Key to the ambush interview of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn that set him up for prosecution and persecution on made-up charges by James Comey’s FBI was the advice given to Flynn by Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe -- relax, you won’t need a lawyer. Flynn had to be caught off guard and without legal counsel for the entrapment plan to work:

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who arranged the bureau's interview with then-national security adviser Michael Flynn at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017 -- the interview that ultimately led to Flynn's guilty plea on one count of making false statements -- suggested Flynn not have a lawyer present at the session, according to newly-filed court documents. In addition, FBI officials, along with the two agents who interviewed Flynn, decided specifically not to warn him that there would be penalties for making false statements because the agents wanted to ensure that Flynn was "relaxed" during the session.

The new information, drawn from McCabe's account of events plus the FBI agents' writeup of the interview -- the so-called 302 report -- is contained in a sentencing memo filed Tuesday by Flynn's defense team.

Citing McCabe's account, the sentencing memo says that shortly after noon on Jan. 24 -- the fourth day of the new Trump administration -- McCabe called Flynn on a secure phone in Flynn's West Wing office. The two men discussed business briefly and then McCabe said that he "felt that we needed to have two of our agents sit down" with Flynn to discuss Flynn's talks with Russian officials during the presidential transition. 

McCabe, by his own account, urged Flynn to talk to the agents alone, without a lawyer present. "I explained that I thought the quickest way to get this done was to have a conversation between [Flynn] and the agents only," McCabe wrote…

Within two hours, the agents were in Flynn's office. According to the 302 report quoted in the Flynn sentencing document, the agents said Flynn was "relaxed and jocular" and offered the agents "a little tour" of his part of the White House.

The agents did not provide Gen. Flynn with a warning of the penalties for making a false statement under 18 U.S.C. 1001 before, during, or after the interview," the Flynn memo says. According to the 302, before the interview, McCabe and other FBI officials "decided the agents would not warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie during an FBI interview because they wanted Flynn to be relaxed, and they were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely affect the rapport."

We know that swamp thing James Comey’s mission in life was to keep Hillary Clinton out of prison and Donald Trump out of the White House, but McCabe had a personal animus towards Flynn which goes way back, possibly originating in Flynn’s offer to be a witness in a legal proceeding filed against McCabe.

As I noted here on June 30, 2017, Flynn and McCabe have a past that predates the Trump presidency, one that provides ample motivation for the perjury trap that McCabe and James Comey set up after Flynn’s illegal unmasking. McCabe had a personal grudge against Flynn and the perjury trap was his revenge.

To help cover up, it also appears that multiple 302s were created:

The sentencing memorandum reveals for the first time concrete evidence that the FBI created multiple 302 interview summaries of Flynn’s questioning by now-former FBI agent Peter Strzok and a second unnamed agent, reported to be FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka…

While Flynn’s sentencing memorandum methodically laid out the case for a low-level sentence of one-year probation, footnote 23 dropped a bomb, revealing that the agents’ 302 summary of his interview was dated August 22, 2017. As others have already noted, the August 22, 2017 date is a “striking detail” because that puts the 302 report “nearly seven months after the Flynn interview.” When added to facts already known, this revelation takes on a much greater significance.

Indeed, the existence of multiple 302s and the seven-month gap suggests that the Flynn investigation was a setup motivated in large part by Andrew McCabe’s desire for retaliation for Flynn’s drumbeat of criticism of the foreign policy of an Obama administration he once served.

As Sara A. Carter and John Solomon of Circa News report:

The FBI launched a criminal probe against former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn two years after the retired Army general roiled the bureau’s leadership by intervening on behalf of a decorated counterterrorism agent who accused now-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and other top officials of sexual discrimination, according to documents and interviews.

Flynn’s intervention on behalf of Supervisory Special Agent Robyn Gritz was highly unusual, and included a letter in 2014 on his official Pentagon stationary, a public interview in 2015 supporting Gritz’s case and an offer to testify on her behalf. His offer put him as a hostile witness in a case against McCabe, who was soaring through the bureau’s leadership ranks.

The FBI sought to block Flynn’s support for the agent, asking a federal administrative law judge in May 2014 to keep Flynn and others from becoming a witness in her Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) case, memos obtained by Circa show. Two years later, the FBI opened its inquiry of Flynn…

McCabe eventually became the bureau’s No. 2 executive and emerged as a central player in the FBI’s Russia election tampering investigation, putting him in a position to impact the criminal inquiry against Flynn.

Three FBI employees told Circa they personally witnessed McCabe make disparaging remarks about Flynn before and during the time the retired Army general emerged as a figure in the Russia case.

In legal circles, that’s called “motive.” We have to factor in as well that McCabe and Flynn come from different ends of the political spectrum. Flynn became a key Trump supporter after accusing President Obama of facilitating the rise of ISIS through his policies and inaction. McCabe is a Democratic loyalist whose wife campaigned for state office in Virginia as a Democrat with heavy Democratic financial support.  In fact, McCabe’s efforts on behalf of his wife became the subject of multiple federal probes:

Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a central player in the Russia election case, is the focus of three separate federal administrative inquiries…

The allegations being reviewed range from sexual discrimination to improper political activity, the documents show…

Circa reported Monday that former supervisory special agent Robyn Gritz, a decorated counterterrorism agent, has filed a sexual discrimination and retaliation complaint that names McCabe and other top FBI officials…

Gritz also filed a complaint against McCabe with the main federal whistleblower agency in April, alleging social media photos she found show he campaigned for his wife’s Virginia state senate race in violation of the Hatch Act…

In addition, the Justice Department Inspector General is investigating allegations from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, that McCabe may not have properly disclosed campaign payments to his wife on his ethics report and should have recused himself from Hillary Clinton's email case.

McCabe certainly had no love lost for Flynn, who was a potential witness on behalf of one of McCabe’s accusers. As PJ Media reports:

In 2014, Flynn, then director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, personally intervened on behalf of Supervisory Special Agent Robyn Gritz by writing a letter vouching for her on his official Pentagon stationary and offering to testify on her behalf. He also supported her case in a radio interview in 2015….

The FBI, for its part, claimed that Gritz had become "underperforming, tardy to work, insurbordinate, possibly mentally ill or emotional and deserving of a poor performance review."…

Flynn argued just the opposite in his May 9, 2014 letter: “SSA Gritz was well-known, liked and respected in the military counter-terrorism community for her energy, commitment and professional capacity...

McCabe did not disclose Democratic contributions to his wife’s campaign in Virginia in financial disclosure forms, donations that raised questions about both is integrity and objectivity:

The records, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, show FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe left the box blank for wife Dr. Jill McCabe's salary, as a doctor with Commonwealth Emergency Physicians. And there is no documentation of the hundreds of thousands of campaign funds she received in her unsuccessful 2015 Virginia state Senate race…

For the reporting period of October through November 2015, McCabe's campaign filings show she received $467,500 from Common Good VA, a political action committee controlled by McAuliffe, as well as an additional $292,500 from a second Democratic PAC.

Connect those dots: We have a former Deputy FBI Director, Andrew McCabe, campaigning for his wife who receives huge sums of money from the Democratic Party of Clinton political ally Terry McAuliffe. After Clinton blames Russia for her election loss, Flynn becomes a target of an FBI probe in which his identity is illegally unmasked. He was a character witness on behalf of one of McCabe’s accusers. Was Mrs. McCabe’s largess a quid for a future quo?

And is all this just the result of  McCabe’s lust for personal revenge?

Daniel John Sobieski is a former editorial writer for Investor’s Business Daily and free lance writer whose pieces have appeared in Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.