Poll: is general Flynn innocent?

A person does not plead guilty when he is innocent but he might be covering for someone.

Reb E- they do when their son has been threatened harm if they don’t.

They threatened to go after his son. The agents who did the investigation found nothing. Their notes state that their purpose was to get into the White House, not inform Flynn that he was entitled to an attorney and trick him into a false statement

If Flynn had nothing to hide why did he lie to the FBI and the VP about talking to the Russians related to the lifting of the ssnctions imposed by Obama? He might have violated the Logan Act, a private citizen communicating on behalf of the US with a foreign official.

President-Elect transitional teams always are in contact with foreign governments.

Furthermore, incoming administration’s transitional team are paid for by the US government and are effectively government officials. And may so act.

RE, don’t be an idiot. It is extremely common for people to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit. It is literally maasim bechol yom. If you are offered a plea bargain, and the penalty you will have to pay is not much more (or often even less) than it would cost you — in money, time, and agmas nefesh — to defend yourself, your lawyer will advise you to take the deal, even if it means giving a false allocution, rather than risk being falsely convicted.

I personally know someone who served three years for a burglary he did not commit, because his public defender and his parents persuaded him to plead guilty rather than risk conviction at trial and a much harsher sentence. Decades later he now regrets it, but it’s too late.

In Flynn’s case we now know that there could not have been a crime, because there was no legitimate investigation to which his statement could be material. Therefore even if he had deliberately lied he would be innocent. But in fact he didn’t lie.

First of all, we don’t know exactly what he said, because the FBI, as a matter of policy, never records interviews and the only record is a written summary the agents prepare afterwards. It is very easy for them to lie, or to forget or misunderstand, and whatever they write down is now the record. This is a huge problem, it’s inherently corrupt, and it’s unbelievable that it hasn’t been reformed.

Second, he was deliberately not told that this was a formal interview; he was led to believe it was a casual conversation to do with handling the transition. So he was not on notice that he had to be exact about everything he said. He had had hundreds of phone calls with various people; he could hardly be expected to recall every detail of every call he made, weeks later, without even a reason to try hard to remember.

Third, the agents themselves wrote that they did not believe he was trying to mislead them. The corrupt criminal FBI ignored that.

Fourth, his lawyers had a huge conflict of interest, which they did not disclose to him or to the court. They persuaded him that he had in fact committed a crime, by not saying the exact truth to the agents. Also they were responsible for preparing his and his son’s foreign agent registrations, so any error was their fault, so they needed him to plead guilty so as not to attract blame themselves.

Finally, the secret deal not to charge his son, in exchange for his guilty plea, was illegal. The law requires all inducements offered for a guilty plea to be disclosed to the judge, but they told him to hide this. That’s a crime.

For all these reasons, Flynn is a completely innocent man, and what was done to him was criminal. Those responsible need to be charged themselves and should suffer what they put him through. But I don’t trust the DOJ to do that. They will let their criminal colleagues off, just as they have done so many times. It’s disgusting.

Oh, and the Logan Act?! Give me a break. Nobody takes that seriously. It is almost certainly unconstitutional, which is why no prosecutor has ever dared charge anyone with it, because the first time a judge gets a look at it it will be struck down.

Dear Reb Eliezer: General Flynn (a three-star general) was bankrupted by legal fees paid to try to defend himself. He lost his house. Then he was threatened by Government prosecutors: Either plead guilty or we will go after your son.
What would you do, Reb, if the Government did that to you???????
The Logan Act: The Logan Act was passed in 1799. No one has ever been found guilty of violating the Logan Act. And no one has even been charged with violating the Logan Act since before the Civil War (1861-65). Logan Act maybe unconstitutional due to vagueness.

Finally, even if Flynn did lie to the Vice President, that is no crime.

