What Happened?
Michael Flynn got his sentencing day in court--which was primed to go well for him. He had uber-cooperated with the FBI--had been the first-to-cooperate--which means he got the big prize: a suggestion of no jail time from the prosecutors.
However, in his brief, he suggested he'd been set-up by the FBI. Furthermore, the judge requested to see the "original 302s" which were the subject of much speculation--that there was evidence of FBI wrongdoing in them that would come out.
These theories were not (just) fringe beliefs--or the mark of a few Internet randos--no--they were promoted by Fox, National Review Online, and other big-name, mainstream news sources.
When the judge asked to see--and then release the 302s (records of the initial interview)--it became clear that there was nothing exonerating in there--in fact--it looked worse for Flynn than before. Before the judge, Flynn was asked if he wanted to stand by his "I'm-a-victim" narrative--and, wisely, he disavowed all of it. He now has a chance to super-duper cooperate or he'll face jail time despite what the prosecutors asked for.
What Is The Conspiracy Theory?
What mainstream voices (the Wall Street Journal, Fox, Andrew McCarthy, etc.) all seem to believe is, in fact, a version of what QAnon believes (without the satanic baby-eating that QAnon believes in)--that there is a cabal of Obama people (Republicans) who broke the law repeatedly in their pursuit of Trump for purely political reasons.
They believed that McCabe had altered the interview reports to entrap Flynn and had used unusual and misleading tactics to illegally induce him to lie to them. This was all clearly nonsense. He lied. He knew he lied. He knew it was wrong--and he copped to it.
In fact the "Secret Cabal" theory is one which has no basis in fact or visible evidence. It's just a big-conspiracy-theory that tries to explain why there is all this smoke (lying, criminal behavior, cover-ups) without any fire.The problem isn't that crazy people believe it--the problem is that most Republicans seem to believe it.
Now, to be fair, the GOP has had a problem with conspiracy-theory (helped along by Russia) for quite some time--but it has now, apparently, metastasized to the point where even Flynn's (reasonably good?) lawyers fell into the trap of trying to advocate for their client using an excuse that plays well on TV--but everyone involved with the legal system knows is bunk.
Ken White (former federal prosecutor now defense lawyer) writes today in The Atlantic:
What Is Going On Here?
It's a bunch of things--conspiracy theory in America isn't limited to the right--but the specific case here is that Donald Trump--to whom loyalty is absolutely required on the right--has embraced a conspiracy theory that the Department of Justice is secretly against him.
If you contradict that position then you are not-loyal and are #fakenews--so you have to come up with explanations that keep you in Trump's camp. It turns out: there's no shortage--the fringe is a conspiracy-theory machine. It churns out nonsense and rabid theories effectively A/B testing them in 4chan and on Reddit and VOAT before they bubble up to the Internet influencers (like Cernovich) who then distribute them to a wider audience.
These are effectively milled for maximal penetration and they provide a basis--a backdrop--for mainstream organizations like Fox to ingest and then redistribute.
Today Flynn ran into the wall of normal reality--most people don't believe the FBI is run by secret-Obama-masters. They don't think that Trump was illegally surveilled by an angry Hillary-partisan government--no, it looks like Russia interfered with the election, Trump knew about it, and at very least did nothing.
At very least.
Click!
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