Clinesmith’s Guilty Plea: The Perfect Snapshot of Crossfire Hurricane Duplicity
By Andrew C. McCarthy
August 24, 2020 6:30 AM
Carter Page was a CIA asset, not a Russian spy, and the FBI knew it early on but plowed ahead with its fantasy anyway.
Author’s Note: This is the first of a three-part series.
To answer the question posed in last Tuesday’s column, Yes, Kevin Clinesmith did plead guilty Wednesday. Sort of.
Well, maybe it was a smidge better than “sort of.†After all, it did happen in a federal-district-court proceeding (via videoconference) on Wednesday. And Judge James Boasberg did accept the plea after eliciting it in accordance with settled criminal-law rules. Sentencing is scheduled for December 10. So it’s official.
But I’m sticking with “sort of.†If Clinesmith’s guilty plea is legally adequate, it is barely so. And neither a judge nor a prosecutor is required to accept an allocution sliced so fine. In “admitting†guilt, Clinesmith ended up taking the position that I hoped the judge, and especially the Justice Department, would not abide, in essence: Okay, maybe I committed the crime of making a false statement, but to be clear, I thought the statement was true when I made it, and I certainly never intended to deceive anyone.
Huh?
more
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/clinesmiths-guilty-plea-the-perfect-snapshot-of-crossfire-hurricane-duplicity/
