Gustave Dore Dante looks upon the negligent rulers 1868
Worldometer reports new cases for June 9 (midnight to midnight GMT+0) at + 136,757. Another new record.
My count from about 6 am EDT to 6 am EDT is + 139,460 cases.
New cases past 24 hours in:
• US + 23,300
• Brazil + 39,928
• Russia + 8,987
• India + 11,128
• Pakistan + 6.397
• Mexico + 4,.790
• Cases 7,622,021 (+ 139,460 from yesterday’s 7,482,561)
• Deaths 424,325 (+ 4,837 from yesterday’s 419,488)
⚠️Arizona hospitalizations surging. Testing rising and cases spiking — but cases rising much faster than testing volume, as seen by the increasing and dangerously high %POSITIVITY (right column). Arizona has completely lost the gains made in early May. pic.twitter.com/gIdApsmlv7
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) June 11, 2020
From Worldometer yesterday evening -before their day’s close-:
From Worldometer:
From COVID19Info.live:
“Fed chair Powell yesterday really reminded investors that there’s a huge, huge gap between the economic reality and the market reality..”
He should know, because he’s created that gap. It’s dead simple: there is no stock market left, only something that looks like it.
To have a market, you need price discovery. Jay Powell makes sure there isn’t any, because everyone’s afraid of what price discovery would do.
The entire financial world fears honesty and truth, and the Fed makes sure these are gone.
• Here’s What Caused The Worst Stock Market Sell-Off Since March (F.)
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 6.9%, nearly 1,900 points, in its worst single-day drop since the coronavirus sell-off in March. The S&P 500, which fell 5.9%, also had its worst day since March. Stocks plunged on rising concerns about a second wave of coronavirus infections: Many states that loosened lockdown restrictions saw a spike in new cases. Texas and Florida, for example, were among some of the first states to reopen, and they are now reporting record numbers of hospitalizations. A total of 21 states reported an increase in new cases last week, according to a Reuters analysis. Thursday’s sell-off follows the Federal Reserve’s grim update on the economy:
A day earlier, the Central Bank forecasted a long recovery, with unemployment set to remain high for years and interest rates staying near zero until at least 2022. “Fed chair Powell yesterday really reminded investors that there’s a huge, huge gap between the economic reality and the market reality,” Tom Essaye, founder of the Sevens Report, told CNBC. “Just that reminder combined with a lot of the second wave headlines prompted an opportunity to take profits… stocks can’t go up forever.” Expectations for a quick economic recovery are dwindling: Investors are now dumping stocks that would benefit from a reopening—including airlines, retailers and cruise operators—after they led the market rally over the past month.
Rise of the zombies: the share of U.S. companies that have debt servicing costs that are higher than profits has continued to increase. From DB's Torsten Slok: pic.twitter.com/xApg0CFQeT
— Lisa Abramowicz (@lisaabramowicz1) June 11, 2020
Wall Street traders are instead rotating back into stay-at-home stocks, such as Netflix and Zoom, as well as big tech companies like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google-parent Alphabet. The stock market’s fear gauge, the CBOE Volatility Index, skyrocketed over 47% on Thursday, breaking above the 40 threshold for the first time in over a month. “The REAL reasons stocks are down doesn’t have much to do with fundamentals – the tape had become GROSSLY overbought (with valuations hitting multi-decade, unsustainable highs),” according to Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge. “A lot of reluctant buyers were sucked in off the sidelines these last few weeks, creating a giant downside air pocket that’s now being filled.”
BIG NUMBER: MORE THAN 44 MILLION. That’s how many people have filed for unemployment over the last three months, as the coronavirus pandemic forced businesses to shut down on an unprecedented scale. Jobless claims fell for the tenth week in a row on Thursday, with 1.5 million more Americans filing for unemployment during the week ending June 6. While that number continues to decline, millions are still unemployed and the job market’s recovery is expected to take years. TANGENT “We can’t shut down the economy again,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC on Thursday morning. “I think we’ve learned that if you shut down the economy, you’re going to create more damage,” he warned.
