Judicial Watch Take on the Deep State: Sues FBI, NSA, CIA For Flynn Records

from Zero Hedge:

As we noted previously, given the FBI has already ‘cleared’ Flynn, the only possible path for escalation from here by the deep state, is to leak the actual recorded calls to the press, thus “proving” Flynn lied, assuming of course, he did.

Furthermore, as Mike Krieger recently raged, the public should demand the Flynn transcripts:

…How do we know what was really said without the transcript? The New York Times tells us…

“During the Christmas week conversation, he urged Mr. Kislyak to keep the Russian government from retaliating over the coming sanctions — it was an open secret in Washington that they were in the works — by telling him that whatever the Obama administration did could be undone, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing classified material.Federal officials who have read the transcript of the call were surprised by Mr. Flynn’s comments, since he would have known that American eavesdroppers closely monitor such calls. They were even more surprised that Mr. Trump’s team publicly denied that the topics of conversation included sanctions. Prosecutions in these types of cases are rare, and the law is murky, particularly around people involved in presidential transitions. The officials who had read the transcripts acknowledged that while the conversation warranted investigation, it was unlikely, by itself, to lead to charges against a sitting national security adviser.”

I have so many issues with the above reporting it’s hard to know where to start. Everything mentioned above is given to us secondhand via “anonymous American officials.” Nowhere do I see any specific quotes from the transcript, despite the fact that the paper admits it talked with federal officials who read it. Why not? Why must we hear about the content of the transcripts secondhand from anonymous officials? This is the most significant red flag with this whole story. If the leakers were truly interested in transparency, and wanted the public to know the truth, why not leak the transcript to Wikileaks and let the public decide?

I’ll tell you why. They didn’t do this because transparency was never the goal here. They wanted to illegally use intelligence information to take a scalp from a Trump administration they hate, and they knew they could do this via mainstream media journalists. I know what you’re thinking, Edward Snowden didn’t leak everything to Wikileaks either. He likewise picked a few journalists and trusted them to responsibly report the information. How is this any different?

It’s different in two important respects. First, we are talking about a single transcript, or a few transcripts, as opposed to the enormous intelligence data-dump that Snowden provided. Secondly,The Intercept and others who reported on the Snowden material provided a huge amount of primary source documentation for the public to see so that it could come to its own conclusion.

They didn’t simply tell everyone what to think about leaked documents while refusing to share any actual content. Where are the specific, comprehensive quotes from the Flynn transcript? Why doesn’t the public have a right to see the entire thing? Instead, we are being told what happened and what to think via secondhand anonymous sources. Sorry, but this doesn’t cut it for me.

I have yet to see any excerpts from the transcript. All I’ve seen is what anonymous officials say was discussed. This is absurd. We the people should demand the content of the relevant transcripts so we can decide for ourselves just how bad Flynn’s actions were. In the absence of this, we’re essentially being manipulated on a massive scale by rogue intelligence agents and told what to think through the major newspapers. This doesn’t cut it for me. I want to see the content of these conversations so I can make up my own mind. Perhaps it’s even worse than we know. So be it. We should be treated as adults and allowed to see the actual conversation if it’s going to be made into a story of such huge national importance.

Today, absent any adults in the room, we learn that conservative watchdog Judicial Watch is planning to sue several government agencies if they do not hand over records related to the wiretapping of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The group filed Freedom of Information Act requests for the records weeks ago but are planning to sue by next week for the records if they do not receive anything by then.

Judicial Watch filed the requests with the FBI, NSA, CIA, and Treasury Department, according to the group’s Director of Investigations and Research Chris Farrell. Below is a tweet from Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton on the National Security Advisor scandal.

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