Perhaps the only outcome possible for Flynn in the face of the "needs" of the system: President Trump Pardons Michael Flynn https://www.zerohedge.com/political/president-trump-pardons-michael-flynn This brings to mind the endless and ever more creative complaints by Hillary "she whom shall never be president… and never was" Clinton (even as recently as just last week): Think Dominion, 2016. Think "we've got this in the bag". Think algorithmic real time whole of state vote flipping in the swing states - with the "tilt" factor (vote flip factor) calibrated prior to the election, in last minute night-before internet Dominion machine updates, based on ... can you think of it? ... polls - just their "real"/internal figures, not their published figures! Plus a margin of course. But the pollsters failed to account for factors such as the shy Trump voter and the un-acked swing to Trump, new voters, old voters voting for the first time in a while etc. And their "real" polling tilt factor "plus margin" was insufficient. Ha! Salty Hillary tears ever since... can you say "damn I'm pissed" in Hilary-speak? :D Despite the best Dominion of laid plans, Trump still squeaked by. And Hitlery was seriously pissed. This was NOT supposed to happen! 2020 Start out with a dash of "war gaming" interference. THIS time not only were the tilt margins -increased- wrt polls (know that the polls were a proxy for the tilt/ vote flip margin they would use), as the final weeks of campaigning dragged on it became more and more clear that Trump's campaign was working - in fact it was phenomenal: Trump was literally getting thousands and sometimes 10s of 1000s of supporters, often enough even --in the middle of the night and/or at "really chilly" temperatures--! Trump the rock star was jamming it up 5 times a day, gettin jiggy wid YMCA/MAGA and patriots the world over were tapping their feet along with him - discretely mind you - in the 10s and 100s of thousands and ultimately 80 million votes later (a synchronistically similar number to the 80 million Covid postal bollots "posted" out well prior. The uncertainty in the "official" polling was going lunar: shy voters, the Amish, the LGBTQs doubled 2016-2020 from 15% to 30%, and in one Florida district the Hispanics had -quintupled!- their Trump vote, the alt-right, the alt-light, the NRAs, and a 96 mile long convoy. Even avowed liberal Michael Moore did what turned out to be effectively o Trump advertisement :) This all was and remains the most epic USA election in history. So the DemonRats weren't going to risk their "official" polls this time: 100s of 1000s of prepped "votes" were ready to be dumped into those Dominion machines… but "how many"? When it became clear that their tilt factor, their "vote deletions" and their swaps (drag and drop of folders, widely seen in real time on the MSM chirons on election night), that despite everything the demrats had factored in - all this was STILL insufficient to "defeat" Trump -- they literally stopped counting the votes on election night! Stopped. Never happened before. Every swing state! Send the vote count watchers home and pretend to stop till the morrow, but instead calculate how many "votes" they needed in each swing state to bring Biden home. And deliver those "votes". At 4AM in the morning. In every swing state. 4AM, in came the trucks to each polling station dropping in total 100s of 1000s of xtra votes for Biden. The fix was FINALLY in. (They needed to stop the count so that the fix would hopefully be less obvious or rather "more plausible" on the chirons (though they failed on this count) and so that the xtra votes were "sufficient but not obscene", since a marginal win is "believable" vis a vis "an obscene win over Trump", since folks would always argue that Trump "drew out" Biden voters as well at Trump voters and etc.) So the vote scribers currently won, although there are a few court cases and a Kraken whisperer beavering away, so let's pray again for justice. May treason charges prevail.
So some folks remember Obama`s spiteful and vindictive expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats from the USA on Christmas eve (24th December) 2016, just after Trump was elected!
Obama expels 35 Russian diplomats in retaliation for US election hacking https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/29/barack-obama-sanctions-russi...
.. In a statement issued two weeks after the president said he would respond to cyber-attacks by Moscow “at a time and place of our choosing”, Obama said Americans should “be alarmed by Russia’s actions” and pledged further action.
“I have issued an executive order that provides additional authority for responding to certain cyber activity that seeks to interfere with or undermine our election processes and institutions, or those of our allies or partners,” Obama said in the statement, released while he was vacationing with his family in Hawaii. ...
US expels 35 Russian diplomats, closes 2 compounds https://www.rt.com/news/372190-us-expels-russian-diplomats/
Thirty-five Russian diplomats have been expelled from the US, according to a statement from State Department. President Obama described those expelled as “intelligence operatives,” also announcing the closure of two Russian compounds, in New York and Maryland.
The Russian diplomats would be given 72 hours to leave US soil. They are expelled for acting in a "manner inconsistent with their diplomatic status," the statement reads. ...