Katanhatorah., do you know how to read and comprehend ?
Facts
1. The agents investigating Flynn found no wrongdoing
2. The FBI illegally bugged Flynn’s conversation with the
Russian ambassador so they knew what was said was
not a problem before interviewing Flynn
3. The agents handwritten notes document that the agents
were going to close the case when Comey told them to
keep it open for the purpose of trying to trick Flynn into
a misstatement.
4. Obama’s FBI and DOJ committed. numerous civil rights
violations:
1. The US Attorney Van Zark ( I think that’s his name)
failed to turn over to the court and the defense all of
the documentation that came to light last week
2. There was no need for the meeting with Flynn as the
FBI already had the transcript
3. As Comey himself admits, the FBI failed to follow
protocol by not notifying the White House attorneys
of the meeting and by telling
Flynn that he didn’t need an attorney as it was just a
friendly conversation.
4. Ultimately Flynn said he lied. But that was only after
relentless prosecution that cost him his reputation,
his house, and assets to pay the mounting legal
bills and being threatened that they would go after
his son.

GH, Flynn is not only completely innocent, but a far better person than you are. The same applies to Hall. I would take Flynn over you in any situation.

The worst thing is that Flynn wasn’t even a target himself. The only reason these criminals destroyed him was that he was an obstacle to their conspiracy against the President, so they had to remove him. They deliberately set him up and took him out, so they would have a clear field to undermine their boss the President, to whom they owed loyalty.

Edited. Nu?

Nu? My point is that it’s one thing to be destroyed because you have enemies. Someone hates you so he is out to get you. That makes sense. It’s much worse when the person who destroys you has nothing against you; it’s not personal, you’re just standing between him and his target, so he destroys you. That way it doesn’t even mean anything.

Dear Moshe,
The Supreme Court did say that it was corruption, and a bunch of other evil concepts. They could not understand why it was punishable by the courts. Getting elected has become a right, and one may lose that right and get voted out of office. Political crimes is a reason to not sit in jail.

Moshe, the difference is that in Bridgegate the Supreme Court said yes, this was a corrupt act, but it wasn’t a crime, or at least it wasn’t the crime they were convicted of. That doesn’t vindicate them, it just means they’re merely dirty rather than criminal. Whereas with Flynn the evidence is that he was truly innocent.

Reb Eliezer,

That’s not true, very very not true. The federal government has the way to go after you and twist you into a pretzel. They made him sell his house and they bankrupted him just so that he could pay his attorneys.

The fact is that he is innocent as has been said all along. It was a setup, just as the Democrats admitted! The Justice Department was being run by dirty cops!

Furthermore, if you knew anything about this case, you would know that the reason he fell on the sword was because they were going to go after his son for another false charge. any normal parent would do that! If you don’t understand that you clearly are not normal.

Dear Someone,
You mean to say a worldview can reach further than the Torah?

“It is utterly inconsistent with Torah to espouse political views that are found on the modern political left. ”

Providing generous support for the poor is mandated in Yerushalmi Peah and codified as binding halahchah on all communities by Rambam. That is political left today.

Bava Metzia and Chosen Mishpat describe some pretty draconian regulation of businesses. That is political left today.

Next Shabbat we will hear about shemittah and yovel. That is much further left than even today’s political left would go today.

And our communal leaders have always advocated for governmental support for our communities’ needs. Also political left.

Not everything the political left supports today is consistent with Torah, but much of the political right today would destroy all of this.

Yes, he is a far better person than you are. And by the way, Turkey is not a hostile government. At least not yet. Technically it’s still an official ally.

General Flynn thought he was guilty when he twice pled guilty.

No, huju, when General Flynn pleaded guilty he did not think he was actually guilty. And if he did at one point think so, it was only because he was given bad legal advice.

Yes, it is. What’s that got to do with the price of fish in China? I stated a fact. You’re not entitled to your own.

So now you are defending the anti-Semite dictator Erdogan, whom Flynn illegally worked for. Beautiful.

He also fessed up to lying to Vice President Pence.

Some supposedly frum folks here have forgotten the commandment about bearing false witness.

Hall: Bearing false witness only refers to under court testimony. Furthermore, please advise where in the Torah or S”A there’s a halahcic prohibition against lying. Suppose you lied to another professor in your university when you told him that you ate cherrios for breakfast whereas you are aware that in fact you had rice crispies for breakfast. Please specifically identify which, if any, halachic prohibition you unambiguously violated.