Judge’s rebuke of Flynn upends sentencing, prolongs case

WASHINGTON — A federal judge who described himself as disgusted by Michael Flynn’s behaviour upended a straightforward sentencing hearing, postponing punishment for President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser and telling him in a stinging rebuke, “Arguably you sold your country out.”

Lawyers for Flynn requested the delay Tuesday after a tongue-lashing from U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan raised the prospect that Flynn could spend time behind bars for lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts.

Prosecutors hadn’t recommended prison, but the hearing that began with the defendant upbeat and smiling took an unexpected turn when the judge said his sentence would take into account not just Flynn’s extensive co-operation with investigators but also the lies the Trump administration official told from the grounds of the White House.

“I can’t make any guarantees, but I’m not hiding my disgust, my disdain for this criminal offence,” Sullivan said.

The postponement gave Flynn a chance to continue co-operating with the government in hopes of staving off prison and proving his value as a witness, including in a foreign-lobbying prosecution brought this week. The possibility of prison had seemed remote for Flynn since prosecutors had praised his co-operation, including 19 meetings with investigators.

But the judge’s upbraiding suggested otherwise and made clear that even defendants like Flynn who have co-operated in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation may nonetheless be shadowed by the crimes that brought them into court in the first place. The hearing upset what had been a carefully crafted agreement and pushed months into the future a resolution of one of Mueller’s signature prosecutions.

“This is a very serious offence. A high-ranking senior official of the government making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation while on the physical premises of the White House,” Sullivan said.

He later softened his tone, apologizing for suggesting that Flynn had worked as a foreign agent while in the White House when that other work had actually already ended. He also backpedaled on an earlier question on whether Flynn’s transgressions amounted to treason, saying he didn’t mean to suggest they did.

Flynn was to have been the first White House official sentenced in Mueller’s investigation into possible co-ordination between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia.

The hearing, though incomplete, marked a remarkable fall after a three-decade military career that included tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and oversight of the Defence Intelligence Agency during the Obama administration. Though Flynn served only briefly in Trump’s White House, he campaigned for him and attracted attention for leading a Republican National Convention crowd in a “Lock Her Up” chant about Hillary Clinton.

The hearing came amid escalating legal peril for Trump, who was implicated by federal prosecutors in New York this month in hush-money payments involving his former lawyer to cover up extramarital affairs. Nearly a half-dozen former aides and advisers have pleaded guilty, agreeing to co-operate with prosecutors. Some, like Flynn, were tripped up by concealing Russian contacts.

Flynn’s help in the probes was especially notable. Yet he’s nonetheless enjoyed Trump’s continued sympathy, thanks in part to a sentencing memo last week that tapped into the president’s suspicion of law enforcement and took aim at the FBI’s conduct during the investigation.

Trump tweeted “good luck” to Flynn hours before the sentencing and said that, “despite tremendous pressure being put on him,” there was “no Collusion!”

At the White House, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Flynn’s actions had nothing to do with Trump. “It’s perfectly acceptable for the president to make a positive comment about somebody while we wait to see what the court’s determination is,” she said.

Sanders repeated her allegation that the FBI “ambushed” Flynn in an interview in which he lied. Of Trump’s earlier FBI criticism, she said, “We don’t have any reason to want to walk that back.”

Flynn’s legal woes stem from transition-period calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that raised intelligence community alarms even before Trump took office.

During those conversations, Flynn urged against a strong Russian response to Obama administration sanctions for Russian election interference and encouraged Russia’s opposition to a U.N. resolution on Israeli settlements. But when FBI agents approached him in the White House on Jan. 24, 2017, Flynn lied about those conversations, prosecutors said.

Flynn has never said why he lied, but Sullivan nonetheless castigated him for a deception that was then parroted by other senior administration officials.

The tone of Tuesday’s hearing startled Flynn supporters who hoped his lawyers’ arguments about the FBI’s conduct — they suggested he was discouraged from having a lawyer present during the interview and wasn’t informed it was a crime to lie — to resonate more than it did with Sullivan, who a decade ago tossed out the prosecution of a U.S. senator over government misconduct.

But while Sullivan tested those arguments, he was ultimately unmoved and Flynn mostly walked them back. He acknowledged that he indeed knew that lying to the FBI was a crime. Neither he nor his lawyers disputed that he’d lied to agents.

Flynn attorney Robert Kelner asked Sullivan not to penalize Flynn for the sentencing memo arguments, saying they were mostly intended to differentiate Flynn from other defendants in Mueller’s investigation who’d received prison sentences for lying. Though Sullivan said none of the other defendants was a White House official, Kelner suggested none had been as co-operative.

“He made the decision publicly and clearly and completely and utterly to co-operate with this investigation, knowing that because of his high rank, that was going to send a signal to every other potential co-operator and witness in this investigation,” he added.

After a prosecutor raised the prospect of Flynn’s continued co-operation with other investigations in the future, Sullivan warned Flynn that he might not get full credit for his assistance to the government if he were sentenced as scheduled.

Sullivan gave a visibly shaken Flynn a chance to discuss delaying the hearing with his lawyers. The court briefly recessed.

When they returned, Kelner requested a postponement so that Flynn could keep co-operating. Kelner said he expected Flynn would have to testify in a related trial in Virginia involving Flynn’s former business associates, and the defence wanted to “eke out the last modicum of co-operation” so he could get credit.

Flynn’s lawyers were instructed to submit a status report by March 13. ___

Read the Flynn FBI interview notes: http://apne.ws/xfm8IsO

___

Associated Press writer Michelle R. Smith in Providence contributed to this report.

