
Ex-Trump adviser Flynn seeks immunity for testimony in Russia probe: WSJ - doctorshady
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-flynn-idUSKBN1713AG
======
CalChris
“When you are given immunity, that means you have probably committed a crime.”

— Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, in an interview with NBC
News on September 25, 2016.

[http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/09/25/gen_flynn_...](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/09/25/gen_flynn_hillary_clinton_shouldnt_be_too_big_to_jail.html)

~~~
hackuser
It's a nice gotcha, but Flynn isn't an attorney and is known for saying many
crazy things even in his field of expertise.

~~~
bbatha
He hasn't been offered immunity yet, he's the one asking guilt. By the logic
of his own quote he only want it if he was guilty.

~~~
aggie
His lawyers could have convinced him to ask for immunity if there was even a
slight chance of legal trouble. He may also only have some minor dirt to
spill, so he's happy throwing some staffer under the bus.

~~~
CalChris
Yes, we know that. His hypocrisy still reeks.

And great. Give him immunity and get him in front of the Senate and House
committees. If, as you assert, he has only minor dirt on some small player
that will come out. And the immunity itself will save everyone time and money.

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hackuser
Has the United States ever convicted someone on the level of National Security
Advisor (i.e., effectively a member of the cabinet, such as Secretary of
Defense), or even put them on trial? Petraeus got a slap on the wrist, but for
actions while he was a General.

In other countries, even the heads of state get put on trial. Off the top of
my head, it's happened relatively recently in France and Israel. In the U.S.,
I can't think of even a member of the cabinet being tried; on the order of 1
federal judge has ever been impeached. Nixon was pardoned, for example.

Someone mentioned 5 people were granted immunity for the Clinton
investigation; were any of the 5 at such a high level? Has someone on that
level ever been given immunity or needed it?

~~~
opo
>...In the U.S., I can't think of even a member of the cabinet being tried;

It will be hard to beat the Nixon administration for convictions: 2 attorney
generals, chief of staff, 2 white house counsels, undersecretary of
transportation, secretary to the president, special counsel to the president,
secretary of commerce and the vice president!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_polit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_politicians_convicted_of_crimes)

~~~
shshhdhs
The undersecretary that you mentioned is now The "Senior Fellow on Ethics and
Leadership at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress and
Counselor to the Director at the School for Ethics and Global Leadership." [1]

Receiving a senior fellowship in Ethics is quite the turnaround from six
months in prison.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egil_Krogh](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egil_Krogh)

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doctorshady
As of now, it looks like nobody has taken his offer of immunity for testimony.
What are the implications of this? The commentators on other sites seem to
imply this means investigators already know something big.

~~~
jmaygarden
5 people were granted immunity in Hillary Clinton's email scandal and nothing
came of it.

~~~
cperciva
Did they ask for immunity, or were they offered it?

Anyone who is offered immunity will take it -- there's no reason not to -- but
that doesn't mean they needed it or knew anything worth testifying to. But
when you hear "please, someone -- _anyone_ \-- give me immunity!" from a
suspect, it rather increases the odds that they have a strong reason for
wanting immunity.

~~~
Touche
Sure, and that reason might not be that they are guilty. It could be that they
feel they are possibly being treated as a scape goat.

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self-diversity
This seems closer to "Ex-Trump adviser Flynn's lawyer tries a pretty common
(for his client's industry) maneuver to ensure his client won't get jail time
no matter what happens"

[https://twitter.com/robkelner/status/847590575352270850](https://twitter.com/robkelner/status/847590575352270850)

I'd be quite surprised if any of the Russian connections turned out to be
meaningful. Every story that I've seen about anything along the Trump/Russia
axis is soaked in enough weasel words to make a defense attorney cringe, and
the details are generally senseless on close examination.

------
okket
Trump on Feb. 15 — _after_ Flynn was fired — saying Flynn's a "wonderful man
[who'] been treated very, very unfairly by the media"

[https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/847587940557623296](https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/847587940557623296)

~~~
sanjeetsuhag
Flynn himself said in an interview with Chuck Todd last year: "When you are
given immunity, that means that you've probably committed a crime".

Source:
[https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/847600901653012482](https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/847600901653012482)

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blakejennings
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/mike-flynn-offers-to-testify-
in...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/mike-flynn-offers-to-testify-in-exchange-
for-immunity-1490912959)

~~~
doctorshady
For those who don't like paywalls, the text:
[https://pastebin.com/PtqWwd3w](https://pastebin.com/PtqWwd3w)

------
Mendenhall
I will wait to find out more information. Seems him seeking "immunity" isnt
what happened in a legal sense from what I have read.

