DOJ Admits Jeffrey Jensen’s Team Added Erroneous Date to Peter Strzok’s Notes, Asks for Mulligan
In a filing in the Mike Flynn case, DOJ has explained why an erroneous date was added to Peter Strzok’s notes from what DOJ has already submitted evidence happened on January 5, 2017.
In response to the Court and counsel’s questions, the government has learned that, during the review of the Strzok notes, FBI agents assigned to the EDMO review placed a single yellow sticky note on each page of the Strzok notes with estimated dates (the notes themselves are undated). Those two sticky notes were inadvertently not removed when the notes were scanned by FBI Headquarters, before they were forwarded to our office for production. The government has also confirmed with Mr. Goelman and can represent that the content of the notes was not otherwise altered.
Similarly, the government has learned that, at some point during the review of the McCabe notes, someone placed a blue “flag” with clear adhesive to the McCabe notes with an estimated date (the notes themselves are also undated). Again, the flag was inadvertently not removed when the notes were scanned by FBI Headquarters, before they were forwarded to our office for production. Again, the content of the notes was not otherwise altered.
Along with the filing, they’ve included the three exhibits they added dates to (there’s a third where they added a date in a redaction covering over something that could be a date), asking that they be replaced.
DOJ offered no explanation about why they added an erroneous date that they’ve provided proof they know is erroneous to a filing that they had previously submitted without the erroneous date. Nor have they explained why this erroneous date range differs from the previous erroneous date range they gave to Sidney Powell that she used to launch an attack on Joe Biden.
I guess they’re hoping that Judge Sullivan was too tired after the long hearing last week to notice that that erroneous date had been worked into an attack by President Trump on Joe Biden just hours after the hearing.
Whatever they’re hoping, they’ve now admitted that Jeffrey Jensen’s team is either unbelievably incompetent, hasn’t read the evidence they claim they used to convince Billy Barr to dismiss the case, or simply tampering with the evidence to set up attacks from Sidney Powell and Donald Trump.
“Whatever they’re hoping, they’ve now admitted that Jeffrey Jensen’s team is either unbelievably incompetent, hasn’t read the evidence they claim they used to convince Billy Barr to dismiss the case, or simply tampering with the evidence to set up attacks from Sidney Powell and Donald Trump.”
Or all of the above?
yeah, all 3 are possible but my money is on door #3…
I tend to agree because of Powell’s quick turn around on using the misapplied date(s). She was ready for the docs. The timeline is telling.
As for DOJ, there is an old saying, “When you’re explaining, you’re losing.”
Their explaination really does not clarify “why” those specific dates got applied via a post-it.
I am going to have to hunt it up, but I would swear the donald said something in his ramblings that they now had PROOF that Biden was in on it. I perked up when I read it because it immediately reminded me of what I had read here about Sidney Powell being in communication with trump and the doctored dates trying to implicate Biden.
I think it was part of his “why aren’t they in jail” ramblings.
Pure speculation, but I hadn’t heard of any new investigation or supposed new evidence of Biden’s participation in that dastardly wide reaching plot to bring fearless-leader down. And you know toddlers just can’t keep exciting secrets.
This is really, really, bush league for a high-profile federal criminal case.
If these people weren’t so dumb and transparent, they’d be really dangerous.
Or perhaps that is why they are dangerous… as they now have the backing and cover Twitler’s administration to play around in.
No chance those were sticky notes.
if so, why were they added after the documents were first scanned (and submitted)?
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That’s a whole lot of inadvertentlies. The generous argument is that Billy Barr’s DOJ minions are too busy shovelling shit to notice. I suppose it gives Jason Leopold a lead to seek out documents related to the review, though they’d probably bump into one of the exceptions.
So this and the SDNY decision on DTrump’s taxes both break as news about the same time as the FBI presser?
Ooh! Ooh! I know! It’s #3 for sure! This constitutes “simply tampering with the evidence”, for sure. Well, maybe not so “simply”, but people go to prison for less, I hope.
