Previous Administration

For John, BLUF:  It appears the previous Administration is still fighting a rear guard action against the current Administration, which has hamstrung it a bit in dealing with ongoing problems.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Barack Obama is Worried About Something, That Is Obvious

From PJ Media, by Reporter Matt Margolis, 11 May 2020.

Here is the lede plus four:

Barack Obama’s decision to comment about the Michael Flynn case has the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board scratching their heads as to “what he’s really worried about.”

“Barack Obama is a lawyer, so it was stunning to read that he ventured into the Michael Flynn case in a way that misstated the supposed crime and ignored the history of his own Administration in targeting Mr. Flynn.  Since the former President chose to offer his legal views when he didn’t need to, we wonder what he’s really worried about.”

In the past couple of weeks, evidence that Trump’s former national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn was set up by FBI agents in a perjury trap resulted in his case being dropped by the Justice Department.  Soon after, the release of declassified documents and testimony revealed that Barack Obama was aware that Flynn was being wiretapped and was briefed on the details of conversations he was having with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

In a private call with former members of his administration, Obama weighed in on the DOJ dropping the charges against Flynn, bizarrely claiming that it was unprecedented, and incorrectly claiming that Flynn was charged with perjury.  Audio of the call was leaked to the media.

“The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed — about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn,” Obama said.  “And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free.  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.”

I can appreciate that the members of the previous Administration wish to save the American People from the follies of the new Administration, but that is the nature of Democracy--As H L Mencken would have it, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."  While the job of the opposition is to oppose, the job of the previous administration is to move on.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff