Michael Flynn Sentencing Scheduled in January After Judge Denies Arguments That FBI Tricked Him
“Regardless of Mr. Flynn’s new theories, he pled guilty twice to the crime.”
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of Washington, D.C., scheduled former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s sentencing on January 28.
Flynn “pleaded guilty two years ago to a single count of lying to investigators about his contact with the Russian ambassador.” He then decided to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
That all changed a year later after Flynn changed lawyers. He hired conservative lawyer and commentator Sidney Powell.
The court should have sentenced Flynn in December 2018, but Flynn’s attorneys argued for months that the FBI and Department of Justice tricked their client “into making false statements or that the Justice Department had pressured him into entering a guilty plea.”
Sullivan rejected the arguments:
Sullivan disagreed in a lengthy opinion Monday, saying Flynn’s attorneys had failed “to explain how most of the requested information that the government has not already provided to him is relevant and material to his underlying offense.”
He also rejected allegations that FBI agents who interviewed Flynn at the White House in January 2017 trapped him into making false statements or that the Justice Department had pressured him into entering a guilty plea. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations during the presidential transition period with the Russian ambassador to the United States.
Flynn had earlier said in court that no one had forced him to plead guilty, something the judge noted in his opinion. Flynn was ousted from the White House weeks after the interview. Officials said he had misled them about his interactions with then-Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
“And it is undisputed that Mr. Flynn not only made those false statements to the FBI agents, but he also made the same false statements to the Vice President and senior White House officials, who, in turn, repeated Mr. Flynn’s false statements to the American people on national television,” Sullivan wrote.
Sullivan wrote:
“Regardless of Mr. Flynn’s new theories, he pled guilty twice to the crime, and he fails to demonstrate that the disclosure of the requested information would have impacted his decision to plead guilty,” wrote Sullivan, an appointee of President George W. Bush.
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“The Court summarily disposes of Mr. Flynn’s arguments that the FBI conducted an ambush interview for the purpose of trapping him into making false statements and that the government pressured him to enter a guilty plea,” Sullivan wrote. “The record proves otherwise.”
Sullivan also slammed Flynn’s lawyers, claiming one of the “legal briefs ‘lifted verbatim portions from a source without attribution’ and cited rules of professional conduct barring deceit and dishonesty.”
Flynn faces five years in prison at the most.
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Comments
Will the President finally issue a Pardon now that sentencing is nigh?
I think POTUS will let the legal side play out; I don’t believe there’s a chance in hell he won’t pardon Flynn if he has to.
What will be more interesting is how things play out, given the government admitted that some of their evidence was misreported to the court.
Which again begs the question–is the judge going out of his way to be obtuse?
The judge is a crook.
Flynn screwed up but should have been let off with a simple warning and no prosecution,
Trump will pardon him after the election.
Sullivan is not “a crook.” He’s a wild card is what he is. And it’s true: Flynn keeps pleading guilty. What’s wrong with him? No wonder Trump fired him.
I do not believe that Emmet Sullivan is a crook. To the contrary, he all but directed Flynn and his counsel to withdraw the original pleading.
If anyone has some ‘splaining to do it is Sidney Powell.
As I understand it, this judge presided over the Ted Stevens debacle, wherein it was revealed they framed Stevens.
So, I’m a little perplexed by what’s going on…
Looks like Judge Sullivan has decided to side with the Deep State. Well, not really surprised. Trump will have to pardon him now.
Funny thing, since impeachment will have already played out by that time, Trump can do anything he wants and doesn’t have to worry about any blow back. What more can the House dems do to him that they haven’t already done?
A pardon is coming, it is just a matter of when.
Comey and Rosenstein should be doing Flynn’s time.
And, Strzok & Comey, Dhimmi-crat zealots, Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
I mean, Strzok and McCabe. I can’t keep track of all these Dhimmi-crat, Deep State zealots.
Who does this judge thing he’s fooling?
Himself!
It’s the plea bargain weapon. Plead guilty to this or we’ll charge you with all these other things and it’s prison for life.
The accused chooses strategy over truth.
Add falsely pleading guilty in a Federal court to the charges.
FWIW – plea deals at the federal level can be godsend.
I was an expert witness for a very minor player who wasn’t guilty of several/most of the charged crimes. I was to testify as to the professional standards in the industry and how the statute applies to those professional standards. The Fed Judge did not allow my testimony. As a result the jury convicted him on a statute that was misapplied to the facts. He got 5 years.
The two kingpins both plead guilty and got 6 months house arrest.
Even at lower levels, that kind of thing happens a lot in criminal trials where the prosecutor just wants scalps to make himself look good. For example, drug distribution conspiracies; I’ve heard of a lot where a ring gets busted, and the mastermind/ringleader pleads and cuts a deal and gets a slap on the wrist. Then he agrees to give evidence against all his stupid low-level followers, who all get 10 years in the state pen. The prosecutor doesn’t care, he gets a pile of convictions and can say “lookeee what a good job I did! Vote for Me!!!”
First one to plead, no matter how high up, almost always walks away easy.
He took the guilty pleas to slow down looming bankruptcy, as well as to protect his family. This will have to play out and depending on the findings from the Barr and Durham investigations, a pardon may follow. If so, Flynn needs to be made financially whole again.
It would be surprising to see if Flynn can be made whole again. Of course, every other person ruined by the Feds cannot. Did any amount of money return Randy Weaver’s wife and child to him?
He’s a freaking retired general. He has a very handsome and completely untouchable lifelong retirement income.
Much of which will go to pay off his legal bills.