It might have started with maybe one inadvertent mistake, that could happen. But as it turns out, somebody was actually paying attention and flagged it. While that might have happened (at least once, but hard to see how it could happen three times without being corrected once the first one was “found”), what is clear DID happen was the false date got jumped on and amped up as a proposed reason to attack the viability of the investigation and prosecution — and even when these errors were clearly laid out by that Emptywheel person in a globally published series of brilliant expositions, nobody on the “it was a setup” team took any steps to rectify what might have been considered “inadvertent” early on until — whattya know — the Judge wasn’t so tired and actually took it up in open court. How embarassing.
No, wait, that’s not “embarassing” . That’s calculated. That’s disgraceful. That’s attempted fraud. “Inadvertently” copying a yellow sticky-bearing document and producing the thus-altered copy to a court? Sloppy, but it could happen. Three times? While creating an “alternate reality scenario” by treating the altered document as substantively controlling? Three times? After being made aware of the unaltered original document in the court record already? Come freaking on.
I believe that they are stating that the dates are written on top of the sticky notes and that the sticky notes are placed on top of the original documents. When you place a sticky note on top of a piece of paper and scan it, two things will stand out that make it obvious it’s not part of the original document: 1) the note will always have a different appearance (darker or lighter) than the original document especially when it has a different color 2) the edge of the note will create a line on the scanned document on the outer edge of the sticky note.. It appears to me (unfortunately I’m only working from images that are provided here) that there are sticky notes placed on the side of each document, but, they are there only to highlight the dates that are most likely written directly on the original documents and not directly on the sticky notes. Maybe worth checking out to see if this could be correct.
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There’s a number of reasons why the sticky note dates might differ from the document itself. However, what is not clear is why you would cover up an original contemporaneously entered date on the notes when submitting such evidence as scans. At minimum, this points to sloppy and lazy submission to the court by the DOJ…
One might stick a date on a note so that one could reference the a date order either forward or backward in chronology. One might put a date note there to indicate that there was something interesting in a different day’s chronology that was revelevant to the meaning of the stuck document. And other even less obvious reasons… for example, having to do with a specific timeline of other events that one was building based on some bit of information in many other documents. Etc.
The explanation that this was a shoddy submission is the one that is easiest to understand. The “lazy and shoddy” explanation, as compelling as it is, is, as pointed out, complicated by some of the concurrent national political events to the submission of these scans to the court.
No more mulligans, sentence Flynn and let them deal with it.
Thanks Marcy.
Remember Flynn’s exchange with Judge Sullivan, December 18, 2018
https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/121818am-USA-v-Michael-Flynn-Sentencing.pdf
Judge: Do you wish to challenge the circumstances on which you were interviewed by the FBI?
Flynn: No, Your Honor.
Judge: Do you understand that by maintaining your guilty plea and continuing with sentencing, you will give up your right forever to challenge the circumstances under which you were interviewed?
Flynn: Yes, Your Honor.
Judge: Do you have any concerns that you entered your guilty plea before you or your attorneys were able to review information that could have been helpful to your defense?
Flynn: No, Your Honor.
Judge: At the time of your January 24th, 2017 interview with the FBI, were you not aware that lying to FBI investigators was a federal crime?
Flynn: I was not — I was aware.
Judge: You were aware?
Flynn: Yeah.
Could Barr be impeached over this?
Over this and several other examples, and should be impeached (which would have the effect of stopping ACB’s nomination cold, just sayin’ Nancy). However, there is no interest in the D congressional leadership to do the right thing here especially less than four weeks out from the general election.
However, the idea that these kinds of releases aren’t going to spur Judge Sullivan into digging into the details displays a remarkable amount of hubris. If Judge Sullivan is presented with these conflicting and (as noted before) sanction-worthy storylines, then he is perfectly within his rights and his duty to look into getting the actual facts through a hearing or two. That places any resolution of the Flynn matter right on top of the election if not after. I do not see how that helps DJT’s campaign if the idea originally was to stop the prosecution without having DJT’s fingerprints on it so it would not be in the news in November.
As for sanction ideas, I prefer Bar referrals so it hits at the pocketbook in a long-term way.
It seems not.