On Wednesday, the US federal court of appeals ordered District Judge Emmet Sullivan to dismiss the case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, as earlier requested by the DOJ. Foreign relations experts have discussed the Flynn case in the light of newly released documents unearthed by the general’s defence team. The ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has apparently brought an end to the years-long legal saga triggered by a January 2017 visit by FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pietka to the White House to interview the general about his phone talks with Russian […]
Michael Flynn
12 posts
The Michael Flynn case is playing out like a film noir: We know the crime and that the criminal will get away from the start, and we’re watching to find out how things ended up there. If Bill Barr’s Justice Department can’t convince a panel of judges to force Flynn’s trial judge, Emmet Sullivan, to let Flynn withdraw the guilty plea he’d already submitted, and that Sullivan has accepted, Trump will just pardon his former National Security Adviser. One way or the other, Flynn is getting off the hook. The question is whether or not Barr’s crew will have to explain […]
When Donald Trump’s national security adviser-designate made his fateful phone calls with the Russian ambassador, the conversations that set in motion his downfall had a goal behind them. Drawing closer to the rival power that interfered in the 2016 election didn’t occur for its own sake, transcripts declassified on Friday show, but to create a new Mideast partnership against what retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn saw as “radical Islam.” “You know that the strategic goal is stability in the Middle East,” the transcripts show Flynn pressing upon Sergey Kislyak on Dec. 23, 2016. “We will not achieve stability in the Middle […]
Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who helped defend President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial this year, is representing a new criminal client who, in his own white collar fraud case, is portraying himself as the next Michael Flynn. Dershowitz’s client is Ari Teman, a Miami-based tech startup founder who was convicted in January of four federal criminal counts, including bank and wire fraud. Dershowitz is advising Teman’s legal team, which is seeking to overturn the conviction with claims that federal prosecutors withheld evidence that would have undermined the credibility of a key government witness. “They sat on their hands, and […]
In August of 2015, I caught a glimpse of Michael Flynn’s future in a Brooklyn federal courtroom. It was at the sentencing of an Albanian man named Agron Hasbajrami on charges of material support for terrorism. Hasbajrami, like Flynn, had a circuitous path towards his sentencing. Like Flynn, he had been caught on a wire. And, like Flynn, he pleaded guilty, then brought in a new attorney and sought to convince a judge to let him withdraw his guilty plea. Source link
Fox News host Sean Hannity blasted the judge in the case of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, accusing Emmet Sullivan of being ignorant and clearly holding a “political bias” after Sullivan appointed a retired judge to argue against the Justice Department’s decision to drop charges against Flynn. On Wednesday, after the DOJ filed a motion to dismiss charges against Flynn despite his twice pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, Sullivan tasked former district court judge John Gleeson to look into whether there’s any reason the Trump ally shouldn’t be held in contempt of court for perjury. The latest developments […]
The judge in the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn announced Wednesday that he has appointed a retired judge as an amicus curiae who will argue against the Department of Justice’s decision to drop charges against Flynn. Though Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, the DOJ filed a motion to dismiss charges against him, setting off a firestorm of criticism earlier this week. Judge Emmet Sullivan is now asking a retired judge to examine whether there is any reason why Flynn should not be held in contempt of court for perjury. Source link
Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller has stayed out of the limelight since completing his work last year by submitting an exhaustive report on the details of the Russia probe and presidential obstruction, and giving testimony before Congress. In his absence, Barr has launched a counter-investigation to effectively Monday morning quarterback the entirety of the Russia investigation, and has already intervened in both the Roger Stone and the Michael Flynn proceedings to largely undo the very work of the Special Counsel’s Office. The president, ever the thin-skinned bully, has unleashed a tirade of attacks on those who assisted Mueller. Career line attorneys […]
“Refreshingly, one of the biggest pieces of news was not actually coronavirus-related,” offered John Oliver on Sunday’s edition of Last Week Tonight. The comedian then cut to coverage of Attorney General William Barr’s Trump-friendly Justice Department dropping its case against Michael Flynn. “A crime cannot be established here,” Barr told CBS News. “They did not have a basis for a counterintelligence investigation against Flynn at that stage…People sometimes plead to things that turn out not to be crimes.” For the uninitiated, Flynn, Trump’s former National Security Advisor, was forced into an retirement from the military (his subordinates told The New York […]
Roy “Captain Roy D” Davis has devoted much of the last three years to the QAnon conspiracy theory, writing books pitching the concept to new fans and getting his car repainted with an enormous “Q” on the hood. Through it all, he’s been utterly convinced that former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn—a central figure to much of the Q community—was the victim of an anti-Trump cabal orchestrated by the leaders of the deep state. He corresponded with other Flynn supporters following his legal case, and donated proceeds from one of his books to Flynn’s legal fund. So when Davis saw […]
With the Justice Department announcing Thursday that it would drop the case against Michael Flynn, officials close to President Donald Trump are already gaming out ways to bring the former national security adviser back onto the national political stage. Of the nine senior Trump administration officials, campaign staff, outside advisers, and longtime associates of the president reached on Thursday, all said that they wanted Flynn to assume some public-facing role in service of the president, including potentially as an official Trump surrogate Election Day inches closer. One even compared the ex-general, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his […]
Just after the prosecutor assigned to the case resigned on Thursday, the Department of Justice announced that it dropped the charges against Michael Flynn, the former national security advisor who’d already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia. President Trump forecast this before it happened. Last week, he insisted that Flynn had been exonerated. Apparently referring to his pardon power, Trump suggested that if the court did not do something he would use “a different kind of power.” And now it’s happened. While the president has the broad power to pardon, he should not control individual […]