Dan Bongino: Where is the evidence Michael Flynn lied?
Fox News contributor Dan Bongino reacts to former President Obama's role in the Michael Flynn case and his home state of Florida reopening amid COVID-19.
Former NYPD officer and Secret Service agent Dan Bongino called out the Obama administration over the handling of the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, saying on “Fox & Friends” on Monday “there is no evidence at all that Mike Flynn lied.”
Obama reacted on Friday to the Justice Department’s move to end its case against Flynn by declaring that the “rule of law is at risk” as new details about what the former president knew about the case against Flynn in the last days of his administration.
Bongino called the former president’s comments “significant because we have a body of evidence right now that Obama knew.”
“If you are a journalist or a media representative and you are not asking the question right now, ‘What did Obama know and when did Obama know it?’ You seriously need to find a new line of work,” Bongino, a Fox News contributor, said on Monday.
“The fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free," Obama said, according to Yahoo News, in a web talk with members of the Obama Alumni Association.
"That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”
Yahoo News, in reporting the tape, noted that Obama incorrectly states the charges against Flynn, who was not charged with perjury. Instead, Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in the transition period between the Obama and Trump administrations. But Flynn’s supporters have long argued that the FBI set a perjury trap for Flynn.
“It’s not just now that we know, we categorically know that Barack Obama knew about Mike Flynn’s call with the Russian ambassador, which is bizarre why Barack Obama would take a personal interest in that, but remember we also have a series of communications with the FBI agents leading this,” Bongino noted on Monday.
“Here is a quick question for the liberals here. There is text and email exchange out there that clearly says, ‘The White House is running this between the FBI agents who are talking about the case,’” he continued.
“So how do we know the White House is running this? They texted each other and they say, ‘Well, we don't know they were talking about that.’ What do you think the FBI was talking about? Making brownies? They were talking about this case.”
Bongino on Monday also noted another example, which he said proves Obama knew about the case.
“The POTUS, an acronym for president of the United States, wants to know everything we’re doing. The president was Barack Obama. He knew,” Bongino said. “He knew the whole time and he has managed to skate. That's why he is panicked and that's why his team is leaking this audio.”
The move this week by the DOJ came after the release of memos showing bureau officials debating at the time whether their purpose in interviewing Flynn was to get him to lie and prosecute him or get him to “admit to breaking the Logan Act” — an obscure law that bars non-government officials from pretending to represent the U.S.
New details emerged also this week about what Obama himself knew at the time of the Flynn case. Obama warned the Trump administration against hiring Flynn and said he was “not a fan” of the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Flynn's lead attorney on Sunday accused top officials of orchestrating a plot to frame her client, insisting that Obama himself was in on it.
According to recently released testimony, President Obama revealed during an Oval Office meeting weeks before the interview that he knew about Flynn's phone call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, apparently surprising then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.
After the meeting, Obama asked Yates and then-FBI Director James Comey to "stay behind." Obama "specified that he did not want any additional information on the matter, but was seeking information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently, given the information."
"The whole thing was orchestrated and set up within the FBI, [former Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper, [Former CIA Director John] Brennan, and in the Oval Office meeting that day with President Obama," Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell told Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures.”
When asked if she believes that Flynn was the victim of a plot that went all the way up to Obama, Powell said, "Absolutely."
“Think about how bizarre this is,” Bongino said on Monday reacting to the developments. “President Trump, as a sitting president, has a call with the Ukrainians where the Biden name comes up and there is actual suspicions of serious malevolent activity with his son.”
“This turns into an impeachment trial, although perfectly appropriate inquiry given how damaging some of that information could be, right?” he continued.
“Barack Obama, now we know, right before he leaves office personally brings up a phone call he had no business listening to between a private American citizen, Mike Flynn, and a Russian ambassador, a perfectly legal phone call from an incoming national security advisor to have made,” Bongino went on to note. “And Obama personally knows about it and Comey seems to indicate at that meeting about a Logan Act violation and nobody cares.”
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Bongino then asked, “Do you understand there is no evidence at all Mike Flynn lied?”
Fox News’ Adam Shaw and Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.
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