Breaking: Shocking Developments in the Michael Flynn Case and ACLJ FOIA Discoveries
The last 24 hours have revealed shocking developments in the General Michael Flynn case, both in the judge’s decision-making and an unmasking by a current candidate for President.
On today’s Jay Sekulow Live, we discussed the two developments in the General Michael Flynn case.
First, Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell declassified the names of those who requested unmasking of General Michael Flynn. He turned them over to the Senate and they have now been released. The ACLJ has a lot of evidence that we uncovered during our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) work, actually back in the spring and summer of 2019. The work we did correlates with the new information about the unmasking requests.
Guess who was the final person to put in an unmasking request on General Flynn just eight days before President Trump took office? Then-Vice President Joe Biden, now the Democrat candidate who is attempting to defeat President Trump. Biden was the last person in the Obama Administration to put in the unmasking request on General Flynn.
ABC’s George Stephanopolous asked former V.P. Biden the following on May 12th:
What did you know about those moves to investigate Michael Flynn, and was there anything improper done?
Vice President Biden responded:
I know nothing about those moves to investigate Michael Flynn.
Stephanopolous pressed him further:
I want to press you on that. You say you didn’t know anything about it, but you were reported to be in a January 5th, 2017 meeting where you and the President were briefed on the FBI’s plan to question Michael Flynn over those conversations he had with the Russian Ambassador, Kislyak.
Vice President Biden said:
No, I thought you asked me whether or not I had anything to do with him being prosecuted. I’m sorry. I was aware that there was – that they asked for an investigation, but that’s all I knew.
Seven days after he was in the meeting with President Obama, on the FBI’s plan to question General Flynn, a week later with only eight days left in the Obama-Biden Administration’s term, former Vice President Biden put in an unmasking request on General Flynn. Either he’s forgetful or he’s a liar. It’s only one of the two.
My dad, ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow, presented a third option, that possibly the goal was to “protect the king.” ACLJ Senior Counsel Andy Ekonomou elaborated on that point:
You always protect the king. You always protect, in President Obama’s case, the emperor. You do anything you can to protect him and insulate him from any suggestion that he did anything wrong. All these people, all these intimates of his listed as those who sought to unmask various people through these mechanisms that they used were there to protect President Obama. This was the legacy. You don’t understand the idolatry that they feel for this man and what they would do for him and even to the point of falling on their own swords.
There were 49 requests by 39 Obama Administration officials that include Vice President Biden and President Obama’s Chief of Staff to unmask General Flynn’s name.
Starting on November 10th of 2016, you have President Obama telling President-elect Trump not to hire General Flynn. In our ACLJ FOIA on November 10th, just two days after President Trump’s election, we found that President Obama’s Chief of Staff emails a reply to former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, copying former National Security Advisor Susan Rice and tells her Obama “is going to go away” in December, and that she “should go away” as well. The ACLJ obtained this document in our unmasking FOIA lawsuit against the State Department and the NSA, which we are still actively litigating.
Then on November 18, 2016, President-elect Trump named General Flynn National Security Advisor Designee. Then November 30th, this is when the unmasking begins. This is all at the end of the Obama Administration; literally, they are on their way out. They are in their last months when this starts. You have a Flynn unmasking request by then-U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power. You have an ACLJ FOIA where the ACLJ obtained emails sent November 30, 2016, which we got from ODNI in our FOIA lawsuit on the last-minute rule change to increase access to intelligence, that show O'Sullivan was part of the conversation and in the loop on the last-minute rule change to increase access to raw signal intelligence. O’Sullivan was one of the unmaskers exposed yesterday.
On December 2nd, you find an unmasking request again by former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power. On the same day, you find an unmasking request by the Director of National Intelligence.
On December 7th, you get another unmasking request by Ambassador Power.
There’s much more of this.
My dad made the following point: All of this information came because we went to court to get the information.
We also discussed the bizarre new order from the judge in the Flynn case. You can hear our team’s analysis on that – as well as more discussion, including a point-by-point timeline on the General Flynn unmasking – by listening to the entire episode here.