Libel Suit: Former Trump National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn vs. Former Lincoln Project Director Fred Wellman

Defendant had (among other things) tweeted about Flynn, "He's a traitor. He's being paid by Putin. Stop pretending Flynn hasn't forsaken his oath to the nation for money." Flynn's Complaint, filed today in Flynn v. Wellman (M.D. Fla.), claims this was a deliberate lie.

Comments

[Noscitur a sociis]

Can they both lose?

[Michael P]

I am reminded of when Judge Sullivan spontaneously accused Flynn of treason.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Another lie from Michael P.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/18/judge-tells-michael-flynn-you-sold-your-country-out-at-hearing.html

“Hypothetically could he have been charged with treason?” Sullivan asked prosecutor Brandon Van Grack.

Van Grack answered, “Because It’s such a serious question, I am hesitant from answering.”

Sullivan later said: “I wasn’t suggesting he was committing treason. I was just curious if he could have been charged. Lots of conspiracy theories out there. Not taking any uncalled offenses into consideration. Was trying to consider benefit. I’m not suggesting treason. ”

[Michael P]

Yes, the fire-breathing judge unconvincingly tried to cover for a totally nutzoid question based on a theory that nobody else even suggested.

“All along, you were an unregistered agent of a foreign country while serving as the national security advisor to the president of the United States,” Sullivan told Flynn, referring to the other case, for which Flynn was not charged.

“That undermines everything this flag over here stands for,” the judge said. “Arguably you sold your country out.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/18/judge-tells-michael-flynn-you-sold-your-country-out-at-hearing.html

[JasonT20]

All along, you were an unregistered agent of a foreign country while serving as the national security advisor to the president of the United States,” Sullivan told Flynn, referring to the other case, for which Flynn was not charged.

Is that a false statement?

[Michael P]

Yes, that's a false statement. It's not even true as to Flynn's former business partner, who was charged as acting as an unregistered foreign agent (which is "the other case" mentioned in that quote).

[grb]

No, it isn't a false statement. It's one hundred percent true. Maybe you should try a little research before defending a sleazy piece of shit like Flynn?

[Kazinski]

It's an allegation, but let's note that the country in question was Turkey, a at least putative US ally, and the allegation was that Flynn had been hired before he was national security director to lobby or advocate for a prominent dissident to be extradited to Turkey.

There is no possible way to construe this as Treason:
"Scrutiny on Flynn’s ties to Turkey first stemmed from an op-ed he wrote for The Hill on Election Day 2016.

In the op-ed, Flynn defended Erdogan from criticism of his crackdown on dissidents and labeled Gulen a “shady Islamic mullah” who “portrays himself as a moderate, but he is in fact a radical Islamist.”

It was later revealed that his now-defunct Flynn Intel Group had been paid $530,000 by Dutch-based company called Inovo BV, which in turn had ties to the Turkish government.

The bulk of the $530,000 contract was to produce a documentary to boost Turkey’s image, as well as to conduct research on Gulen."
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/421780-turkey-and-michael-flynn-five-things-to-know/

I consider Erdogan a tinpot dictator, but let's not go overboard.

[Seamus]

Judge Sullivan wasn't accusing Flynn of anything, heavens no. He was just asking questions.

[Spinach Chin]

Essentially, the prosecuter said "That's an insane question, and it would be inflammatory for me to even answer it.", but he said it in a tactful manner.

The prosecuter has a better sense of propriety than the fucking judge does. Of COURSE this is the judge implying that Flynn is a traitor, but you somehow think this proves otherwise...

[grb]

Of course Flynn was paid by Putin. He collected about 50K to be the Russian’s pet U.S. general, seated at the dictator’s side during a major public event. By military regulations, a former officer was supposed to get Pentagon permission before that kind of whoring, but Flynn was never much about such niceties.

Indeed, he established quite a market selling himself to oppressive regimes – for instance taking money to lobby Congress to loosen the ban on transfering nuclear tech to Saudi Arabia. But his real sugar daddy was Turkey’s Erdoğan. Flynn pocketed well over 500K servicing the Turkish strongman in a multitude of ways. He wrote article’s trashing Erdoğan’s arch-foe, Fethullah Gülen, without disclosing to the publication he was paid to do so. This isn’t surprising, because he failed to register as a foreign agent with the U.S. government too. Trump’s attempt to make this skeezy whore National Security Advisor resulted in a frantic flurry of post-hoc registrations.

Turkey also paid Flynn to conduct research on Gülen and promised more money in the hope he could swing criminal charges against the dissident. On top of those payouts, Flynn also entered into negotiations on a scheme to kidnapp Gülen and smuggle him out of the U.S. (where he lives). There were two seperate meetings on this, Flynn’s fee was negotiated up to 15million, and the plan involved flying the dissident from Pennsylvania to the Turkish prison island of Imrali on a private jet.

