. government know about the content of those telephone conversations? By electronic eavesdropping, which raises many unanswered questions about the propriety of a law enforcement agency listening to calls involving a presidential transition team.”
Last week, Flynn claimed via his legal team that he was advised by then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe against having legal counsel present while being questioned by FBI agents. Fox News reported, “Attorneys for former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn alleged that … Andrew McCabe pushed Flynn not to have an attorney present during the questioning that ultimately led to his guilty plea on a single charge of lying to federal authorities. The document outlines, with striking new details, the rapid sequence of events that led to Flynn’s sudden fall from the Trump administration. The filing also seemingly demonstrates that the FBI took a significantly more aggressive tack in handling the Flynn interview than it did during other similar matters, including the agency’s sit-downs with Hillary Clinton and ex-Trump adviser George Papadopoulos.”
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