Both the S&P 500 and Dow are still up more than 40% from their coronavirus low point on March 23. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell reiterated at his press conference on Wednesday that while “there is great uncertainty about the future,” the Central Bank is strongly committed to doing “whatever we can, for as long as it takes” to help support the economy.
WSJ today quoting Portnoy. He's right:
“It took me a while to figure out that the stock market isn’t connected to the economy,” he said. “I tell people there are two rules to investing: Stocks only go up, and if you have any problems, see rule No. 1.”https://t.co/oGqCxjMydh
— Jim Bianco (@biancoresearch) June 10, 2020
Fits perfectly in the climate the Fed has created.
• Trump Admin. Won’t Disclose Corporate Recipients of $500 Billion Bailout (CD)
Progressive critics and advocacy groups are responding with alarm and anger to the Trump administration’s refusal to disclose the names of more than 4.5 million companies that have collectively received over $500 billion in corporate bailout money through a federal program created to provide businesses with relief from the coronavirus pandemic. The over $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act signed by President Donald Trump in March established the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) with $349 billion in funding for forgivable loans. After the initial capital ran out in just 13 days, lawmakers approved $310 billion more—though over $130 billion of that amount was still left as of Tuesday.
Although, as the Washington Post reported, the Small Business Administration (SBA) “typically discloses names of borrowers from the loan program” on which the PPP is based, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testified to the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship that he won’t be following that model for the Covid-19 program, despite concerns about which companies are benefiting from it. As Mnuchin told the Senate committee Wednesday: “We believe that that’s proprietary information, and in many cases for sole proprietors and small businesses, it is confidential information.” The secretary’s comments provoked a barrage of condemnation, particularly among individuals and groups that had previously expressed concern about the PPP.
The bankruptcy bubble has taken a new unexpected twist.
Bankrupt $HTZ stock is up 10% after hours on news that equityholders can get screwed in a totally new way that also ends with them losing everything.
You can't even make this stuff up. It's just too good. https://t.co/3Y4MzHvbzy
— Nate Anderson (@ClarityToast) June 11, 2020
It turns out that buying stocks of bankrupt companies can lead to losing money. pic.twitter.com/VpLoZ6Ceaq
— Lisa Abramowicz (@lisaabramowicz1) June 11, 2020
Getting poorer as your income rises.
• The Real Economic Catastrophe Hasn’t Hit Yet. Just Wait For August (BF)
More than 40 million people lost their jobs in the last few months, in the fastest and deepest economic slowdown ever recorded. More than half of all households with low incomes in the United States have experienced a loss of earnings, as have a quarter of all adults. The numbers are grim — but as bad as things look today, they’re on track to get much, much worse. The US economy right now is like a jumbo jet that’s in a steady glide after both its engines flamed out. In about six weeks, it will likely crash into the side of a mountain. What’s kept us in the air so far is an extraordinary government relief effort. In most states, evictions have been temporarily banned, preventing a mass homelessness crisis.
Most federal student loan payments have been put on hold, removing one of the largest recurring monthly expenses that millions of people face. Banks were ordered to give their customers a six-month break on mortgage payments if requested. Most importantly, and counterintuitively, household income sharply increased in April as hundreds of billions of dollars in lost wages were replaced by trillions in government spending. The government sent out more than 159 million stimulus payments of up to $1,200 per adult (more if you have kids), and more than 20 million unemployed people became eligible for an extra $600 a week in federal unemployment benefits. The result, according to Bloomberg, was the largest monthly increase in household income ever recorded.
This happened in April, when there were far fewer things to spend your money on; shops and restaurants were closed, nobody went to the ball game or took the kids to a theme park, and a shaggy nation longed for a haircut. Meanwhile, the prospect of a massive economic crash meant that Americans who were still on the job were more likely to tuck money away that they might otherwise have spent. So the national savings rate — the share of people’s income that is saved rather than spent — hit 33%, according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, also the highest level ever recorded. In the same month that we reached the worst mass unemployment in living memory, Americans saved a total of $6.15 trillion — up by $4 trillion from the month prior.
