Kushner Is Said to Have Ordered Flynn to Contact Russia

[bathroommonkey76]

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn's guilty plea Friday for lying to the FBI is alarming news for Donald Trump. But the first person it's likely to jeopardize will be the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Two former officials with the Trump transition team who worked closely with Flynn say that during the last days of the Obama administration, the retired general was instructed to contact foreign ambassadors and foreign ministers of countries on the U.N. Security Council, ahead of a vote condemning Israeli settlements. Flynn was told to try to get them to delay that vote until after Barack Obama had left office, or oppose the resolution altogether.

That is relevant now because one of Flynn’s lies to the FBI was when he said that he never asked Russia's ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, to delay the vote for the U.N. Security Council resolution. The indictment released today from the office of special prosecutor Robert Mueller describes this lie: "On or about December 22, 2016, Flynn did not ask the Russian Ambassador to delay the vote on or defeat a pending United Nations Security Council resolution."

At the time, the U.N. Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements was a big deal. Even though the Obama administration had less than a month left in office, the president instructed his ambassador to the United Nations to abstain from a resolution, breaking a precedent that went back to 1980 when it came to one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the U.N.

Read more:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-01/kushner-is-said-to-have-ordered-flynn-to-contact-russia

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. I'm imagining him saying that in his little baby voice and am cracking myself up.

[moda253]

2. Wait this is different from the ABC News report

That said Trump directed him.

[bathroommonkey76]

5. This article touches on that later in the piece

ABC News reported Friday that Flynn is prepared to tell Mueller's team that Trump had instructed him to make contact with Russia during the campaign itself. If those contacts involved the emails the U.S. intelligence community charges Russia stole from leading Democrats, then Mueller will have uncovered evidence of actual collusion between the president and a foreign adversary during the election. Impeachment could then be in the cards.

But it's also possible that the Justice Department became interested in Flynn's initial conversation with Kislyak on other, less explosive grounds. One leading theory pushed Friday by Democrats involves a violation of a 1799 statute known as the Logan Act. A relic of the John Adams administration, this discredited law makes it illegal for a private U.S. citizen to undermine the foreign policy of a sitting president in contact with a foreign power. No American has ever been successfully prosecuted under that law. Some conservatives urged the George W. Bush administration to prosecute former House speaker Nancy Pelosi under the Logan Act in 2007 when she visited the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, when the White House was trying to isolate him. Nothing ever came of that.

[herding cats]

7. They're two different events entirely.

Kusner's event was supposed to take place after the election but before the inauguration.

Trump's event was supposed to have taken place during the actual election.

[Leghorn21]

3. And meanwhile, that little fucker still has security clearance!! Well, let's sit tight, monkey,

THE DAY IS YOUNG, my friend!

[shanti]

6. AND it's Friday

Dump day

[bathroommonkey76]

10. There are a lot of articles falling into the Twitter and the Google, Leghorn.

It's hard to keep up with all of them. #InformationOverload

[standingtall]

4. Bull Trump directed him

this is just a case o throwing Kushner under the bus to protect Trump.

[Corgigal]

8. President is already dumping on the son in law.

Haha, what a dysfunctional family. The buck stops at the President and Kushner wouldn't have done a thing without your blessing. Your daughter should be so proud.

[woodsprite]

9. I was hoping it was Pence. n/t

[gldstwmn]

11. The news is coming at us

fast and furious today. Enjoy the ride!

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

12. Lovin' every minute of it!!