President Donald Trump issued a threatening tweet about CNN late Wednesday night, claiming Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, had suffered “persecution” at the news outlet’s hands.
“@CNN doesn’t want to speak about their persecution of General Michael Flynn & why they got the story so wrong,” Trump tweeted. “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!” he added.
Based on his retweets of right-wing news outlets before the sinister post, Trump seemed to be referring to documents presented by Flynn’s lawyers showing former FBI intelligence director Bill Priestap’s thoughts on how investigators ought to interview the adviser in the 2017 Russian election interference probe.
“What’s our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?” Priestap wrote in a handwritten note. “I don’t see how getting someone to admit their wrongdoing is going easy on him.
“If we get him to admit to breaking the Logan Act, give facts to DOJ & have them decide,” he continued. Or, if he initially lies, then we present him [redacted] & he admits it, document for DOJ, & let them decide how to address it.”
It’s unclear why Trump accused CNN of not covering the story, which can be read here.
Flynn agreed to a plea bargain with Special Counsel Robert Mueller in December 2017 after he was indicted to lying to the FBI. However, he later accused the intelligence agency of setting him up and is currently pushing to get his case dismissed.
Trump has repeatedly come to Flynn’s defense, claiming that investigators had “ruined” his former adviser’s life and even calling the FBI “human scum” for pursuing the case.
“What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States again!” Trump tweeted on Thursday morning.
The President has not yet said whether he plans to pardon Flynn.
Well I see we are headed for another trip off the rails today.
The Madness of King Trump
Rapidly descending into the abyss of complete insanity
One way you can tell a real leader like Trump is in full control of himself and the situation is that he’s lashing out in all directions with wild accusations and threats.
Yep. So what else is new? Weather treating you OK? We’re looking at about an inch of rain on the way. Good day to cook.
Is it? Is it really? What it this the Eleventy Billionth Fake News tweet? He just wants to build the narrative in Rightwingostan that pardoning a traitor is OK. That’s it.
Droll.
But speaking of that, maybe someone should challenge Trump to a psychiatric evaluation. He wouldn’t accept the challenge, of course, but merely watching him reject it could be entertaining (for a few precious moments).
As with so much else about this administration, I simply don’t understand what Trump’s deal is . . . and as with so much else about this administration, the reason I don’t is that there’s some underlying Something that’s not public knowledge that explains what his deal is.
But, what “set up”? No one told Flynn to lie about being an agent for the Turks, least of all to Pence. The Obama administration warned the Trump transition team about that same involvement. If Trump were truly interested in his own political survival [I was about to write, “If Trump were smart,” but I caught myself], he’d shut up about Flynn. All this noise, though, only draws attention to the case, only compels people to re-litigate the case and lay out the definitive evidence that Flynn did this to himself–and gets people to wonder what the deal is with Trump.