I am genuinely appalled at Powell in Q&A saying The Fed is wilfully ignoring the financial bubbles they are creating. I thought after the 2001 NASDAQ and 2008 housing debacle they would have learnt that when these bubbles burst it makes the recession much worse. Utter morons https://t.co/v0RCatUx0f
— Albert Edwards (@albertedwards99) June 11, 2020
What’s worse for the UK is this is not the worst. They have allowed the virus to be everywhere.
• UK Economy Suffers Record Slump With GDP Plunging By 20.4% (Sky)
Britain’s economy suffered a record collapse during April’s coronavirus lockdown with GDP plunging by 20.4%, the Office for National Statistics said. The fall is the biggest the UK has ever seen – worse than anything during the financial crash – and underlines the damage inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw many businesses shut down in a bid to curb the spread of infection. The economy was around 25% smaller in April than it was in February, bringing the threat of mass job losses. Reacting to the figures, health minister Edward Argar told Sky News the drop was “clearly a significant contraction” but was “not unexpected” given the coronavirus crisis.
Widespread contractions across the economy contributed to the fall in GDP. In the three months to April, the ONS data shows that accommodation and food services plummeted by 40.1%, with the closure of hotels, bars and restaurants throughout March and April. Manufacturing and construction also saw significant falls of 10.5% and 18.2% respectively. The ONS will not reveal what happened to the economy in May until next month, but it is likely to show another dramatic drop, as it covers the a period before restrictions started to ease in some parts of the economy. Chancellor Rishi Sunak said: “In line with many other economies around the world, coronavirus is having a severe impact on our economy.
Jonathan Athow, deputy national statistician for economic statistics, said: “April’s fall in GDP is the biggest the UK has ever seen, more than three times larger than last month and almost 10 times larger than the steepest pre-COVID-19 fall. “In April, the economy was around 25% smaller than in February. “Virtually all areas of the economy were hit, with pubs, education, health and car sales all giving the biggest contributions to this historic fall. “Manufacturing and construction also saw significant falls, with manufacture of cars and housebuilding particularly badly affected. “The UK’s trade with the rest of the world was also badly affected by the pandemic, with large falls in both the import and export of cars, fuels, works of art and clothing.”
It’s too late anyway. But is going back to “normal” a good idea?
• BA, easyJet and Ryanair Begin Court Action Over UK Quarantine Rules (G.)
Britain’s three biggest airlines have filed papers in the high court to seek an urgent judicial review of the government’s quarantine laws, which they say are having a devastating effect on tourism and the wider economy. British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair say the rules, which came into effect on Monday and require passengers arriving from abroad to self-isolate at a single address for 14 days, are flawed and will cost thousands of jobs. The airlines sent a letter to the government last week to start their legal challenge, and court proceedings are now in train. The airlines have requested a hearing as soon as possible.
Despite reports of private briefings that “air bridges” allowing travel between the UK and some other European countries could be established by the end of the month, the three airlines say they have not yet seen any evidence of how and when they would be implemented. Instead, they are urging the government to revisit a policy briefly introduced in March that targeted passengers entering from “high-risk” countries for quarantine. They said: “This would be the most practical and effective solution and enables civil servants to focus on other, more significant issues arising from the pandemic while bringing the UK in line with much of Europe which is opening its borders mid-June.”
The airlines’ chief executives have been outspoken in their criticism of the rules. Willie Walsh, the boss of BA’s parent company IAG, has described them as “irrational and disproportionate”, while Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary has said they are “nonsense”. In the legal filing, the airlines argue that the rules are more stringent than those applied to people who have Covid-19 and leave their home, that there was no consultation on the policy and no scientific evidence provided to support it, that exemptions for commuters undermine the policy, and that the government is seeking to ban travel to and from countries with lower infection rates than the UK.
Some of the numbers get scary.
• US Virus Hotspots Reopen Despite Second Wave Specter (R.)
