“I SENT THEM”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Jun. 12, 2019) — On his Wednesday night show, host Sean Hannity made the announcement that Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret), Trump’s first national security adviser, has hired former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell to represent him as he faces sentencing for a plea agreement for lying to the FBI about his conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December 2016.
Powell is author of “Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice” and has been highly critical of the Mueller investigation into allegations of Russian “collusion” on the part of the Trump campaign. The probe began under FBI Director James Comey, who was fired on May 9, 2017 and has since written a book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership,” in which he reportedly described his interactions with Trump prior to his termination.
Comey subsequently authorized his “friend,” Daniel Richman, to release at least one memo he wrote of an exchange with Trump to prompt the hiring of a special counsel, which came to fruition eight days after Comey was ousted.
Some reports say that Comey has been or is under investigation for the leaks and other possible wrongdoing associated with the FBI’s counterintelligence probe into the Trump campaign, which was handed to Robert Mueller and continued for nearly two years afterward.
Hannity opined that he believes Comey will be “held responsible” for Flynn’s downfall, among other fallout from the Mueller investigation, which saw 500 witness interviews, served 2,800 subpoenas, cost taxpayers approximately $35 million, and ultimately found no “collusion” with Russia on the part of the campaign, as the FBI had alleged.
Currently associated with the London Center for Policy Research and “America First,” Powell’s website states, “The book LICENSED TO LIE focuses on abusive prosecutors—all of whom rose to very powerful positions in the government. The book’s most prominent villain now leads Robert Mueller’s task force investigating the 2106 presidential election.”
Andrew Weissmann was the lead prosecutor on Mueller’s “Russia collusion” team and also responsible for the prosecution of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm, whose convictions were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court after hundreds of employees lost their jobs in 2002.
Weissmann was reportedly responsible for hiring the other 18 prosecutors to work on Mueller’s investigation, nearly all of whom had donated to Democrats and/or represented Obama-administration officials such as Ben Rhodes and the Clinton Foundation.
To illustrate his point, Hannity played a video clip of former FBI James Comey telling MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace last year that he “sent” two FBI agents to an ad hoc interview of Flynn on January 24, 2017, four days into the Trump administration. The agents reportedly did not believe Flynn lied to them about his conversations with Kislyak, leading many to question why Flynn accepted a “guilty” plea on December 1, 2017.
During a sentencing hearing last December, in what could be considered highly unusual, Judge Emmet Sullivan accused Flynn of having “sold your country out” despite the fact that he did not enter a plea to a charge of “treason” or “conspiracy.”
Hannity has long maintained that Comey is in legal jeopardy given the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation based on a “dossier” which Comey admitted in sworn testimony on March 21, 2017 was “unverified” and “salacious.”
Attorney General William Barr has tasked U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut John Durham to “investigate the investigators” of the Russia probe, with Hannity also announcing Wednesday that Durham has asked to speak with “CIA officials.” Whether or not that will include past officials such as former director John Brennan is unclear.