#Ex-Trump spy chief Richard Grenell says Biden helped target Michael Flynn at RNC

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Former acting intelligence director Richard Grenell speaks during the RNC tonight.
RNC 2020 via Sipa USA

Former acting intelligence director Richard Grenell on Wednesday accused Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden of scheming to take down President Trump’s first national security adviser.

“Former Vice President Joe Biden asked intelligence officials to uncover the hidden information on President Trump’s incoming National Security Advisor [Michael Flynn] three weeks before the inauguration,” Grenell said in a speech to the 2020 Republican National Convention.

The accusation against Biden is an apparent reference to the recent revelation by Flynn’s legal team of a note apparently written by disgraced anti-Trump former FBI agent Peter Strzok.

The Jan. 4, 2017, note seems to implicate Biden in selecting the never-used Logan Act of 1799 as a rationale for keeping active an investigation into Flynn that the FBI was prepared to close. The Logan Act bans ordinary citizens from diplomatic efforts and is widely considered unconstitutional.

“VP: ‘Logan Act’,” the note written by Strzok says.

Grenell broadly condemned the Obama administration’s inquiry into possible Trump-Russia collusion in the 2016 election.

“I saw the Democrats’ entire case for Russian collusion. And what I saw made me sick to my stomach. The Obama-Biden administration secretly launched a surveillance operation on the Trump campaign and silenced the many brave intelligence officials who spoke up against it. They presented bogus information as facts. They lied to judges. Then they classified anything that undermined their case,” the ex-spy chief said.

“And after Donald Trump won the election, when they should have continued the American tradition of helping the president-elect transition into the White House, they tried instead to undercut him even more.”

The Logan Act was invoked to continue the investigation of Flynn because the Trump adviser had multiple calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in late 2016, made with the knowledge of other incoming Trump officials.

Days into Trump’s presidency, Strzok and FBI Director James Comey skirted protocol and interviewed Flynn without permission from Justice Department leaders or notice to the White House counsel. Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI — about Trump transition communications with Russia’s ambassador about a UN vote and sanctions — in exchange for cooperating with the investigation of possible Trump-Russia collusion, which turned up no evidence of a conspiracy involving Trump.

Flynn says he did not intentionally lie and the Trump Justice Department is seeking to drop the case, arguing the FBI had no basis to question him.

Trump frequently accuses former Obama administration leaders of misusing surveillance laws to target his campaign. The Justice Department inspector general last year found “significant inaccuracies and omissions” in court requests to monitor former Trump adviser Carter Page, and an ex-FBI lawyer this month pleaded guilty to falsifying records.

In his RNC speech, Grenell also praised Trump’s “America First foreign policy,” saying Trump stated down “warmongers,”  “China sympathizers” and “globalization fanatics.”

“In four years, Donald Trump didn’t start any new wars. He brought troops home. He rebuilt the military and signed peace deals that make Americans safer. The Washington elites want you to think this kind of foreign policy is immoral, and so they call it nationalist,” Grenell said.

Grenell is the first openly gay Cabinet member and also the former US ambassador to Germany. He did not mention his sexual orientation in his speech.

Grenell recently cut a slick pro-Trump ad for the Log Cabin Republicans lauding Trump as “the most pro-gay president in American history” and pointing out that Biden voted for the 1993 bill that created the military’s since-repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning gay members and for the 1994 Defense of Marriage Act that banned federal recognition of same-sex marriages.

Trump rarely mentions gay rights, but posed with a rainbow flag as a candidate in 2016 and nominated gay judges as president. During a speech to the UN last year, he endorsed a Grenell-led campaign to decriminalize homosexuality in other countries.