Kellyanne Conway implicates Obama in probe of Michael Flynn

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, on Friday implicated Barack Obama in the prosecution of Michael Flynn as evidence mounts that the former national security adviser was framed by the Obama FBI for political reasons.

"I will remind everybody that President Obama told President-elect Donald Trump he had two things to worry about, North Korea and Michael Flynn! Folks that’s just weird on its face!" Conway said in an interview with the Fox News Channel.

"You gotta worry about a nuclear capable dictator in North Korea and you gotta worry about a general of 37 years who served in the Obama administration. People should look at this for what it is," she told Sandra Smith on "America's Newsroom."

See her comments:

Newly unsealed court filings show disgraced former FBI agent Peter Strzok reopened the investigation into Flynn after it had been closed due to a lack of evidence.

The closure, according to a memo, was three weeks prior to the controversial "ambush" interview of Flynn at the White House that resulted in him being charged with perjury, The Washington Times reported Thursday.

Conway said Friday that "the fix was in" against Flynn, with Stzrok and others "at the upper echelon" of the FBI going after Flynn as they did others in the Trump campaign.

Strzok, she said, "continued doing that bidding after President Trump was elected and into our first days here at the White House."

"Look, if Peter Strzok had something important to say about General Flynn, let’s just say he was an existential threat or a real national security threat, he could have come forward and said that," she said. "This isn’t the purpose of this inquisition of Michael Flynn. You see the notes, you see them saying, 'Don’t end crossfire razor.' Keep it going. Why? To harass and embarrass a general who had served with distinction over three decades."

President Trump said Thursday he was open to bringing Flynn back into his administration.

When asked about a presidential pardon, Trump said it appears Flynn is being exonerated.

Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney John Durham is conducting a criminal investigation the origins of the Obama administration's investigation of the Trump campaign.

James Baker, who was general counsel to the FBI when the agency obtained warrants to spy on the 2016 Trump campaign, now is a cooperating witness in Durham's investigation, according to former U.S. attorney Joseph diGenova.

DiGenova said in an interview with the "Howie Carr Show" that Durham appears to be developing a conspiracy case against a number of Obama administration figures.

"The bottom line is this, it’s unfolding and what’s happening is, what Durham is actually doing is he’s painting a picture and not everyone of these acts is going to be a specific separate crime," he said.

"But they are going to be, what’s called overt acts in a conspiracy. One to defraud the United States government. One to deny the civil rights of Trump and Flynn and Page and a bunch of other people."

In a previous appearance on the same show, DiGenova said former CIA Director John Brennan is the primary focus of the investigation.

DiGenova, citing sources, said a number of former intelligence officers already have testified about the production of the January 2017 intelligence assessment on Russian intervention in the 2016 election.

DiGenova described the document as "phony."

"It was a constructed document," he told Carr. "It was not in fact an assessment of anything. And that is very interesting, because they are looking at what Brennan did and what he asked other people to do in terms of that and some other things as well. So apparently Mr. Durham has not been deterred by the virus."

Troubling evidence

Attorney General William Barr said in an interview that Durham is compiling troubling evidence that goes beyond "mistakes."

"My own view is that the evidence shows that we're not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness. There is something far more troubling here, and we're going to get to the bottom of it," he told the Fox News Channel's Laura Ingraham.

"And if people broke the law, and we can establish that with the evidence, they will be prosecuted," he said.

Last fall, Durham's review was upgraded to a criminal investigation, giving the prosecutor the power to impanel a grand jury and issue indictments.

Already, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has issued a report finding at least 17 "significant errors and omissions" related to the Obama administration's applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court for warrants to spy on the Trump campaign in its investigation.

Horowitz, however, presented evidence that the problems went beyond "errors and omissions," indicating deliberate attempts to deceive the court.