I am not sure who is aware of this, but news reports dating back to May, and earlier by possibility, suggested that Attorney General William Barr launched an investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation. At this time, William Barr had John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, to conduct the inquiry. Much of the investigation has went silent until now! Democrats have determined that William Barr is using the Justice Department as a political tool for Trump’s personal revenge. To summarize, nobody actually knows if someone is being charged with a crime in Barr and Durham’s investigation. The investigation, from my understanding, is being used a political rescue from Trump’s favor to Ukraine.
Amidst this kind of news, Flynn’s legal team submitted a filing that claims the FBI entrapped him. The Wall Street Journal reported on this matter, but has received many drawbacks from this action. Chris Wallace, of Fox News, said the FBI did no such entrapment clarifying that Flynn lied to FBI investigators. The central point of this argument is that Flynn, as a government worker, already knew it was a crime to lie to investigators. Business Insider noted that Flynn’s legal team had to draw back on FBI entrapment claims because Flynn wanted to proceed as guilty noting that he had lied to FBI investigators. To be fair about the reporting, all of the sources used above was during December of 2018. National Review, on October 25th, 2019, reported that Sidney Powell filed a 37 page motion which puts together a timeline proving the FBI entrapment. The 37 page motion alleges that FBI agents tampered with a form summarizing Flynn’s statement to investigators.
I won’t try to persuade anyone on what to believe, but Flynn, and his legal team, were not the first people to suggest FBI entrapment. Papadopoulos, without any real evidence, believes that the FBI was trying to entrap him. Papadopoulos, told Fox News, that he believed the FBI was trying to entrap him when he received $10k during a trip in Greece. Apart from that, New York Times reported about the FBI sending an investigator posing as an assistant. New York Times notes that nothing fruitful came out of the meeting, but this is still viewed by some as early attempts at entrapment or spying. By research, it can be concluded that Stefan Halper and his assistant were trying to entrap or monitor Papadopulos for the FBI. Just to quote Papadopoulos from a CNN Article.
“I was a little suspicious about it because I didn’t have any understanding why I was meeting a different person, especially a Turkish national,” Papadopoulos told Smerconish. “I mean that’s why I disabused the claim that this was some sort of FBI agent.”
The woman “barely spoke English, she was very flirty,” Papadopoulos said, and probed on two subjects — his energy sector experience in the Middle East and “Trump and Russia.”
Papadopoulos said that the meeting was “bizarre” and fruitless because “of course there is no conspiracy, and I have never even met a Russian official in my life.” He added that the woman did not offer him sex “overtly, but made it very clear that that was on the table if we continued to enjoy each other’s company.”
Even though it is well suggested from Papadopulos and Michael Flynn’s legal team that the FBI was trying, and possibly entrapped them, during the Russia investigation, people will likely argue that the tactics used were necessary. This could be the reason William Barr and John Durham’s investigation turned into a criminal investigation, or we could be chasing false leads. The fact still remains, do we accept one’s conduct as a means to rid ourselves of a candidate, or president, that we dislike? Do we condemn the conduct thus agreeing that the candidate, or president, was targeted by intelligence agencies? Just some food for thought!
Origina.lly published at https://citizennewswatchdog.blogspot.com on October 27, 2019.