Who knows why Flynn backed out? I guess you could claim scruples. After all, the kidnapping meetings were in mid-December of 2016. Trump had already named him NSA. Flynn had already accepted. Even as he discussed this criminal plot, he was already America’s presumptive National Security Advisor.

[NvEric]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[bernard11]

Don't trouble NvEric with facts.

[Dr. Ed 2]

When you look at how many people have sold us out to the ChiComs, and how much damage that has caused us (Covid only being part) this really seems irrelevant even if true.

[M L]

They all do this sort of thing. The game is just playing politics so you don't end up the one without a chair when the music stops or being a scapegoat or getting taken out by adjacency to targeted hits. Reminds me of this article.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2016/10/18/general-cartwright-is-paying-the-price-for-hillary-clintons-sins/

[M L]

So the defendant will go with the truth defense here then?

[SRG2]

In Britain, Wellman offers £100 to settle, Flynn refuses, Wellman pays the £100 into the court, the jury finds for Flynn but awards the derisory amount of 10p in damages, and so Flynn has to pay Wellman's costs from the date of the refusal of the settlement offer.

[Michael P]

Your fiction is as bad as grb's.

[SRG2]

It's a hypothetical, illustrating how such cases can proceed in the England and Wales. The low offer is a commonly used tactic when the defendant thinks that the plaintiff has technically been libelled but the libel or the plaintiff's rep are so low that the jury will award only a derisory amount. If, for example, I had called Don Blankenship a murderer in the English media, a jury would agree that it was libellous but almost certainly think he deserved nothing. So too were Flynn to sue in England and Wales. I don't know what the law is in Scotland - probably the same.

[neurodoc]

Someone here, Michael P, is appearing as a character witness on behalf of Michael Flynn, the QAnoner who called for Hillary to go to prison and led chants of "lock her up" and took money from Putin and Erdogan to do their bidding? This is a joke?

[David Nieporent]

I feel like we're forgetting that Flynn also endorsed the idea of a military coup in the United States.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

QAnon? Whoring out to Putin, Erdogan, and the Saudis?

A traitor and disgrace to the uniform. An un-American asshole at the level of Eastman or Clark..

[Moderation4ever]

One might think Flynn would be wiser to avoid a lawsuit of this kind. He could win in court but lose in public as we are reminded that he is a slimy character.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The people Flynn cares about consider his disgusting, delusional, un-American conduct a large part of his charm.

This guy is a vivid example that America needs to find a way to attract a better class of person to military service. Maybe if we had military personnel better than Flynn we might win a war more often that every 75 years (and counting).

[loki13]

Oh, this is a stupid lawsuit.

First, the Streisand effect.

Second, public figure/matter of public concern. He is incredibly unlikely to ever win this lawsuit .... and if he does beat the odds, then it will only be after a long and painful litigation involving a LOT of discovery.

Honestly, the best result for him would be if this gets dismissed quickly without much media coverage. IMO.

(Even if you think he was "wronged," then as a public figure you should subscribe to the maxim that if you wrestle with pigs, the pig is happy and you both get dirty.)

[David Nieporent]

Yeah, but in two or three years it will give Clarence Thomas another excuse to write a bunch of dicta about how terrible the NYT v. Sullivan decision was.

[M L]

This seems like it would be fairly black and white.

Either he was paid by Putin, or he wasn't.

Either he violated oaths of office for that payment, or he didn't.

"Traitor" I suppose can be more of a gray area, not necessarily limited to legal "treason" even though a lot of people might think traitor means treason, it could be more of a general sense.

[grb]

1. It’s a documented fact Flynn was paid by the Russian government.

2. It’s also documented that he was required to get Pentagon clearance before picking up Putin’s 50K, but didn’t. Likewise, he was required to register as a foreign agent before all his whoring for Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, but didn’t. Immediately after Trump named him NSA, Flynn began frantically registering for work he did over a year earlier.

3. Treason is a tricky term, even in a non-legal sense. So I’m not sure that describes someone who takes meetings on a plot to kidnapp someone granted U.S. residency and smuggle him to a foreign country – who haggles over his 15 million dollar fee for this illegal scheme – and does so after he’s already accepted the position of National Security Advisor in the upcoming administration. But treason or not, I am comfortable describing Flynn as a sleazy amoral unethical whorish piece of shit.

Anyone with standards would be….

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Rather than spar over treason, perhaps reasonable Americans can all agree on un-American and disgusting with respect to the disgraced Michael Flynn.