Cant he withdraw the plea and state he was under duress and bad representation when he made the plea?
So…the Judge is in on it, plain and simple!
Actually it would be better said that the judge rejected because the proper remedy was a trial (in fact that is what he said). Flynn should have withdrawn the plea.
Don’t forget that part of this is Barr not declassifying information, which Barr was given the authority to do by Trump. Barr seems to be assisting Rosenstein more than assisting true justice for Flynn.
Recanting his guilty plea seems a non-starter.
Is this more slow walking by Barr? He doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry with moving things along despite the tough talk. I am concerned he is slow walking things to see how it plays out with Trump. If Trump is removed from office the whole investigation and any indictments all go away.
Old Goat, I didn’t mean to upvote you, but rather hit reply.
I don’t think Barr is slow walking anything…. I think things move slowly…
Although I do wish Barr would stop these prosecutions. Why he doesn’t baffles me. We all know this was a setup.
I just don’t get it.
Although I understand why Flynn plead guilty (discussed above), once Flynn did that he put the matter completely in the Judge’s hands and took away Barr’s (or anybody else’s) ability to stop it. The Case is over and done with, and has been ever since that plea. This is just about sentencing, and that’s up to the Judge alone.
Actually, until the sentencing, the case is not closed. A defendant can change his mind about a guilty plea, before sentencing. The court does not have to accept that change of ple, but it can be done. What is telling in this case is that the judge felt he needed 99 pages of judicial argument to justify not granting Flynn’s request for time too examine documents which all sides have acknowledged are are related to the his case and which have been withheld from the defense. When one side in a judicial matter strenuously objects to releasing documentary and other evidence related to a case at issue, it usually means that documentation is detrimental to the side possessing the evidence.
Sullivan has tried to appear fair and impartial, in this case, ever since he was criticized for his meltdown earlier when he called Flynn a traitor. However, he is hardly impartial and never was. When the judiciary loses its impartiality, it becomes a detriment to the Union and loses all credibility. What we are seeing is the collapse of the USA, in slow motion. There is a tipping point out there. When it is reached the Second US Civil War will begin in earnest.
” Plead guilty to this or we’ll charge you with all these other things and it’s prison for life.”
****
IIRC, the tipping point for Gen. Flynn to plead guilty was the Feds. threatened to prosecute his son for some bullshit FARA violation.
If they allow Flynn to withdraw his plea it’ll be Katy-bar-the-door for all the dirty FBI dealings for decades. Make no mistake anyone who’s dealt with the feebs knows what kind of shenanigans they are up to.
It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to ‘smell a rat’ every time you read about a ‘lost’ set of pencil written interview notes or an interview that is so ludicrous as to defy all common sense. The use of schemes to entrap mentally ill individuals to ‘foil’ terrorist plots. The FBI needs a change or it needs to end. It no longer serves the American people except by accident.
I am all for a pardon of Gen. Flynn but there are two things to consider here. One is the forced confession for lying to the FBI which he may have been slight and then signing a confession to save his son. But there is the other thing that he is not being tried for and that is lying to VP Pence about meeting with the Russian. I do not know why a man with his background would think that in the bubble of DC he could get away with that lie. The lying to the FBI was nonsense but the lie to Pence, who then went on national TV and told the same lie was the biggie to me. Flynn made Pence and Trump by association look bad.
Flynn trial a joke but he is never getting any slack from Sully – black fed judges dispise white white collar repub trumpster defendants..
On diff note absolutely pathetic that Flynn and sessions were going to be best of best of trump appointees. These two turned out to be 2 fools who are major reasons for trumps ever continuing probs. Sure not the old hands which would now how to push trump ideas agenda successfully.
Maxmillion. Not true. If a veteran is convicted of criminal disloyalty to the US, then his retirement and VA benefits cease on the 61st day of confinement.
Bob in Reverse:
He was fair to Ted Stevens, a white man. AND the failure to reveal exculpatory evidence was the same.
For months Judge Sullivan had warned U.S. prosecutors about their repeated failure to turn over evidence. Then, after the jury convicted Stevens, the Justice Department discovered previously unrevealed evidence. Meanwhile, a prosecution witness and an agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) came forward alleging prosecutorial misconduct. Finally, newly appointed U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced that he had had enough and recommended that the seven-count conviction against the former Alaska senator be dismissed.
On April 7, Judge Sullivan did just that. But he was far from done.
In an extraordinarily rare move, he ordered an inquiry into the prosecutors’ handling of the case. Judge Sullivan insisted that the misconduct allegations were “too serious and too numerous” to be left to an internal Justice Department investigation. He appointed Washington lawyer Henry F. Schuelke III of Janis, Schuelke & Wechsler to investigate whether members of the trial team should be prosecuted for criminal contempt.
“It’s obviously a serious and not-everyday occurrence for a judge to sic an independent counsel on prosecutors,” Brand says. “It’s an auger for the Justice Department. This judge’s tolerance was pushed to the limit, and prosecutors are not going to just go on their merry way. When judges do things like this, it tends to rattle the system a bit.”
With two investigations pending—one court-appointed, the other conducted by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility—Justice Department officials say they are reviewing current discovery practices and retraining lawyers on their discovery obligations. It remains to be seen what consequences, if any, the prosecutors in this case will face.
https://www.dcbar.org/bar-resources/publications/washington-lawyer/articles/october-2009-ted-stevens.cfm
Flynn’s attorney has PRAISED Judge Sullivan in the past: https://observer.com/2014/06/breaking-meet-emmet-sullivan-irs-judge-who-once-sicced-a-special-prosecutor-on-doj/