The war of words between the White House and the James Comey-era FBI has intensified, with Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany accusing the agency of “manufacturing” a criminal case against Michael Flynn.
President Donald Trump’s original National Security Adviser, retired General Michael Flynn, was the first and most prominent White House official ensnared by the FBI’s ‘Russiagate’ investigation. Flynn was fired in early 2017 and later pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
The Department of Justice dropped its charges against Flynn on Thursday, after evidence emerged showing they were baseless.
WH @PressSec Kayleigh McEnany: The FBI exists to investigate crimes, but in the case of @GenFlynn it appears they may have existed to manufacture one pic.twitter.com/vs7fAGdYjZ
“The FBI exists to investigate crime,” White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Friday. “But, in the case of Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, it appears that they might have existed to manufacture one.”
The FBI set out to interview General Michael Flynn, when they had no predicate for any investigation of any crime.
Trump has long maintained that Flynn was an “innocent man,” set up by his opponents in the FBI and Obama administration. That argument was given new life over the past week, however, as multiple releases of FBI documents painted a damning picture of the efforts to prosecute the general.
When then-FBI Director James Comey ordered Flynn to be interviewed in January 2017, he did so knowing he was breaking agency protocol. Prior to the interview, and with FBI brass concluding they had “no derogatory information” on Flynn, disgraced agent Peter Strzok urged the higher-ups to keep the case open, and set about discussing a plan to “get him [Flynn] to lie” in the interview.
After the interview was concluded, Strzok and his anti-Trump partner and lover – former agency lawyer Lisa Page – edited the record of the talk, after the initial transcript showed Flynn telling the truth.
McEnany’s accusation is a strong one, but Trump himself has used harder words. Hours before the press secretary addressed reporters, the US president phoned in to Fox & Friends, telling its hosts that the efforts to unseat him went all the way to the top of the Obama administration, and that it was “all coming out” now.
However, he saved his most venomous broadsides for Comey, calling the former spy chief a “sick man.” “He’s just a stupid guy. He’s dumb as a rock, and he’s a sick guy. There’s something wrong with him,” Trump said. “It’s all coming out, and I love to watch it.”
While Trump’s opponents, including Comey himself, have portrayed the Justice Department’s decision as the result of Attorney General William Barr defending his friend and ally, his supporters have argued otherwise, and have called on the president to punish the officials responsible for the Russia investigation in the first place.
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