“[email protected] doesn’t want to speak about their persecution of General Michael Flynn & why they got the story so wrong. They, along with others, should pay a big price for what they have purposely done to this man & his family. They won’t even cover the big breaking news about this scam!” the president tweeted. A spokesperson for CNN did not immediately return a request for comment.
Earlier in the evening, Trump shared stories from Fox News, the conservative online magazine The Federalist and the right-wing news website The Daily Caller reporting on a cache of FBI records unsealed Wednesday by a federal judge. Those documents revealed new details about the origins of the bureau’s criminal case against Flynn and suggested internal deliberation over how to approach the politically explosive investigation.
Trump also retweeted a short video posted by Flynn which the retired Army lieutenant general and former Defense Intelligence Agency chief appeared to have filmed himself, showing an American flag fluttering above a lush green, hilly landscape.
“Imagine having your life and reputation ruined by rogue US govt. officials. Then years later when the plot finally comes to light the first thing you do is post an American flag,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote in a tweet shared Thursday by the president. “This is the guy they wanted you to believe was a Russian asset.”
The four pages of FBI documents, provided to Flynn’s defense attorneys last week, have been seized upon by the president’s defenders and his allies in conservative media in a continued effort to paint the investigation of Flynn and former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe as an excessive, politically motivated ambush on the White House by federal law enforcement officers.
Flynn served as national security adviser for just 24 days before he was dismissed for a lack of candor about conversations he had with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. during the presidential transition period before Trump’s inauguration. He reportedly misled Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials about the details of those discussions.
“He was unfairly and unjustly targeted by ‘Deep State’ bureaucrats that clearly, with all the evidence now to prove it, wanted to take him down,” Fox News host Sean Hannity said of the Flynn revelations on his Wednesday night broadcast.
One page of handwritten notes contained in the documents — dated the same day Flynn was interviewed by the FBI on Jan. 24, 2017 — appeared to indicate a debate over how forthcoming to be with him or others at the White House about the nature of the bureau’s investigation, warning that if “we’re seen as playing games, WH will be furious.”
The notes also reflect deliberation among FBI officials about whether confronting Flynn with a lie in real time would be helpful to their investigation. “What is our goal? Truth/admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?” the notes read.
Flynn eventually pleaded guilty in December 2017 to one felony count of lying to the FBI about conversations he had with Russia’s ambassador, and a federal judge in February indefinitely postponed his sentencing.
The president also complained Thursday about the arrest of his longtime informal political adviser Roger Stone in January 2019 and the Republican operative’s conviction in November of that year for impeding congressional and FBI investigations into connections between the Russian government and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
“Does anybody really believe that Roger Stone, a man whose house was raided early in the morning by 29 gun toting FBI Agents (with Fake News @CNN closely in toe), was treated fairly,” Trump tweeted. “How about the jury forewoman with her unannounced hatred & bias. Same scammers as General Flynn!”
Stone was sentenced in February to just more than three years in prison after Trump praised Attorney General William Barr for “taking charge” of the matter. Following the president’s criticism of prosecutors’ initial sentencing recommendation, the Justice Department submitted a revised filing that offered no specific term for Stone’s sentence — prompting the four attorneys who shepherded his prosecution to either resign or step off the case.
