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Read the transcript — obtained by Rueters in advance of its public release — of his astounding phone call with Russian ambassador to US the day following Trump’s surprising 2016 Electoral College victory.

21 May 2019

By Andrew Squibley and Arthur Bushwhacker, Int’l Ne’er-Do-Wells

“Democracy Dies in Darkness… And When Idiots Like These Are in Charge.”

WASHINGTON (RUETERS) — A federal judge today ordered prosecutors in the case of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to make public a transcript of a previously unknown telephone conversation between Flynn and former Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak recorded the day after the country’s sphincter tightened.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the transcript of the phone call be released by lawyers in the office of the US Attorney for the District of Columbia and posted on the court’s publicly-available electronic docket by May 31.

Rueters, however, secured a copy of the transcript of the 20-minute conversation — initiated by Flynn the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, earlier than any other known conversation between the men — from sources within the Department of Justice. It paints a picture of a jubilant — but scheming — Flynn and a somewhat skeptical but hopeful Kislyak.

And no matter whether it’s read by a Democrat or Republican, the transcript of the conversation, provided to the Justice Department by the National Security Agency which regularly monitors the communications of foreign diplomats, calls into serious question the “no collusion” with Russia message of President Trump.

The transcript provided to Rueters:

Flynn pleaded guilty for lying to investigators for Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller about other — later — contacts with Kisylak. Knowledge of the call between the men the day after the 2016 presidential election came to the attention of prosecutors only after Mueller submitted his 448-page report on potential collusion between the Trump Campaign and Russia, plus possible obstruction of justice by the president, to Attorney General/Lead Trump Defense Attorney William Barr in late March.

Disclosure of the potentially damaging November 2016 phone call with Kislyak may have Flynn and his attorneys second guessing themselves and their agreement to delay sentencing late last year when Sullivan pointed out Flynn wouldn’t get the full benefit of his cooperation with the government, since he hadn’t finished doing so. A new sentencing date hasn’t been set. But court observers have told Rueters the revelation of the call — a call Flynn did not disclose to prosecutors — could cost him dearly at sentencing.

“Unless the orange menace decides to pardon him,” a former federal prosecutor told Rueters, “Flynn could be playing Hide-The-Pickle in Otisville (federal correctional institution) with Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen the next few years.”

Mueller wrapped up his nearly two-year probe in March, concluding that there was insufficient evidence to determine Trump’s campaign had illegally collaborated with Russians who had interfered in the election. The special counsel declined to draw a conclusion on whether the president himself attempted to obstruct the investigation, deferring to Congress for further action on that issue.

Lead Trump defense counsel Barr, however, in an attempt to derail any further congressional action regarding Russian campaign meddling and possible obstruction of justice by Trump, declared “Nothing to See Here” and has refused — along with the White House — to cooperate in any congressional inquiry.

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