The moves by governors of states such as Florida and Arizona came as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the United States could not afford to let the novel coronavirus shut its economy again and global stocks tanked on worries of a pandemic resurgence. As Florida reported its highest daily tally of new coronavirus cases on Thursday, Governor Ron DeSantis unveiled a plan to restart public schools at “full capacity” in the autumn, arguing the state’s economy depended on it. North Carolina reported record COVID-19 hospitalizations for a fifth straight day on Thursday, a day after legislators passed a bill to reopen gyms, fitness centers and bars in a state where more than one in ten workers are unemployed.
Governors of hotspot states face pressure to fire up economies facing fiscal year 2021 budget shortfalls of up to 30% below pre-pandemic projections in the case of New Mexico, according to data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities think tank. Nevada, which has seen cases increase by nearly a third in the past two weeks, is suffering 28% unemployment, based on U.S Bureau of Labor statistics. “This is about saving lives, this is also about livelihoods in the state of Arizona,” Governor Doug Ducey told a news briefing, adding that a second shutdown of the economy was “not under discussion” despite official figures showing a 211% rise in virus cases over the past 14 days. About half a dozen states including Texas and Arizona are grappling with rising numbers of coronavirus patients filling hospital beds.
[..] A second wave of coronavirus deaths is expected to begin in the United States in September, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation said on Thursday, citing a surge in mobility since April. Its latest model projects 170,000 deaths by Oct. 1, with a possible range between 133,000 and 290,000. A note of caution came from Utah, where Governor Gary Herbert said most of the state would pause its reopening after a 126% rise in cases over the past two weeks. Austin, Texas on Thursday also said it would likely extend stay-at-home and mask orders past June 15 after the state reported its highest new case count the previous day. Austin health officials blamed a record week of infections on easing business restrictions and Memorial Day gatherings.
Coming to a theater, sports arena etc, near you.
• Trump Campaign Rally Signup Form Includes COVID19 Warning/Disclaimer (JTN)
President Trump is slated to hold a campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla., on June 19, but people who sign up for tickets will encounter a warning about possible exposure to coronavirus. “By clicking register below, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present,” the warning says. “By attending the Rally, you and any guests voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.; BOK Center; ASM Global; or any of their affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents, contractors, or volunteers liable for any illness or injury,” the note declares.
The event will be the the president’s first campaign rally in some time. Areas around the nation are emerging from coronavirus-related lockdowns and restrictions, and large protests have sprung up around the country in the wake of the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minnesota. The Associated Press reports that many states have seen an uptick in COVID-19 cases.
They appear convinced Trump will lose, and want to get out of the way.
• Retired Generals Who Denounced Trump Could Be Recalled, Prosecuted (JTN)
Retired four-star military officers who lambasted President Trump could be recalled to active duty and prosecuted for violating the U.S. Code, military law experts told Just the News. “Retired officers can’t make contemptuous remarks of the commander-in-chief,” said John Dowd, a former Marine Corps Judge Advocate and former Trump legal advisor. “They’re all subject to recall. They’re subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice until they die.” The pertinent law is Title 10 of the U.S. Code, Section 888, the experts said. “As part of the UCMJ, governing military law, you cannot use contemptuous words against certain officials, including the president,” one active duty Army Judge Advocate General Corps officer said. “That is a court-martial offense, and yes, you can be recalled to active duty to be court-martialed.”
The outspoken retired officers know they could be held to account, the JAG officer said. “I don’t know who the hell they think they are,” Dowd said. “It’s stunning to me. I guess the law doesn’t apply to them.” The retired officers comprise some of the biggest marquee military names in recent times. They include former Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis and former Special Operations Command chief Adm. William McRaven. With increasing frequency over the past couple years, and in quick succession over the past week, they have leveled serious accusations against Trump, and have called for him to be removed from office. In late 2019, McRaven published a New York Times op-ed titled “Our Republic Is Under Attack From the President,” and later told CNN interviewer Jake Tapper that Trump is working to destroy the country.