And for those who missed the memo, Putin, ever the gentlement and consummate diplomat, chose to not do a tit for tat expulsion of US diplomats:
Putin: Russia will not expel anyone in response to US sanctions https://www.rt.com/news/372256-putin-diplomats-expulsion-rejects/ .. Putin said that, unlike the Obama administration, Russia will not target foreign diplomats and their families days before New Year’s celebrations.
“We will not forbid families and children from spending the New Year’s holidays at the places they are used to. Moreover, I invite the children of all American diplomats with accreditation in Russia to New Year’s and Christmas festivities in the Kremlin,” the Russian president said.
Putin said he regretted that US President Barack Obama is ending his term “in such a way,” but that he extended his New Year’s congratulations to the outgoing US president and his family nevertheless.
“I congratulate President-elect Donald Trump and the entire American people!” he concluded.
The Kremlin said it will send a government plane to the US to evacuate the expelled diplomats and their family members. Earlier, there were reports that the diplomats were having problems buying tickets on such short notice, with airlines already booked by New Year’s travelers. ...
And now after 3.5 years of this epic "Russian Meddling" bullshit comes to a close, we get to read the transcript of incoming (Trump's) National Security Adviser Flynn's phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, showing Flynn's respectful request to 'not escalate' and instead merely respond in a 'reciprocal' manner - which Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had earlier suggested.
Instead, and to his great credit, Putin chose to 'not take the bait' so to speak and responded with compassion and respect for the American diplomats in Russia, and did not expel any of them despite natural baying for blood.
--- tl;dr : Flynn acted consummately professionally and diplomatically, as did Kislyak, and Putin responded with grace to Obama's spiteful, petty and vindictive creation of an escalating ultimate nothing burger between the world's two nuclear superpowers.
"Nobel Peace Prize" Obama? Please!
EXPLOSIVE transcripts show Flynn wanted to work with Russia against ISIS, Kislyak warned Trump ‘Russiagate’ was targeting HIM https://www.rt.com/usa/490197-flynn-kislyak-transcripts-declassified/
.. On January 4, 2017, FBI agent Peter Strzok – who had previously vowed to “stop” Trump from getting elected in texts with colleague and lover Lisa Page – improperly ordered the FBI background investigation of Flynn to stay open. The following day, FBI chief James Comey went to the White House and discussed investigating Flynn with Obama personally. On that same day, January 5, the president’s chief of staff sent a request to the NSA to “unmask” Flynn. All of this was revealed only a month ago, in documents presented as evidence in the trial of Flynn for allegedly lying about the calls. https://www.rt.com/usa/429788-fbi-agent-stop-trump/
Russia eventually retaliated only in July 2017, when a Republican-majority Congress overrode Trump and passed a toxic sanctions bill based entirely on unsubstantiated ‘Russiagate’ claims of meddling in the presidential election. Just as Flynn feared, this would trigger a chain of “tit for tat” expulsions and closures that left both countries short of diplomatic staff – and cut off all avenues of further cooperation against IS, for peace in Syria, or anything else. https://www.rt.com/news/401654-us-russia-diplomatic-war/ ...
So this Flynn case is kinda interesting legally, in the sense that if the court's allow "willy nilly" changing of a defendants pleas, this could rapidly descend into firstly complete disrespect for the courts, but ultimately a breakdown of "anything even resembling justice".
And if USA federal Judge John Gleeson had stuck to such a basic principle he might not be seen as the fluid, apparently vindictive judge he is turning out to strongly resemble:
Gleeson, having denied requests by Flynn's new defence team to file Amicus briefs over a dozen times, at very near the end of the case he turns around, goes against all his prior ramblings of Amicus opposition, and not only allows and orders an Amicus -against- Flynn, and does so not even in response to a motion from the other side (the prosecution), but, ON HIS OWN MOTION!
This judge who happens to be an African American, is looking from the outside at least, as vindictive and biased, and possibly with some undisclosed conflict of interest or subservience to some hidden "authority". In any case, Gleeson has certainly lynched any -appearance- of impartiality which he may have previously held ...
And it turns out that Judge Gleeson does in fact "has a major conflict of interest" in relation to "former Special Counsel prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who was the top prosecutor for Robert Mueller in targeting Flynn and other Trump officials".
Surprise surprise, color me so, so surised ... not.
The saga continues:
Flynn Lawyer Files Stunning Motion Against Judge Gleeson: "It's A Wrap-Up Smear" Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com, https://saraacarter.com/powell-files-stunning-motion-against-gleeson-its-a-w... https://www.zerohedge.com/political/flynn-lawyer-files-stunning-motion-again...