Mary McCord was the Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of DOJ’s National Security Division from October 2016 through May 2017.
In January 2017, both before and after Trump’s inauguration, she took part in or witnessed several key conversations involving Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and other government officials related to the investigation and questioning of General Michael Flynn. General Flynn was questioned by FBI Special Agents on January 24, 2017, about his late December 2016 phone calls with then Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
McCord herself was interviewed in July 2017 by attorneys and FBI Special Agents assigned to Special Counsel Mueller’s office, and the FBI 302 Report of Interview was finalized on August 10.
DOJ’s Motion to Dismiss in U.S. v. Flynn cites and quotes from McCord’s 302, and several other sources, in laying out the background behind the FBI’s decision to interview Flynn on January 24, 2017. The lies Flynn allegedly told FBI Special Agents on January 24 formed the basis of his prosecution. McCord’s 302 was also attached as one of 12 exhibits to DOJ’s Motion to Dismiss.
At no point in the Motion to Dismiss does DOJ state or imply that McCord agrees with the Motion to Dismiss or that she believes Flynn was unjustly prosecuted.
But McCord does not want to be tainted or associated in any way with Attorney General Bill Barr or the Motion to Dismiss. Nor does she want to be seen as agreeing with it. McCord could have penned an Op-Ed piece saying as much, but she didn’t stop there. Her May 10, 2020 Op-Ed in the New York Times is titled “Bill Barr Twisted My Words in Dropping the Flynn Case. Here’s the Truth.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/opinion/bill-barr-michael-flynn.html
Presumably McCord approved the title. And even if she didn’t, in the body of her piece McCord writes: “The account of my interview in 2017 doesn’t help the department support this conclusion, and it is disingenuous for the department to twist my words to suggest that it does.” (Emphasis added.)
McCord utterly fails to identify how her words were twisted or even what they were. She fails to identify any portion of the Motion to Dismiss that inaccurately describes or cites her 302. In other words, she is lying about her words being twisted. The question is why?
The answer is obvious. It is not enough in some circles to state that you disagree with Bill Barr’s view of the Flynn investigation and prosecution. It is imperative that Barr’s credibility be destroyed as well–that he be described in the most pejorative terms possible.
McCord is a Visiting Professor at Georgetown Law and writes for LAWFARE. McCord is simply virtue signaling here. Establishing her credentials for the future.