President Donald Trump unleashed a tweetstorm expressing support of his former national security adviser, Michael J. Flynn, and displeasure with FBI Director Christopher Wray, after newly released internal FBI documents provided smoking gun evidence that the Bureau had tried to entrap the former 3-star general.
The handwritten notes from top officials at the FBI confirm that the intent of the agents who interviewed Flynn at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017 was not to get to the truth, but catch Flynn in a lie so they could “prosecute or get him fired.”
As the story broke last night, Trump, who has long hinted he may pardon Flynn, retweeted various news sites and individual accounts reporting on the story, as well as Gen. Flynn’s tweet showing a United States flag flapping in the wind.
He also used Twitter to comment on the FBI’s misconduct, and the media’s complicity in the whole affair.
.@CNN doesn’t want to speak about their persecution of General Michael Flynn & why they got the story so wrong. 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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 30, 2020
“What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States again!” Trump wrote Thursday morning.
What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States again!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 30, 2020
Notably, the president retweeted a post from Townhall writer and Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich that read: “What did FBI Director Christopher Wray know and when? And why has he been covering for these scum bags?”
Additionally, Trump retweeted a House Judiciary Committee tweet of a Fox and Friends segment discussing the the new revelations.
“Where’s Christopher Wray?” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asks in the clip. “Why didn’t we learn any of this from him? Thank goodness for Sidney Powell and Bill Barr or we would have never got this information.”
We already knew that James Comey's FBI was out to get General Flynn and President Trump.
But it was worse than we thought.
Comey's failures were part of a larger pattern of misconduct and politicization at the FBI.
Durham is coming. pic.twitter.com/gLfW2n7zVI
— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) April 30, 2020
Last week, a whistleblower with “direct knowledge of the situation” told the Daily Caller that FBI general counsel Dana Boente, acting in coordination with Wray, hid the exculpatory evidence from Flynn’s lawyers.
The president has used Twitter in the past to ding Wray for allegedly covering up the FBI’s misconduct.
In May of 2019, he tweeted out comments made by Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton slamming the FBI Director, signaling that he was souring on the FBI director he appointed.
During an appearance on Fox Business Network’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” Fitton had complained that Wray seemed to be protecting members of the bureau who were part of the deep state plot to “overthrow the president through an illegal coup.”
Nearly a year later, the president’s opinion of Wray does not seem to have improved.
Meanwhile, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said on Fox and Friends Thursday morning that it would be up to Trump to decide whether or not to pardon Flynn.
“The president has made very clear for three years that he feels Michael Flynn was treated very unfairly, and now we know it was probably criminal,” she said. “The fix was in from the previous administration’s people, she added.
“They tormented him, they destroyed him,” Trump said told reporters at the White House Thursday. “But he’s going to come back bigger and better.”
The president made clear that he has not used his position to interfere in the case. “I don’t have to stay out of it, but I like to stay out of it,” he explained.
“What they did to General Flynn and others was a disgrace. He’s essentially exonerated,” the president added.
Flynn is awaiting U.S. District Judge Emmett Sullivan’s decision on his motions to withdraw his guilty plea of to lying to the FBI, and his motion to dismiss the case.