The chilling words contained in the newly released handwritten notes of William Priestap, the assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division at the time of the FBI’s January 24, 2017 interview with former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, confirm the worst suspicions of Flynn’s defense team. Flynn’s lead defense attorney Sidney Powell believes with good reason that the retired three-star general was set up for a perjury trap by senior officials at the FBI. The handwritten notes and other released FBI documents provide her with more ammunition for the defense team’s motion to dismiss the case against Flynn. The motion was filed with the presiding U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan. The documents demonstrate the cynical thinking among FBI agents in advance of their meeting with Flynn that occurred at the White House just days after President Trump’s inauguration.

“What’s our goal? Truth/admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?” Priestap asked in his handwritten notes. “We regularly show subjects evidence, with the goal of getting them to admit their wrongdoing,” he  added. “Protect our institution by not playing games.” The issue was whether to show Flynn certain evidence during the meeting that might have helped refresh his recollection. The “evidence” – redacted in the released version of the notes – is believed to have been transcripts of several phone calls between Flynn and then-U.S. Ambassador to Russia Sergei Kislyak in December 2019 while Flynn was part of the Trump transition team as incoming national security adviser. The FBI interrogators chose to withhold the complete transcripts from Flynn, choosing instead to quote selectively if and when they deemed appropriate.

In addition to Priestap’s handwritten notes, the initial batch of released documents included emails from the disgraced former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and his lover, former FBI counsel Lisa Page. In one of the e-mails, Page discussed “just casually” slipping in towards the beginning of the interview that it is a crime under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 to make false statements to a federal agent, rather than mentioning it immediately following a statement which the agents believe to be false. That’s called trying to pull a fast one when the interviewee would likely be paying less attention.

“The FBI pre-planned a deliberate attack on Gen. Flynn and willfully chose to ignore mention of Section 1001 in the interview despite full knowledge of that practice,” Sidney Powell said in a statement following Wednesday’s document release.