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Anonymous ID: 30bdfe May 12, 2018, 3:46 p.m. No.1388610   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Senator Demands Truth on Flynn Interview

 

Senator Charles Grassley is ramping up pressure on the leaders of the Justice Department and the FBI to finally release the documents related to the interview of former General Michael Flynn.

 

Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI last year, but accounts of the interview that led to the plea are conflicting. Seeking clarity, Grassley requested documents about the interview 15 months ago, but the FBI and DOJ refused to comply, citing an ongoing criminal investigation.

 

Instead, FBI director James Comey appeared before the Committee in March last year and provided wide-ranging testimony, including details about Flynn’s interview. According to notes taken by the committee, “agents saw no

change in [Flynn’s] demeanor or tone that would say he was being untruthful.”

 

But Comey now denies making the statement and Grassley is demanding a set of documents to get to the truth. In a letter (pdf) to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray, the senator demanded the information requested 15 months ago, which includes transcripts of Flynn’s call with the Russian ambassador as well as the memos written by the agents who interviewed Flynn.

 

In the letter, Grassley substantiated his request by revealing that FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka was present at Comey’s testimony and also recorded that Comey told the lawmakers that the agents who questioned Flynn “saw nothing that led them to believe [he was] lying.”

 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team has requested to delay Flynn’s sentencing several times. In February, the judge in the case demanded that the prosecutors produce all exculpatory evidence. Flynn’s plea and the judge’s request led Grassley to believe that the Justice Department had no excuses left to hold on to the information.

 

“Thus, although the case is not yet adjudicated, the Committee’s oversight interest in the underlying documents requested more than a year ago now outweighs any legitimate executive branch interest in withholding it,” Grassley wrote.

 

“So too does the Committee’s interest in learning the FBI agents’ actual assessments of their interview of Lt. Gen. Flynn, particularly given the apparent contradiction between what then Directory [sic] Comey told us in March 2017 and what he now claims,” Grassley continued.

 

The Senator demanded to receive all relevant documents before May 25 and requested that Pientka be available for an interview with the Senate Judiciary Committee shortly after.

 

The names of the two agents who interviewed Flynn have never been officially confirmed, but according to sources who spoke to investigative journalist Sarah Carter, one of the agents was FBI Deputy Head of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok.

 

Strzok’s involvement in the interview would create potentially insurmountable problems for Flynn’s prosecutors. Strzok was removed from Mueller’s probe after anti-Trump texts between him and his alleged FBI lover, Lisa Page, were discovered. Strzok was also the agent in charge of the FBI’s Russia probe and the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. Both probes are now being scrutinized by federal prosecutors for investigative misconduct and abuses of government surveillance.

 

The judge in Flynn’s case, Emmet Sullivan, handed a stunning rebuke to the Justice Department in 2009 by overturning the conviction of former Senator Ted Stevens and naming a special prosecutor to investigate the government lawyers who worked the case.

 

Sullivan’s decision led to an extraordinary special investigation which found that the prosecution’s team concealed information that could have helped Stevens defend himself. Law professors described the blistering 500-page report as a “milestone in the history of prosecutorial misconduct.”

 

Stevens, a Republican, lost his long-held seat in the Senate before the legal struggle was over, allowing the Democrats to secure a filibuster-proof majority and pass Obamacare. Stevens died in a 2010 plane crash.

 

https://www.theepochtimes.com/senator-demands-truth-on-flynn-interview_2522542.html

Anonymous ID: 30bdfe May 12, 2018, 4 p.m. No.1388750   🗄️.is 🔗kun

New immigration detention centers in Midwest proposed, including in Illinois

 

Companies and local governments have proposed building new immigration detention centers in Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana, responding to a request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials stepping up arrests in the center of the country.

 

The proposals, most by for-profit corrections contractors, were submitted to ICE after it put out a request in October for detention sites near Chicago, Detroit, Salt Lake City and St. Paul, Minnesota. ICE disclosed the proposals in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the National Immigrant Justice Center, which provided the information to The Associated Press.

 

The proposals, all preliminary, include one to build a 640-bed detention center in Pine Island, Minnesota, not far from Rochester, submitted by Management & Training Corp. and another by GEO Group for an 800-bed facility in rural Newton County, Indiana, about 65 miles south of Chicago.

 

CoreCivic Inc. proposed reopening the vacant Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton, Minnesota, to supply ICE with up to 600 beds, and expanding a detention center in Pahrump, Nevada, to add space for 604 immigrant detainees.

 

ICE pays private companies to hold about two-thirds of those detained for being in the country illegally, with the largest part of that business contracted to CoreCivic and GEO.

 

In addition to the proposals by companies, local governments have submitted plans. Calhoun County, Michigan, proposed building a dedicated immigrant detention facility with up to 300 beds at the county jail, in addition to 250 beds already under contract to ICE. Sherburne County, Minnesota, offered space for 300 detainees in its jail, with new construction possible to hold 200 others. Kankakee County already under contract to house 105 detainees, offered space for nearly 100 more and said it could complete construction of an annex to house 300 others. There is an active ICE detention center in Kenosha County, Wisconsin.

 

Some of the proposals submitted to ICE include several that have already gained attention. They include a CoreCivic proposal to build a detention center in Elkhart County, Indiana, that was withdrawn earlier this year in the face of local opposition, and proposals by MTC for facilities in Evanston, Wyoming, and Hopkins Park, Illinois.

 

It is not clear if or when ICE will move forward with contracts for additional detention centers. Agency officials did not respond to a request for comment from the AP.

 

With President Donald Trump 's administration pledging to go after people in the country illegally, ICE has increased arrests in the interior of the country by 40 percent during the first part of 2017. To keep pace, the agency published a notice last fall seeking "multiple possible detention sites" within 180 miles of the four cities. But Congress declined to approve a funding request this year to expand capacity from about 40,000 immigrants to more than 51,000.

 

"They've put out these requests for information and we've proposed different sites, and we're waiting to hear," said Issa Arnita, spokesman for MTC, which is based in Centerville, Utah. The company has identified potential sites for new immigration detention centers in Minnesota, Illinois and Wyoming, as well as in Michigan, but considers the details proprietary, Arnita said.

 

A CoreCivic spokesman, Steven Owen, said in an email that his company's proposals are part of ongoing work with ICE and other government customers to "assess their options to address current or future needs." The Tennessee-based company will not provide details for competitive reasons, he said.

 

An executive at Boca Raton, Florida-based GEO declined to comment, referring questions to ICE.

 

Companies and local governments have proposed building new immigration detention centers in Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana, responding to a request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials stepping up arrests in the center of the country.

 

More:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/midwest/ct-immigration-detention-center-illinois-20180512-story.html