~~~
generic_user
Your being down voted because voices of moderation and reason can often cause
a disruption in the field surrounding the tinfoil hat and there for let in
Russian mind control signals.

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a3n
Manafort and Stone have offered to testify to Congress. Flynn wants immunity
to testify.

I've wondered if these are positions taken from under the bus.

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skyrw
Hacker News is r/politics now. I'm out.

------
losvedir
I'm not a Trump supporter (voted for Johnson but would have voted for Clinton
if it mattered in my state), but this whole "Russia" investigation feels like
partisan signaling nonsense like the Benghazi hearings.

Flynn didn't do anything illegal (I've yet to see a compelling argument that
the Logan Act would apply here), just a breach of protocol. It was lying to
Pence that did him in.

Manafort consulted for lots of presidential campaigns including Ford, Reagan,
and Bush, so it doesn't surprise me that Trump used him, too. Of course, he's
a criminal and a sleazeball, and he left the Trump campaign a long time ago.

Tillerson is just an ex-CEO of Exxon, so he might be pro-Russia but not in any
untoward way.

It's likely that the DNC was hacked by APT28/29, and it's likely that they're
FSB/GRU, and it's likely that they released the documents to Wikileaks.
There's no public information that Trump was involved.

The Steele dossier is juicy and is being investigated by the intelligence
agencies, so nothing to learn there until they tell us.

Then we have the Yates and Nunes ordeal, but I'm willing to believe that's
just partisan junk.

Annnnyyywwaaaay, in an effort to be more rational this year, I'd like to try
to solidify my positions and confidence levels via wagers. My _general_
position is that Trump is not involved with Russia in any treasonous or even
"quite inappropriate" way.

If you concretely believe that Trump is a Russian spy, or personally
negotiated with Putin to get him to win the election in exchange for reversing
sanctions or something, hit me up (my email is in my HN user info thing) with
your proposed hypothesis and we can make a bet. I won't promise to take on all
bets, but certainly a lot of the extreme positions I've seen on here I would.
E.g., I'd bet at pretty high odds that he didn't take a position in Rosneft,
as someone was claiming).

~~~
mcphage
> Flynn didn't do anything illegal (I've yet to see a compelling argument that
> the Logan Act would apply here), just a breach of protocol. It was lying to
> Pence that did him in.

Maybe you're right, but he's asking for immunity for _something_ —see
elsewhere in this thread where Flynn has made his views on immunity deals
clear.

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jMyles
Listen, I know it's a big deal when the POTUS lies. But aren't we used to it
by now? If Trump somehow manages not to be a criminal and a crook (which seems
downright impossible), it will be highly unusual for the recent history of his
office.

Now: other than bluster, what is there actually about this "Russia" probe?
What exactly are we investigating? Whether Russia was involved in "fake news"
stories? Whether Russia was involved in releasing emails from the DNC? Emails
which revealed terrible, immature, anti-democratic conduct?

The "Russia hacked the election" narrative doesn't include, AFAIK, accusations
that they stuffed ballot boxes or anything, right?

edit: If the house investigation is about the Steele dossier (ie, the alleged
oil deal between Trump and Russia), then that's a different ballgame entirely
and that's great. This article doesn't mention that; my understanding was that
that had only been brought up on the Senate side. It seems that the House side
is still just about the "election hacking" \- I hope I'm wrong.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Uh, no. Aside from the fact that collusion between a foreign government and a
presidential campaign would be _extremely problematic_ that's not the major
issue.

The major allegation on the table right now is that the Russian government
offered Trump a sizeable share of Rosneft, the Russian national petrochemical
corporation, in exchange for dropping the sanctions against Russia due to the
conflict in Ukraine, and both parties followed through with the deal. The
sanctions were relaxed by the Trump administration within the first month of
coming into office while a stake in Rosneft has been sold to an anonymous
buyer behind a cayman islands holding company.

~~~
losvedir
> _The major allegation on the table right now is that the Russian government
> offered Trump a sizeable share of Rosneft_

What? Where are you getting that from (that it's "the major allegation")? It
was just one of many claims in the Steele Dossier.

IIRC, in the Steele dossier, that stake in Rosneft (~15% or something?) was
offered to Trump and he turned it down. That stake continued to be shopped
around and recently was bought by a joint venture between Qatar and others,
and some of the buyers can't be identified.

TBH, I'm not really sure why Trump would need to relieve sanctions in order to
get a stake in this, as it's clear they've been shopping it around for a
while.

~~~
c22
> TBH, I'm not really sure why Trump would need to relieve sanctions in order
> to get a stake in this, as it's clear they've been shopping it around for a
> while.

Well, it's probably cheaper.

