Prosecutors said Friday they’re prepared for former national security adviser Michael Flynn to be sentenced as soon as October, nearly two years after he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States.
„The defendant’s cooperation has ended. The case is ready for sentencing, and the government proposes the following dates for a sentencing hearing: October 21-23, 2019, or November 1-15, 2019,“ prosecutors wrote in a filing to the judge in Flynn’s case, Emmet Sullivan. „The government is not aware of any issues that require the Court’s resolution prior to sentencing.“
But the push to close Flynn’s case prompted the former Trump aide’s legal team to erupt, charging in a subsequent court filing that prosecutors — including those central to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election — had acted maliciously toward Flynn and withheld evidence.
The 19-page filing is the first direct push by Flynn to accuse prosecutors of targeting him for political reasons and breaking the rules to go after him.
In the filing, Flynn’s lawyers hearkened to the botched prosecution of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens — a case in which the same judge, Sullivan, found prosecutorial misconduct and excoriated federal attorney for their actions. Flynn’s team, aware of Sullivan’s history in this case, argued that Mueller’s prosecutors „engaged in even more malevolent conduct in the prosecution of Mr. Flynn.“
„They continued to hide that exculpatory information for months—in direct contravention of this Court’s Order—and they continue to suppress exculpatory information to this day,“ Flynn’s attorneys argued.
It’s a remarkable, and remarkably late, accusation, coming just before Flynn’s anticipated sentencing and after he cooperated with prosecutors for nearly two years. It’s also the work of Flynn’s reshuffled legal team, helmed by Sidney Powell, a longtime lawyer who has become a prominent cable TV critic of the Mueller investigation.
The brief includes a laundry list of allegations of misconduct — many of which had percolated among Flynn’s allies for years and fed claims of an anti-Trump conspiracy inside the FBI.
Flynn’s team contends that Mueller’s top prosecutors had „illicit“ relationships with Christopher Steele, the former British agent who compiled an anti-Trump dossier in 2016. The lawyers say Flynn was also deprived access to text messages between former FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok — whose anti-Trump text messages also fanned allegations of misconduct — until after those messages became public in 2018.
But Sullivan has already upbraided Flynn for his conducted, declaring at a December sentencing hearing — which was later postponed to give Flynn more time to complete his cooperation with the government — that Flynn had “arguably .. sold your country out.” It’s unclear if he’ll be receptive to Flynn’s new arguments about misconduct by the special counsel’s team.
The argument does, however, appear to align with many of the theories that Trump has promoted about misconduct and bias in the special counsel investigation — which he labeled as a “witch hunt” — and could be designed in part to make a play for a pardon. Trump has at times flirted with the idea of pardoning aides entangled in the Mueller probe but has insisted to date that he’s given no serious consideration of them yet.
The open warfare follows an abrupt shift in the relationship between Flynn and prosecutors, who had leaned on his cooperation in Mueller’s probe and in an effort to prosecute a longtime Flynn association Bijan Kian for unauthorized lobbying on behalf of the Turkish government.
Flynn had long been expected to be a star witness in Kian’s trial but after he shuffled his legal team and adopted a more combative posture, the government dropped plans to put him on the stand. Kian was found guilty anyway last month
Flynn’s selection of Powell as his new lawyer was notable because she’s been a high-profile critic of Mueller’s investigation and had been, just before joining Flynn’s team, sharply critical of Sullivan, though she once wrote fondly of him because of his handling of the Stevens case. The judge must now weigh Powell’s demand for more time to review Flynn’s large case file against prosecutors’ claims that they’re ready to move forward with sentencing in a matter of weeks.
Prosecutors asked Sullivan to convene a conference in early September, to discuss the dispute. Sullivan quickly agreed with prosecutors’ timetable and called for a Sept. 10 check-in, even though prosecutors noted that Flynn’s lawyers were not available on that date.
During an aborted sentencing hearing in December 2018, Sullivan appeared to be prepared to sentence Flynn to jailtime despite Mueller’s team vouching for his cooperation and suggesting a light sentence.
Sullivan took issue with claims that Flynn had been „entrapped“ into lying to FBI agents and noted that Flynn’s own sentencing filings didn’t address conduct he admitted to but was not included in his guilty plea — that he acted as an unregistered foreign agent for Turkey. After scolding him, Sullivan agreed to give Flynn more time to complete his cooperation in the Kian case before rescheduling his sentencing.
An autumn sentencing would bring to a close one of the most significant chapters in Mueller’s investigation.
Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 and began cooperating with prosecutors, providing evidence that Trump may have attempted to influence his testimony as well as insight into the Trump campaign and transition team’s interactions with Russian government-linked officials.
Flynn allies have long contended he was railroaded into pleading guilty, despite evidence that he misled FBI investigators as well as Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.
Flynn stepped down as Trump’s national security adviser in February 2017, just weeks after joining the Trump administration. Trump’s request later that month that FBI Director James Comey go easy on Flynn have played a prominent role in questions of whether Trump sought to obstruct justice.
Flynn’s lawyers say they’re nowhere close to ready for sentencing.
„As new counsel, we have only recently received the entire file, which occupies 13 hard drives, comprised of more than 300,000 documents, and we are still working with prior counsel to tie up some loose ends,“ Powell wrote. „The last of those hard drives was just uploaded to our document review system within the last 30 days. Despite our best efforts, it will still take a significant amount of time to complete our review.
„More troubling, there is much information that we do not have—and neither did prior counsel. Thus, the defense requests an additional 90 days before the next status report,“ Powell added. „For the reasons set out above, the defense does not have any dates to suggest for sentencing.“
Powell argued that her team needs security clearances to review evidence that Flynn „briefed and debriefed“ the Defense Intelligence Agency of his foreign contacts and travel. „Although Mr. Flynn was a civilian at the time, that information remains classified—or at a minimum withheld from the defense,“ she wrote.
Powell also called for access to the transcripts and recordings of Flynn’s calls with Kislyak. And she argued Sullivan must wait until the Justice Department’s inspector general completes a review of the FBI’s handling of its investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia.
„We must have access to that information to represent our client consistently with his constitutional rights and our ethical obligations,“ she said.
Prosecutors dismissed all of these claims.
„A defendant and his/her cleared counsel in a criminal prosecution may only obtain access to classified U.S. government information when such classified material is deemed both ‘relevant’ and ‘helpful to the defense,'“ they wrote, citing prior case law. „The government has exceeded its discovery and disclosure obligations in this matter.“
„The government has not provided any classified information to the defendant or his counsel, and the government is not aware of any classified information that requires disclosures to the defendant or his counsel“ under evidence-sharing obligations, they added.
Source: politico.com
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