Leaking to the Wall Street Journal today, someone from the leak-proof team of 72-year-old Special Counsel Robert Mueller told the Journal that former National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn was investigated for trying to obtain hacked Russia emails off Hillary’s private server. Leaking the information indicates that there’s little going on in the Mueller inquiry, other than putting Flynn and former Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort under a microscope. Tying Flynn to seeking Russia’s hacked emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic National Committee or Hillary’s campaign Chairman John D. Podesta, shows that Mueller hasn’t found much since named Special Counsel May 17. Flynn’s meaningless conversations with former U.S. Russian Amb. Sergey Kislyak cost him his job as National Security Advisor Feb. 13.
Looking into unmasked conversations between Flynn and Kislyak, Mueller has found nothing, especially to force his resignation. Flynn apparently talked to Kislyak about life after former President Barack Obama, resetting U.S.-Russian relations. Flynn told U.S. officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, that he discussed only logistics of future meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin. When you consider the poor state of U.S.-Russian relations under Obama, it was logical for Flynn to discuss ways of mending fences before Trump’s inauguration. Whatever came out about Flynn taking cash for speaking at meeting in Russia in 2014, it’s a stretch tying Flynn to hacked Russian emails. Both Flynn and Manafort, with his well-known consulting ties with former Russian-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, show that Mueller has nothing on Russian collusion.
Anti-Trump forces, including many Democrats and Republicans, pray Mueller comes up with something. But with little coming out to date, the longer the investigation goes the more likely nothing substantive turns up. GOP donors paid researcher Peter Smith to see whether or not he could turn up 33,000 deleted emails form Hillary’s private server at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y. Hillary insisted she destroyed some 13 cellphones and scrubbed her server on the advice of counsel because they contained only personal-private material. Hillary’s server at the time was under Congressional subpoena when the emails went missing. FBI Director James Comey knew all about Hillary’s lost emails but chose July 5, 2016 to end his email investigation before the July 25, 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia . Law enforcement usually brings obstruction charges for destroying evidence.
Whoever in Mueller’s team leaked to the Wall Street Journal, it’s a sign that there’s little going on, other than covering old ground. Former FBI Director James Comey looked under every rock for nearly a year before 71-year-old President Donald Trump gave him the ax May 9. Comey based much of his investigation on Russian collusion on Hillary-paid opposition research implicating Trump and his campaign in shady activity. Before getting fired, Comey didn’t admit who in the Obama administration approved unmasking requests, with evidence pointing for former National Security Adivser Susan Rice and former Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch. Whatever the reasons to tap Trump or his campaign team’s phones, Comey never supplied the reasons, other than suggesting Trump and his campaign was under investigation. Comey got the ax for breaching protocol with the Justice Department.
If there’s any truth to the Journal’s report, it’s old news, since Flynn and Manafort have been under a dark cloud for some time. Whether that dark cloud involved anything related to coordinating with the Kremlin is anyone’s guess. “Of the 63,320 emails reviewed on the server, 31,000 were deemed personal by lawyers and therefore destroyed,” reported CNN, not questioning a thing about the deliberate destruction of evidence under subpoena. Networks like CNN would like nothing more than for Mueller to find the smoking gun of Trump-Russian collusion. When hacked emails disseminated by Wikileaks showed former Democratic National Committee Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schults sabotaging the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) or former DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile giving Hillary debate questions in advance, the campaign blamed Trump-Russian collusion.
If there’s any truth to the Journal’s report about Flynn trying to find missing Hillary emails, it’s not the collusion Democrats wanted, suggesting that Trump conspired with the Russians to win the election. Implicating Flynn in trying to recover 33,000 missing emails isn’t all that implausible but doesn’t amount to the kind of Russian collusion suggesting a direct link to the Kremlin. Both Flynn and Manafort engaged in some shady dealings, not likely related to Mucller’s mandate to find evidence of Russian collusion. Flynn’s talks with Kislyak were so inconsequential, so innocuous, so irrelevant that he should have never resigned. While the optics were bad, there was nothing discussed with Kislyak remotely related to Russian collusion. Suggesting Flynn looked to Russian hackers to recover Hillary’s missing emails shows how little Mueller has on Trump.
