Because of document releases earlier this week, there was some familiar material in the Department of Justice's revelations about FBI misconduct in its Government's Motion to Dismiss the Criminal Information against the Defendant Michael T. Flynn.  (You can read the brief here.)  What came as a complete surprise, though, was to learn from the brief about Comey's role in persecuting (as well as prosecuting) General Flynn, seemingly with an eye to destroying Flynn and Trump. The general outlines of the brief are simple: the Department of Justice says the FBI failed to make a case that General Flynn's alleged falsehoods were material.  The legal standard for prosecuting someone for lying to the FBI is that the lie must be material. In this case, because the FBI had a transcript of Flynn's December 2016 phone conversation with then–Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and because Flynn made it clear that he knew that...(Read Full Post)