When everything shakes out - or at least everything that will - history books are going to have to hold an extra ten volumes to cover everything tha The Most Notable Loser has gotten himself into.Twitter is abuzz this morning with the WSJ story [...] that Mike Flynn and his spawn hoped to make up to $15 million for kidnapping Fethullah Gulen and delivering him to Turkey.
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And mostly, the focus has been on the kidnapping part of the story (perhaps, in part, because Republicans tried to attack James Woolsey for his involvement in it a few weeks back).
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The story has already been told; what’s new about this iteration of it is the eye-popping pay-off [$15M], as well as more details about the timing and location of a second meeting.
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I think the far more interesting side of it is the inclusion of a deal on the Reza Zarrab prosecution — because that implicates Trump’s decision to fire Preet Bharara, substantiating a parallel case to his firing of Jim Comey.
As noted, [Southern District of New York] is prosecuting Zarrab for laundering Turkish gold into Iranian coffers. Rudy Giuliani and Michael Mukasey are representing Zarrab, with Giuliani going so far as brokering a deal that would trade foreign policy cooperation for Zarrab’s release even while defying pressure from DOJ about explaining his role in it. Because the case implicates Recep Tayyip Erdogan personally, the impending trial has led to increasing diplomatic tensions with Turkey.
Marcy Wheeler
Talk about your tangled webs.The one other important detail of this story, which follows on stories from yesterday, is that Mueller has implicated Flynn Jr in this deal. That reportedly is already making Flynn Sr consider pleading, to protect his son.
But if he does that, he may be forced to disclose how closely Trump was involved in these discussions to sell US policy to Turkey to enrich a staffer.
Oh, and, Jared Kushner is in this one, too.
Continue reading.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
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