Dropping Michael Flynn's Guilt - REJECTED !
Today from The Associated Press;In response to:
Appeals court keeps Flynn case alive, won't order dismissal
ERIC TUCKER
Associated Press August 31, 2020, 12:19 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court in Washington on Monday declined to order the dismissal of the Michael Flynn prosecution, permitting a judge to scrutinize the Justice Department's request to dismiss its case against the President Donald Trump's former national security adviser.
The decision keeps the matter at least temporarily alive and rejects efforts by both Flynn's lawyers and the Justice Department to force the prosecution to be dropped without any further inquiry from the judge, who has for months declined to dismiss it.
Federal prosecutors moved in May to dismiss the prosecution even though Flynn had pleaded guilty and admitted lying to the FBI during the Russia investigation about his Russian contacts during the presidential transition period. He was awaiting sentencing when the government asked to dismiss the case.
But U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, signaling his skepticism at the government's motion, refused to immediately grant the request and instead appointed a retired federal judge to argue against the Justice Department's position.
His lawyers then sought to bypass Sullivan and obtain a order from the federal appeals court that would have required the judge to immediately force the judge to dismiss the case.
At issue before the court was not the merits of the Flynn prosecution but rather whether Sullivan could be forced to grant the Justice Department's dismissal request without even holding a hearing to scrutinize the basis for the motion.
“We have no trouble answering that question in the negative,” the court wrote in an unsigned opinion for the eight judges in the majority.
Flynn was the only person charged in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation who had been a White House official. Mueller's probe investigated ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.
He was questioned by the FBI at the White House, just days after Trump's inauguration, about his conversations with the then-Russian ambassador to the U.S. pertaining to sanctions that had just been imposed by the Obama administration for election interference. The conversation alarmed law enforcement and intelligence officials who were already investigating whether the Trump campaign had coordinated with Russia to sway the presidential election in Trump's favor. They were puzzled by the White House's public insistence that Flynn and the diplomat had not discussed sanctions.
But the Justice Department argued in May that the FBI had insufficient basis to interrogate Flynn about that conversation, which Attorney General William Barr has described as fully appropriate for an incoming national security adviser to have had.
Appeals court keeps Flynn case alive, won't order dismissal
ERIC TUCKER
Associated Press August 31, 2020, 12:19 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court in Washington on Monday declined to order the dismissal of the Michael Flynn prosecution, permitting a judge to scrutinize the Justice Department's request to dismiss its case against the President Donald Trump's former national security adviser.
The decision keeps the matter at least temporarily alive and rejects efforts by both Flynn's lawyers and the Justice Department to force the prosecution to be dropped without any further inquiry from the judge, who has for months declined to dismiss it.
Federal prosecutors moved in May to dismiss the prosecution even though Flynn had pleaded guilty and admitted lying to the FBI during the Russia investigation about his Russian contacts during the presidential transition period. He was awaiting sentencing when the government asked to dismiss the case.
But U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, signaling his skepticism at the government's motion, refused to immediately grant the request and instead appointed a retired federal judge to argue against the Justice Department's position.
His lawyers then sought to bypass Sullivan and obtain a order from the federal appeals court that would have required the judge to immediately force the judge to dismiss the case.
At issue before the court was not the merits of the Flynn prosecution but rather whether Sullivan could be forced to grant the Justice Department's dismissal request without even holding a hearing to scrutinize the basis for the motion.
“We have no trouble answering that question in the negative,” the court wrote in an unsigned opinion for the eight judges in the majority.
Flynn was the only person charged in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation who had been a White House official. Mueller's probe investigated ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.
He was questioned by the FBI at the White House, just days after Trump's inauguration, about his conversations with the then-Russian ambassador to the U.S. pertaining to sanctions that had just been imposed by the Obama administration for election interference. The conversation alarmed law enforcement and intelligence officials who were already investigating whether the Trump campaign had coordinated with Russia to sway the presidential election in Trump's favor. They were puzzled by the White House's public insistence that Flynn and the diplomat had not discussed sanctions.
