Here we go — another piece of the Russia-collusion puzzle falling into place, and this one’s a doozy.
Newly declassified portions of Susan Rice’s now-infamous “memo to self” email paint a much clearer picture of what was really happening in the final days of the Obama administration: General Michael Flynn was being deliberately sidelined — and the pretext was his contacts with the Russian ambassador.
The email, written on Jan. 20, 2017 — the very day Donald Trump was sworn in — summarizes a Jan. 5 Oval Office meeting between Obama, Rice, then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and then-FBI Director James Comey. In the newly released portions, Rice records Obama instructing his team to consider “if there is any reason we cannot share information fully [with Flynn] as it relates to Russia.”
Translation: Flynn, the incoming national security advisor, was already being treated as a security risk before Trump had even taken office.
Comey chimes in, according to the memo, saying he has “concerns” about Flynn’s “frequent” communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, calling the “level of communication unusual.” But then comes the kicker: Comey admits they had “no indication” Flynn had shared classified information. In other words, there was nothing concrete — just “concerns.”
So why was Flynn really being cut out of the loop? That’s the million-dollar question.
The newly unredacted sections, obtained by The Federalist, strongly suggest that Obama and his top brass were targeting Flynn long before the Trump administration officially began. This lines up with what we now know from other documents: that the FBI’s counterintelligence team planned to “prosecute him or get him fired,” that the bureau’s interview with Flynn was an “ambush,” and that Mueller’s sprawling investigation ultimately found “no derogatory information” linking him to collusion.
Flynn’s guilty plea for lying to the FBI — a plea he later sought to withdraw, citing prosecutorial misconduct — was wiped out by a Trump pardon. The Justice Department has since admitted the FBI’s investigation into Flynn never should have happened.
Now, with these declassified details, the story looks even uglier: a decorated general targeted by an outgoing administration and a weaponized FBI over conversations that were entirely normal for an incoming national security advisor.
And for anyone wondering whether Flynn’s career is over, think again: President Trump appointed him in March to a board overseeing standards and curriculum at America’s military academies.