Eric Tucker And Chad Day, The Associated Press

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Taxpayers Federation calling on BC Government to scrap failed Carbon Tax

Published on January 16, 2025

Todayville

From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

By Carson Binda

BC Government promised carbon tax would reduce CO2 by 33%. It has done nothing.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the British Columbia government to scrap the carbon tax as new data shows the province’s carbon emissions have continued to rise, despite the oldest carbon tax in the country.

“The carbon tax isn’t reducing carbon emissions like the politicians promised,” said Carson Binda, B.C. Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “Premier David Eby needs to axe the tax now to save British Columbians money.”

Emissions data from the provincial government shows that British Columbia’s emissions have risen since the introduction of a carbon tax.

Total emissions in 2007, the last year without a provincial carbon tax, stood at 65.5 MtCO2e, while 2022 emissions data shows an increase to 65.6 MtCO2e.

When the carbon tax was introduced, the B.C. government pledged that it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent.

The Eby government plans to increase the B.C. carbon tax again on April 1, 2025. After that increase, the carbon tax will add 21 cents to the cost of a litre of natural gas, 25 cents per litre of diesel and 18 cents per cubic meter of natural gas.

“The carbon tax has cost British Columbians a lot of money, but it hasn’t helped the environment as promised,” Binda said. “Eby has a simple choice: scrap the carbon tax before April 1, or force British Columbians to pay even more to heat our homes and drive to work.”

If a family fills up the minivan once per week for a year, the carbon tax will cost them $728. The carbon tax on natural gas will add $435 to the average family’s home heating bills in the 12 months after the April 1 carbon tax hike.

Other provinces, like Saskatchewan, have unilaterally stopped collecting the carbon tax on essentials like home heating and have not faced consequences from Ottawa.

“British Columbians need real relief from the costs of the provincial carbon tax,” Binda said. “Eby needs to stop waiting for permission from the leaderless federal government and scrap the tax on British Columbians.”

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The problem with deficits and debt

Published on January 13, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Tegan Hill and Jake Fuss

This fiscal year (2024/25), the federal government and eight out of 10 provinces project a budget deficit, meaning they’re spending more than collecting in revenues. Unfortunately, this trend isn’t new. Many Canadian governments—including the federal government—have routinely ran deficits over the last decade.

But why should Canadians care? If you listen to some politicians (and even some economists), they say deficits—and the debt they produce—are no big deal. But in reality, the consequences of government debt are real and land squarely on everyday Canadians.

Budget deficits, which occur when the government spends more than it collects in revenue over the fiscal year, fuel debt accumulation. For example, since 2015, the federal government’s large and persistent deficits have more than doubled total federal debt, which will reach a projected $2.2 trillion this fiscal year. That has real world consequences. Here are a few of them:

Diverted Program Spending: Just as Canadians must pay interest on their own mortgages or car loans, taxpayers must pay interest on government debt. Each dollar spent paying interest is a dollar diverted from public programs such as health care and education, or potential tax relief. This fiscal year, federal debt interest costs will reach $53.7 billion or $1,301 per Canadian. And that number doesn’t include provincial government debt interest, which varies by province. In Ontario, for example, debt interest costs are projected to be $12.7 billion or $789 per Ontarian.

Higher Taxes in the Future: When governments run deficits, they’re borrowing to pay for today’s spending. But eventually someone (i.e. future generations of Canadians) must pay for this borrowing in the form of higher taxes. For example, if you’re a 16-year-old Canadian in 2025, you’ll pay an estimated $29,663 over your lifetime in additional personal income taxes (that you would otherwise not pay) due to Canada’s ballooning federal debt. By comparison, a 65-year-old will pay an estimated $2,433. Younger Canadians clearly bear a disproportionately large share of the government debt being accumulated currently.

Risks of rising interest rates: When governments run deficits, they increase demand for borrowing. In other words, governments compete with individuals, families and businesses for the savings available for borrowing. In response, interest rates rise, and subsequently, so does the cost of servicing government debt. Of course, the private sector also must pay these higher interest rates, which can reduce the level of private investment in the economy. In other words, private investment that would have occurred no longer does because of higher interest rates, which reduces overall economic growth—the foundation for job-creation and prosperity. Not surprisingly, as government debt has increased, business investment has declined—specifically, business investment per worker fell from $18,363 in 2014 to $14,687 in 2021 (inflation-adjusted).

Risk of Inflation: When governments increase spending, particularly with borrowed money, they add more money to the economy, which can fuel inflation. According to a 2023 report from Scotiabank, government spending contributed significantly to higher interest rates in Canada, accounting for an estimated 42 per cent of the increase in the Bank of Canada’s rate since the first quarter of 2022. As a result, many Canadians have seen the costs of their borrowing—mortgages, car loans, lines of credit—soar in recent years.

Recession Risks: The accumulation of deficits and debt, which do not enhance productivity in the economy, weaken the government’s ability to deal with future challenges including economic downturns because the government has less fiscal capacity available to take on more debt. That’s because during a recession, government spending automatically increases and government revenues decrease, even before policymakers react with any specific measures. For example, as unemployment rises, employment insurance (EI) payments automatically increase, while revenues for EI decrease. Therefore, when a downturn or recession hits, and the government wants to spend even more money beyond these automatic programs, it must go further into debt.

Government debt comes with major consequences for Canadians. To alleviate the pain of government debt on Canadians, our policymakers should work to balance their budgets in 2025.