On June 7, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin Powell — also speaking to CNN’s Tapper — said that Trump has “drifted away” from the U.S. Constitution. Elsewhere, Powell said Trump “lies all the time,” and called him a “menace.” Retired Lt. Gen. John Allen, who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said in an interview that the Constitution is under threat — not from violent anarchists, but from the president of the United States. Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who led U.S. Southern Command and served in Bill Clinton’s cabinet, denounced Trump as a threat to national security. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen — who in 2012 surrendered his computers to the FBI in the course of a cybersecurity investigation — accused Trump of giving succor to foreign detractors.
I guess it gets ever easier to confuse me. The 170,000 accounts “had tweeted almost 350,000 times before being shut down.” That’s barely 2 tweets per account. How does one influence anything that way?
If the “[25,000 accounts that formed what Twitter described as the “core network]” tweeted more often than 2x, scores of the accounts must have never tweeted. Hardly effective.
At the same time, the 1,000 “Russian” accounts and 7,000 Turkish ones tweeted 40 million times. How then is this a story about China? Remind me what rats smell like.
• Twitter Deletes Over 170,000 Accounts Tied To Chinese Propaganda (Hill)
Twitter announced Thursday that it had deleted more than 170,000 accounts tied to a Chinese state-linked operation that were spreading deceptive information around the COVID-19 virus, political dynamics in Hong Kong, and other issues. Almost 25,000 of the accounts that were deleted formed what Twitter described as the “core network,” while around 150,000 accounts were amplifying messages from the core groups. “In general, this entire network was involved in a range of manipulative and coordinated activities,” the company wrote in a blog post. “They were Tweeting predominantly in Chinese languages and spreading geopolitical narratives favorable to the Communist Party of China (CCP), while continuing to push deceptive narratives about the political dynamics in Hong Kong.”
Twitter noted that the accounts taken down this week were tied to a Chinese state-backed operation last year that attempted to sow political discord in Hong Kong. Those accounts were also taken down. According to an analysis of the accounts by the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), many of the accounts shut down were tweeting about the COVID-19 pandemic, with activity around this issue beginning in late January and reaching its peak in late March. The accounts primarily praised China’s response to the COVID-19 crisis. While most of the accounts had less than 10 followers and no bios, the SIO found that they had tweeted almost 350,000 times before being shut down.
“Narratives around COVID-19 primarily praise China’s response to the virus, and occasionally contrast China’s response against that of the U.S. government or Taiwan’s response, or use the presence of the virus as a means to attack Hong Kong activists,” the SIO wrote in its analysis. “The English-language content included pointed reiterations of the claim that China – not Taiwan – had a superior response to containing coronavirus.”
Twitter on Thursday also shut down thousands of accounts tied to Russian and Turkish state-linked misinformation efforts. The over 1,000 Russian accounts removed were tied to state-backed political propaganda within Russia, while the over 7,300 Turkish accounts removed were primarily spreading information favorable to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his political party. While the amount of Russian and Turkish-linked accounts was less than those tied to China, the Russian and Turkish accounts were found by the SIO to have tweeted a combined almost 40 million times before Twitter took action.
What can they do without RussiaRussia? It’s their lifeblood.
• US Intel Bulletin Says ‘Malign Actors’ Target US Over Protest Fallout (ABC)
As protesters hit the streets in cities across the country, America’s foreign adversaries have flooded social media with content meant to sow division and discord in the wake of George Floyd’s death, according to a U.S. government intelligence bulletin obtained by ABC News. The bulletin, distributed Tuesday to law enforcement by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), accuses Russia, China and Iran of “employing state media, proxy outlets, and social media accounts to amplify criticism of the United States related to the death of George Floyd and subsequent events.” These “malign actors” also appear intent on drawing attention to alleged hypocrisy in the Trump administration’s handling of protesters, the report found.
The death of 46-year-old George Floyd last month, at the hands of a former Minneapolis police officer, has sparked outrage and protest from coast to coast, prompting calls for an overhaul of police practices. In the intervening weeks, foreign adversaries have sought to leverage the residual domestic strife resulting from Floyd’s death to pursue geopolitical goals, the bulletin claimed, including an ongoing effort to weaken Washington’s image on the international stage. “These actors criticize the United States as hypocritical, corrupt, undemocratic, racist, guilty of human rights abuses and on the verge of collapsing,” the report found. For Russia, this finding represents the latest chapter in Moscow’s age-old information warfare playbook, according to John Cohen, a former senior DHS official and current ABC News contributor.
