In fact, JACK SHIT about this call was worthy of investigation.
Transcripts of phone conversations that took place in December 2016 between then-national security adviser designate Michael Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were released Friday, detailing the discussions that would later lead to Flynn’s FBI interview and subsequent charges.
www.foxnews.com
The call starts off with the two men discussing the Middle East.
Kislyak tells Flynn that Russia “wanted to convey to” him and then-President-Elect Trump that they had “significant reservations about the idea of adopting new principles for the Middle East that our American colleagues are pushing for.” Kislyak says that Russia is “not going to support it.”
Flynn says: “Okay.”
Kislyak goes on to say that “U.S. policy might, uh, be changing or not, we want to understand what is going to be your policy when and if we are to implement things that we are working on.”
Kislyak then requests that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump have a video meeting on a “secure video line,” so that Putin can “congratulate” Trump and “discuss a small number, briefly, of issues that are on his agenda,” for Jan. 21, 2017.
Flynn says: “OK,” before telling Kislyak: .“What I would ask you guys to do — and make sure you, make sure that you convey this, okay? Do not, do not uh, allow this administration to box us in right now, okay?”
Flynn is referring to the Obama administration’s move to sanction Russia and expel dozens of Russian diplomats due to what he calls “cyber stuff,” and urges Kislyak not to escalate further.
“What I would ask Russia to do is to not—is—is—if anything—because I know you have to have some sort of action—to, to only make it reciprocal,” Flynn said. “Make it reciprocal. Don’t-don’t make it-don’t go any further than you have to. Because I don’t want us to get into something that has to escalate, on a, you know, on a tit for tat. You follow me ambassador?”
Kislyak says: “I understand what you’re saying, but you know, you might appreciate the sentiments that are raging now in Moscow.”
Flynn says he does “appreciate it, but I really don’t want us to get into a situation where we’re going, you know, where we do this and then you do something bigger, and then you know, everybody’s got to go back and forth and everybody’s got to be the tough guy here, you know?”
Flynn adds: “We don’t need to, we don’t need that right now, we need to—we need cool heads to prevail, and uh, and we need to be very steady about what we’re going to do because we have absolutely a common uh, threat, in the Middle East right now.”
Kislyak says he agrees, and Flynn says: “We have to eliminate this common threat.”
Kislyak goes on to discuss sanctions, saying that “one of the problems among the measures that have been announced today is that now FSB and GRU are sanctions, are sanctioned, and I ask myself, uh, does it mean that the United States isn't willing to work on terrorist threats?”
Flynn dismisses the comments, by saying: “Yeah, yeah ... yep ... yeah.” He then urges Kislyak: “If you have to do something, do something on a reciprocal basis, meaning you know, on sort of an even basis. Then that, then that is a good message and we’ll understand that message.
“And then, we know that we’re not going to escalate this thing, where we, where because if we put out--if we send out 30 guys and you send out 60, you know, or you shut down every Embassy, I mean we have to get this to a--let's keep this at a level that uh, is even-keeled, okay? And then what we can do is, when we come in, we can then have a better conversation about where we're gonna go uh, regarding, uh, regarding our relationship.”
Flynn added: “And also, basically we have to take these, these enemies on that we have. And we definitely have a common enemy. You have a problem with it, we have a problem with it in this country, and we definitely have a problem with it in the Middle East.”
Later in the call, Flynn tells Kislyak to “remember ... Ambassador, you're not talking to a diplomat, you're talking to a soldier, so l'm a very practical guy, and it's about solutions. It's about very practical solutions that we're - that we need to come up with here.”
He added: “And we have to stop talking past each other on - and so that means that we have to understand exactly what it is that we want to try to achieve, okay?"
Kislyak replies by saying he agrees "fully."
