The House Intelligence Committee’s Russia report released on Friday illustrates that "the FBI has a conflict of interest in overseeing redactions given that the behavior of its leaders and agents are in question," The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote on Monday.
The paper’s editorial board stressed that this is one more reason for President Donald Trump to use his authority to declassify all of the Russia 2016 files.
The board points out that for weeks the FBI fought Intelligence Committee requests to declassify this portion of its report, "though the only harm from public knowledge is to [FBI director James] Comey’s reputation and to the credibility of [special counsel Robert] Mueller’s prosecution."
The justification for Flynn’s guilty plea for lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation last December also has come into question, the editorial board states, because the House report indicates that in March 2017 "Director Comey testified to the Committee that ‘the [FBI] agents . . . discerned no physical indications of deception [in Flynn’s answers]. They didn’t see any change in posture, in tone, in inflection, in eye contact. They saw nothing that indicated to them that he knew he was lying to them.’"
The report also says that then Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe stated the "‘conundrum that we faced on their return from the interview is that although [the agents] didn’t detect deception in the statements that he made in the interview . . . the statements were inconsistent with our understanding of the conversation that he had actually had with the ambassador.’"
The Journal stated that it is mysterious that Flynn pled guilty to making false statements, because "It made little sense for him to lie since as a seasoned intelligence officer he would know the U.S. eavesdrops on the Russian ambassador. He also willingly sat for the FBI interview with no legal counsel, suggesting he felt no risk in doing so."
The paper’s editorial board suggests that Flynn pled guilty, because he felt that he lacked the money to defend himself in court and may have wanted to spare his son, whom Mueller was also targeting, as well as have a better chance of receiving a lighter sentence for himself by assisting the investigation.
The Journal emphasized that it is "a dubious practice for a prosecutor to force a cooperating witness to plead guilty to a crime he didn’t commit."
The editorial board admitted that maybe "Flynn is supplying testimony behind the scenes that puts all of this in a better light, but the facts on the public record to date don’t reflect well on Mr. Mueller’s prosecutorial tactics toward Mr. Flynn."
The board also said the House report reflects poorly on Comey’s credibility, because he has at least three times on his book tour denied telling Congress that the FBI agents did not think Flynn was lying, despite the transcript of his testimony.
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