“This is yet another indicator that Russia is using the combination of overt propaganda and covertly disseminated disinformation to sow discord across our populace, expand the cracks in our society, and undermine the credibility of the U.S. government,” Cohen said.
Among many things, Russiagate pushed Democratic Party further to the right; increased tensions w/ a nuclear power; sidelined resistance to Trump's agenda; kept Bernie at bay & ultimately undermined him; handed Trump multiple 2020 gifts. Those who partook deserve that reminder.
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) June 12, 2020
“..go out and face your people, look them in the eye and try telling them that they are being controlled by the Russians through YouTube and Facebook. And I will sit back and watch ‘American exceptionalism’ in action.”
• Obama Retread Sees Moscow’s Hand in Protests (Giraldi)
How convenient is it to fall back on Russia which, together with the Chinese, is reputedly already reported to be working hard to subvert the November U.S. election. And what better way to do just that than to call on one of the empty-heads of the Barack Obama administration, whose foreign policy achievements included the destruction of a prosperous Libya and the killing of four American diplomats in Benghazi, the initiation of kinetic hostilities with Syria, the failure to achieve a reset with Russia and the assassinations of American citizens overseas without any due process. But Obama sure did talk nice and seem pleasant unlike the current occupant of the White House.
The predictable Wolf Blitzer had a recent interview with perhaps the emptiest head of all the empowered women who virtually ran the Obama White House. Susan Rice was U.N. Ambassador and later National Security Advisor under Barack Obama. Before that she was a Clinton appointee who served as Undersecretary of State for African Affairs. She is reportedly currently being considered as a possible running mate for Joe Biden as she has all the necessary qualifications being a woman and black. While Ambassador and National Security Advisor, Rice had the reputation of being extremely abrasive. She ran into trouble when she failed to be convincing in support of the Obama administration exculpatory narrative regarding what went wrong in Benghazi when the four Americans, to include the U.S. Ambassador, were killed.
In her interview with Blitzer, Rice said: “We have peaceful protesters focused on the very real pain and disparities that we’re all wrestling with that have to be addressed, and then we have extremists who’ve come to try to hijack those protests and turn them into something very different. And they’re probably also, I would bet based on my experience, I’m not reading the intelligence these days, but based on my experience this is right out of the Russian playbook as well. I would not be surprised to learn that they have fomented some of these extremists on both sides using social media. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they are funding it in some way, shape, or form.”
It should be noted that Rice, a devout Democrat apparatchik, produced no evidence whatsoever that the Russians were or have been involved in “fomenting” the reactions to the George Floyd demonstrations and riots beyond the fact that Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden all believe that Moscow is responsible for everything. Clinton in particular hopes that some day someone will actually believe her when she claims that she lost to Trump in 2016 due to Russia. Even Robert Mueller, he of the Russiagate Inquiry, could not come up with any real evidence suggesting that the relatively low intensity meddling in the election by the Kremlin had any real impact. Nor was there any suggestion that Moscow was actually colluding with the Trump campaign, nor with its appointees, to include National Security Advisor designate Michael Flynn.
[..] Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova accurately described the Rice performance as a “perfect example of barefaced propaganda.” She wrote on her Facebook page “Are you trying to play the Russia card again? You’ve been playing too long – come back to reality” instead of using “dirty methods of information manipulation” despite “having absolutely no facts to prove [the] allegations… go out and face your people, look them in the eye and try telling them that they are being controlled by the Russians through YouTube and Facebook. And I will sit back and watch ‘American exceptionalism’ in action.”
Today at 9.30 am EDT. Court of Appeals hearing.
