Rep. Devin Nunes said it has been obvious since day one that former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn was innocent.
“The bottom line with Flynn is this — Maria,” Nunes said to Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo last week following the release of documents that Flynn’s lawyers argue exonerates their client. “We knew from essentially day one, early on in 2017, and that he was innocent. How do we know that? Because the top officials at the FBI told us so. This wasn’t rocket science.”
“Then, you talked about the report that we did, so we have the gold standard,” he said. “The House Republican report is really the gold standard of reports. In fact, there are no other reports to even look at because the others are all based on lies or innuendo or corruption, OK? So, our report was right at the time, and you may recall this, but we had to fight for nearly two months. Our report, we put it out, we said there was no evidence of collusion.”
Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about conversations he had with a Russian envoy, but he is now fighting to dismiss the case. His defense team argues that FBI notes released last week show the bureau unfairly treated Flynn.
Unsealed documents suggest former agent Peter Strzok blocked the FBI from closing its investigation into Flynn in early January 2017, weeks before the interview during the transition period, even though the agency found no “derogatory information.” Handwritten notes from Crossfire Hurricane team leader Bill Priestap on the day the FBI interviewed Flynn conveyed doubts about the strategy being pursued by others in the bureau.
Nunes said he believes the media was against Flynn from the beginning.
“We also had some very important information in there about Gen. Flynn,” he continued. “It said that we had evidence that Gen. Flynn didn’t lie, OK. This was from FBI. That was why it was in the report. But when that report first came out all the mainstream media who are essentially operators of the Democratic Party, now I think it’s obvious if people don’t know that now, they were in on this, OK. From the very beginning, the media was in on this. They covered up our report. We had to fight with the FBI and the DOJ so that we could get the Gen. Flynn information unredacted, declassified.”