But the Justice Department argued in May that the FBI had insufficient basis to interrogate Flynn about that conversation, which Attorney General William Barr has described as fully appropriate for an incoming national security adviser to have had.
Comments (18)
delay to persecute an innocent man
How is it possible that prosecutors can expect a case to be dismissed after someone has plead guilty without the basis of the motion being heard?
The original prosecutors quit in protest, when Barr urged dismissal.
Yes, it is as corrupt as it sounds.
You may not know it from following the hysterical, virtue-signaling liberal media, but the full extent of Obamagate is coming to light.
Among the many explosive revelations that have been made over the last few months was the long-overdue exoneration of General Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to President Donald Trump and one of the first casualties of the bogus Trump-Russia investigation.
It has now been revealed that months before Flynn was charged with lying to agents, the FBI told the Justice Department that the decorated general was “very open and forthcoming” when interviewed by agents and that they believed he was telling the truth about his communication with Russia, according to government notes that have been withheld this whole time but pose a sharp contrast to the criminal case that would come out of the Mueller probe.
FBI agents told senior DOJ officials at a January 25, 2017 meeting that Flynn was “telling truth as he believed it” and that he “believe that what he said was true,” according to handwritten notes from then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General Tashina Gauhar turned over to Flynn’s legal team this month.
The agents felt that Flynn was “being forthright” in the interview and simply failed to remember all the details of his calls with the Russian ambassador during the transition period between the Obama and Trump presidencies, according to Gauhar’s notes.
In a separate DOJ memo described Flynn as “very open and forthcoming” during the interview.
Copies of the notes from Gauhar, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, who led the Russia collusion case, and former DOJ and FBI official Dana Boente were made public in a court filing over the weekend, adding to a large body of belatedly released evidence that suggested the FBI did not believe it had grounds to charge Flynn with a crime as news media were reporting at the time.
In fact, Boente stated in handwritten notes dated in March 2017 that the FBI had concluded Flynn wasn’t an agent of Russia. “Do not view as source of collusion,” Boente wrote.
Likewise, the notes show DOJ did not believe it could prosecute Flynn under the Logan Act, lone of the laws that was leaked as a possible Flynn liability in the media. “No reasonable pros to Logan Act,” one of the entry in the notes declared.
The notes also confirm previously released evidence showing the FBI planned on Jan. 4, 2017 to close down its investigation of Flynn but then reversed course.
Amazingly, the FBI tried to tell the DOJ that the reason they’d kept the Flynn probe open and interviewed him was due to a media leak of a classified transcript of his call with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
These “leaks” about the call being intercepted brought the “investigation in the open” and “changed the dynamic,” the notes quote FBI officials as saying.
Months after the conversations recorded in the notes, Mueller’s team struck a plea deal that required Flynn to plead guilty to lying in the interview.
Both Flynn’s lawyers and the DOJ have asked the judge to negate his guilty plea and drop the charges based on the new evidence of innocence that was recently made public.
In a filing making the new notes public, Flynn attorney Sidney Powell said the new evidence provides “even more reasons requiring dismissal of the case.”
I understand more of the technicalities now, but it was basically as I thought: if the prosecutor motions to have a case dismissed after a guilty plea there has to be a reason. If the reason is not examined, especially if the prosecution badly doesn't want it examined, there could be some kind of corruption that is missed.
What I hadn't realised is that Bill Barr is ultimately responsible for the prosecution and request for dismissal. The inappropriate use of the writ of mandamus was also informative in terms of the extent to which potential examination is being avoided.
I'm really hoping they're not Trump judges because that would leave them looking like they were in cahoots with an attempt at bare-faced corruption.
What are you complaining about?
How can a judge prosecute a case on his own?
The case has already been decided when Flynn pleaded "guilty".
Without a doubt.
A lot of people should go to jail for a long time.