Kellyanne Conway says the 'fix was in' by the FBI to set up Flynn: It was 'probably criminal'

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Kellyanne Conway reacts to unsealed Flynn documents

Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway told 'Fox & Friends' every American should 'feel a chill today' after newly-released Michael Flynn documents show the FBI discussed interviewing Michael Flynn 'to get him to lie' and 'get him fired'

Explosive new documents released Wednesday show the "fix was in" by the FBI to set up former national security adviser Michael Flynn, counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said Thursday.

In an interview on "Fox & Friends," Conway said that regardless of political affiliation, "every American should feel a chill today [because] federal government officials in high places can come to the White House four days into our presidency and come here to try to set up the national security advisor to the president and the fix was in."

"Imagine if what was written in the margins of these notes – should we get him to lie or should we get him fired – imagine if anything like that was in the Mueller investigation of two years. Imagine if one of our handwriting was in the margins saying today is 'Collusion Monday' or 'Russian Tuesday? Which one is it?'" she asked.

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"They pecked around and hunted around [using] taxpayer funding for years to find absolutely nothing. This man was set up from the beginning. [He] probably thought they were coming in to be helpful since we had been on the job for four days," Conway remarked.

"The president has made clear for all three years that Michael Flynn was treated very unfairly. Now we know it was probably criminal what was done to him. And, may I just add that the man had a three-decade-plus career in the United States military," she added. "And he came here ready to serve his country, was gone within days, and now we see the fix was in from the previous administration's people."

In this July 10, 2018, file photo, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn leaves the federal courthouse in Washington, following a status hearing.  (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

The documents turned over by the Justice Department (DOJ) late Wednesday include handwritten notes in which FBI officials openly indicated that their "goal" was "to get [Flynn] to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired" during special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into allegations of collusion by Americans with Russian officials ahead of the 2016 election.

The handwritten notes – written by the FBI's former head of counterintelligence Bill Priestap after a meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe – indicated that agents planned to get Flynn “to admit to breaking the Logan Act” when he spoke to then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition period and catch him in a lie.

The Logan Act is an obscure statute that has never been used in a criminal prosecution. Enacted in 1799, it was intended to prevent individuals from falsely claiming to represent the United States abroad.

Although a note indicates that the agents at least discussed the merits of a by-the-book approach, the bombshell materials strongly suggest the agents weren't truly concerned about Flynn's intercepted contacts with Kislyak during the presidential transition period, except as a pretext.

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Flynn has previously claimed top FBI officials, including McCabe, pressed him not to have an attorney present while he was questioned by two agents. That questioning ultimately led to Flynn's 2017 guilty plea on a single charge of lying to federal authorities about conversations with Kislyak.

Flynn has sought to withdraw his guilty plea and has been seeking exoneration, saying the FBI engaged in "egregious misconduct." Since then, he has obtained new counsel — and his old attorneys, it emerged this week, then failed to turn over thousands of documents to his new lawyer, Sidney Powell. Powell has maintained that Flynn's old lawyers at Covington & Burling had conflicts of interest and were otherwise ineffective, including by not focusing on Strzok's evident bias.

Fox News is told even more exculpatory documents are forthcoming, as Attorney General Bill Barr continues to oversee the DOJ's investigation into the handling of the Flynn case.

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"And, I think that this is a disgrace for government officials to abuse their power in this exact way. This is what people fear about the federal government," Conway told the "Friends" hosts.

"General Flynn has probably faced millions of dollars in legal fees, three years of reputational scorn, and isolation. He obviously had to leave his job here. ... [The president] has made it very clear that he feels people around him are treated very unfairly — and, in this case, worse."

Fox News' Gregg Re and Yael Halon contributed to this report.