• Flynn’s Lawyers Say Judge ‘Exceeded His Power’ In Not Dismissing Case (JTN)
Lawyers for Michael Flynn argued in a brief filed Thursday that Judge Emmet Sullivan “exceeded his power” when he refused to dismiss a case per a Justice Department request, arguing that the judge is legally compelled to follow federal prosecutors’ desire to end prosecution against the former Trump national security adviser. The Justice Department in a surprise move last month announced it would be dismissing its case against Flynn, who had plead guilty to lying to FBI agents but later withdrew the plea. Federal officials in May claimed the FBI interview with Flynn had been immaterial to its investigation of him, as part of the federal Russia collusion probe, and that his statements in the 2017 meeting were thus legally irrelevant.
But Sullivan, who is overseeing Flynn’s case, refused to accept the Justice Department request, instead calling in ex-Judge John Gleeson to file an an opinion arguing in favor of keeping the case against Flynn. In their Thursday filing, Flynn’s lawyers slammed Sullivan, arguing that he is “not in the Executive branch and, being an Article III judge, has no authority to gin up his own case or controversy where none exists.” “The game is over and this Court should order the umpire to leave the field,” they wrote of the case, arguing that the ultimate authority for dismissing charges lies with prosecutors. Gleeson in his filing earlier this week argued that the court should consider Flynn’s withdrawal of his guilty plea to itself be perjury, and that Sullivan “should take Flynn’s perjury into account in sentencing him on the offense to which he has already admitted guilt.”
I have no space for 85.
• Flynn Case: 85 Lies, Contradictions, Oddities, and Unusual Occurrences (ET)
The case of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is inevitably heading toward its conclusion. While the presiding district judge, Emmet Sullivan, is trying to keep it going, there’s only so much he can do, chiefly because there’s nobody left to prosecute the case after the Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped it last month. In the latest developments, the District of Columbia appeals court set a hearing in the case for tomorrow (June 12), while the DOJ’s solicitor general himself, as well as five of his deputies, urged the court to order the lower-court judge to accept the case dismissal. “I cannot overstate how big of a deal this is,” commented appellate attorney John Reeves, former assistant Missouri attorney general, in a series of tweets on June 1. Personal involvement of the solicitor general “is highly unusual and rare,” he said.
“Unusual” seems a fitting euphemism for the Flynn case, which has been filled with contradictions, falsehoods, apparent blunders, extraordinary moves, and strange coincidences. The Epoch Times has so far counted 85 such instances. Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the Obama administration and former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty on Dec. 1, 2017, to one count of lying to FBI agents during a Jan. 24, 2017, interview. The FBI officially opened an investigation on Flynn on Aug. 16, 2016, based on a suspicion that he “may wittingly or unwittingly be involved in activity on behalf of the Russian Federation which may constitute a federal crime or threat to the national security.”
What activity? The case was opened under a broader investigation into whether the Trump 2016 presidential campaign conspired with Russia to steal emails from the Democratic National Committee and release them through Wikileaks. Flynn was an adviser to the campaign at the time. By its own admission, the FBI had little reason to suspect the campaign. The bureau learned from the Australian government that its then-ambassador to the UK, Alexander Downer, spoke with Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who “suggested” that the campaign received “some kind of suggestion” that Russia could help it by anonymously releasing some information damaging to Trump’s opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The FBI didn’t know what Papadopoulos actually said or what he was talking about. Officially, this information was used by the FBI to comb through its databases for information on people associated with the Trump campaign and open investigations on four individuals supposedly linked to Russia. Because Flynn’s paid speaking engagements in years past included some for Russian companies—one for Kaspersky Lab and one for RT television in Moscow—the FBI decided to open a counterintelligence investigation on the retired three-star general. But the FBI seemed to have trouble getting its story straight.
We try to run the Automatic Earth on people’s kind donations. Since their revenue has collapsed, ads no longer pay for all you read, and your support is now an integral part of the interaction.
Thank you.
Hazel Scott. A brilliant musician whose career in classical music was stopped before it began by racism & whose career in jazz was destroyed by McCarthyism during the 1950s witch hunts. (Her crime was standing up for black rights.) https://t.co/DAWpBfBPM5
— John Edwin Mason (@johnedwinmason) June 11, 2020
Support the Automatic Earth in virustime.
