by: Harley Schlanger

Dec. 3 — The guilty plea coerced out of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn by special counsel Robert Mueller, for “lying to the FBI” proves, once again, that the whole premise behind “Russiagate” is a fraud, designed to prevent President Trump from decisively breaking with the war-provoking policies of his predecessors, Bush and Obama.  Contrary to hyperventilating media mouthpieces for the British Empire, which claim it moves the investigation one step closer to “getting” Trump, in reality, it exposes the failure of the more than one year witch hunt to come up with a shred of evidence to prove its original contention, that Russian President Putin “meddled” in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and Donald Trump “colluded” with him, enabling him to defeat Hillary Clinton.

Instead, for the second time, Mueller has bullied someone into entering a plea to a charge which has nothing to do with Russian meddling in the election campaign, most likely in return for leniency.  (The first case, of Papadopoulos,  is a virtual joke, as he lied not only to the FBI, but to the Trump campaign, to the “Russian” professor, and many others!)  In Flynn’s case, as in the indictments against Paul Manafort, Mueller threatened to go after the family.  While Manafort has so far refused to submit, Flynn, facing bankruptcy due to extreme legal expenses, and possible jail time for his son, seems to have capitulated to the threats.

Flynn’s plea is based on an admission that he lied when he said he had not discussed Obama’s escalated sanctions policy against Russia, and an upcoming U.N. Security Council resolution, with Russia’s Ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.  These conversations occurred after the election, during the transition period to a Trump administration.  Despite assertions that these two discussions violated the Logan Act of 1799, the Act itself has never resulted in a conviction and is considered to be unconstitutional by many legal experts.  A release from LaRouchePAC made the relevant point: Based on this example of prosecutorial fraud, “An incoming administration discussing relations with the other major nuclear superpower…and disagreeing with a present administration has now been made a federal crime.”

This was explicitly stated in an editorial in the Trump-hating, pro-war {Washington Post}, which accused Flynn of trying “to undermine President Obama’s policy” of anti-Russian sanctions by speaking with Kislyak.  What has enraged the {Post} and other anti-Trumpers is that the American people elected Trump precisely to reverse the dangerous policies of Obama, which included his provocations against both Russia and China, which would have been continued or worsened, had Hillary Clinton been elected.  To criminalize efforts by an incoming administration — or, for that matter, any political official — to engage in diplomatic efforts to prevent a war due to provocative policies of the outgoing administration, would cut off important potential channels, which could serve to reduce tensions and avert a war.

The whole story behind Russiagate was concocted by the highest levels of British intelligence and their puppets in the U.S. intelligence community under Obama,  to undermine Trump’s campaign by portraying him as either too soft on Putin, or even as one subject to blackmail by the Russian leader.  After his election, it was escalated, to prevent him from entering into full collaboration with Russia and China on a variety of crucial strategic issues.  The announcement of Flynn’s guilty plea takes the focus away from the spectacular success of President Trump’s diplomatic engagement with China’s Xi Jinping on his recent trip there, and the progress made through his collaboration with President Putin, in bringing peace to Syria, through coordinated efforts to crush terrorists which had been supported by the British and Obama — support which had been exposed by then Defense Intelligence Agency chief General Michael Flynn.  It occurs as Congressional investigators are closing in on the pivotal role played in launching the original series of lies against Trump by “ex”-MI6 operative Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS, whose salacious anti-Trump dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign, and used by the FBI to launch extensive surveillance against the Trump campaign.

At the same time, another prime example of Fake News blew up this week.  Both the {Washington Post} and the {New York Times} claimed Trump was poised to fire Secretary of State Tillerson.  When this “story” broke, Tillerson was in the midst of negotiations with the Chinese, on handling the crisis with North Korea, and with his Russian counterpart Lavrov, on moving forward the peace talks on Syria.  Tillerson described the story as “laughable,” while Trump denounced it as “FAKE NEWS”.  Again, the intent is obvious, to disrupt the potential for full U.S. participation, under Trump, in a new set of strategic relations, which break decisively with the neo-con/neo-liberal paradigm of endless war, endless bailouts, and endless austerity.