Posted on 01/07/2020 12:04:08 PM PST by EyesOfTX
This is not encouraging. Not encouraging at all. – Early Tuesday afternoon, lawyers for the Justice Department prosecuting the case against Lt. General Mike Flynn revised their previous sentencing recommendation in the case. Last year they had recommended a probationary sentence for the former National Security Advisor, who pled guilty to lying the the FBI during their ambush interview of him in the early days of the Trump Administration.
Today, the DOJ lawyers – one of whom participated in the Mueller Witch Hunt – revised their recommendation to jail time of 0 to 6 months. As reported by Fox News:
In a reversal, the Justice Department has recommended up to six months of prison time for ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn—claiming he has refused to “accept responsibility” for his actions.
“Given the serious nature of the defendant’s offense, his apparent failure to accept responsibility, his failure to complete his cooperation in—and his affirmative efforts to undermine—the prosecution of [ex-Flynn associate] Bijan Rafiekian … the government recommends that the court sentence the defendant within the applicable Guidelines range of 0 to 6 months of incarceration,” federal prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo on Tuesday.
…
In its new sentencing memorandum, the DOJ wrote, “The defendant’s conduct was more than just a series of lies; it was an abuse of trust,” adding, “The government acknowledges that the defendant’s history of military service, and his prior assistance to the government, though not substantial, may distinguish him from these other defendants. The government asks the Court to consider all of these factors, and to impose an appropriate sentence.”
Flynn’s lawyers will respond with their own sentencing recommendation in the next few days.
What’s really happening here is that the DOJ lawyers assigned to the case are angry that General Flynn decided to change lawyers in the midst of their and the FBI’s endless attempts to bully him into offering damaging information against President Trump and various other targets of the Mueller Witch Hunt. Flynn jettisoned his original counsel in favor of the much more aggressive Sydney Powell in December 2018, and since that time has levied a series of allegations of prosecutorial misconduct against the DOJ.
Again as reported by Fox:
In recent months, Powell has lobbed several accusations at federal prosecutors, claiming that they withheld critical documents necessary for the defense of her client. Powell has also demanded that the government turn over two cellphones used by overseas professor Joseph Mifsud, who told former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos that the Russians had “dirt” in the form of emails that could damage Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, claiming that the information would be “material, exculpatory, and relevant to the defense of Mr. Flynn.”
Powell also claimed that FBI agents manipulated the official records of Flynn’s 2017 interview that led to him being charged with lying to investigators in yet another attempt to get Flynn’s case thrown out.
Powell alleged that FBI officials manipulated his FBI 302 — the form used by agents to report or summarize interviews. It’s not clear who may have done the alleged editing, though ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok was involved in the original interview. She also alleged that, at the direction of former FBI Director James Comey, FBI former deputy director Andrew McCabe “personally called Flynn to pave the way for the uncounseled conversation.”
Flynn, for those who may have forgotten, originally decided to enter his guilty plea in 2017 after Mueller and his Witch Hunt gang threatened to go after his family. It was only after the government had requested a series of delays in the sentencing schedule that Flynn finally made the decision to hire Powell and fight back. Today’s revision of the government’s sentencing recommendation is payback from the Justice Department.
Not just any Justice Department, mind you, but the Trump DOJ led for the last 10 months by William Barr. Barr is supposed to be the stand-up guy, the Attorney General who was going to come in and put an end to the two-tiered system of [in]justice created during the Obama years.
Yet, here is General Flynn still being persecuted by Barr’s own employees all these months later. Meanwhile, Andrew McCabe, who not only has admitted to lying to FBI investigators, but who also had a criminal referral entered against him by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz last year, still walks free and makes gobs of money as a paid contributor for CNN.
While Flynn is being threatened with prison time by Barr’s own lawyers, Obama-era hacks like James Comey, James Clapper, John Brennan and Peter Strzok – all of whom without any question at all committed multiple counts of perjury before congressional committees in 2017 – walk around free men, not subject to any harassment at all from the Department of [in]Justice.
Like most readers of the Campaign Update, I continue to harbor hope that Mr. Barr, through the John Durham investigation that he authorized and continues to at least publicly support, will ultimately begin to right all of the wrongs committed by his predecessors in office, and begin to re-balance this nation’s scales of justice.
But on days like today, when we see Barr’s own employees continue to shamefully abuse an American patriot like General Flynn, holding onto that hope becomes a real burden.
That is all.
Obviously Barr left a team to handle this and he took a hands off approach. Probably wise, still what has been done to Flynn is not fair.
The complete gamesmanship of the prosecuting attorney should just get this whole thing dismissed. Whatever happened to the right to a speedy trial?
The prosecutors are just digging their graves deeper and deeper.
Barr and Trump are letting them dig as deep as they can
2. Flynn signed a plea deal that required him to testify in the DOJ's case against his former business associates. For some reason that baffles the sh!t out of me, he refused to testify last summer when that case went to trial. In other words, Flynn reneged on the terms of his own plea deal.
Don’t be surprised if General Flynn winds up behind bars (Barrs?),
He should never have signed that plea deal.
Not going to happen. If he was serious about punishing people some of the easier prosecutions would already have begun by now. Barr is just another Washington BS artist.
Whatever happened to the right to a speedy trial?
***************
Gone the way of equal justice. Our legal system only protects the elites.
It’s an election year. They have to appear tougher.
A full pardon awaits Flynn.. eventually.
What was the prior recommendation? 0 to 6 months could well end up 0
There was no trial. Flynn waived his right to a trial and pleaded guilty. For some reason his sentencing date has been kicked down the road by the defense and prosecution multiple times. In fact I will be surprised if the sentencing actually takes place this time.
Is Barr in charge of the DOJ and what is going on here? Nothing makes sense.
Either a big mistake was made or Flynn has been acting in coordination with Trumps legal team all along as part of a larger strategy/ sting to trap the entrappers
This is a remnant of the Mueller witchhunt.
His version is that he was ordered to proffer a falsehood. He refused to do so. Without the testimony they had demanded, prosecutors had no use for any Flynn testimony.
Trump will pardon Flynn. This just sets up McCabe’s case.
Words get peculiar definition when used in a legal sense. There is one case where a "speedy" trial started ten years after the accused was indicted and imprisoned.
No jail. But the judge signalled that he was not going to agree with the government's recommendation anyway, and was going to give Flynn the max. The judge views Flynn as treasonous.
The "handsoff approach" means no accountability to the AG, to the Chief Executive and too the people.
And this is what you get.
I suspect Barr is hands off on all legacy SC investigations, at least for now.
Obviously he signed the plea deal under duress.
The next move should be motion to withdraw the plea. Any other move is going to be summarily rejected but this judge. But a motion to withdraw the plea and go to trial immediately just might work, but it would require Flynn to go back on his two previous sworn statements that he was guilty. Which he can do. But at this point I think Powell has to fish or cut bait. If she does not move to withdraw the plea and Flynn gets jail time, well then all her theatrics have just hurt her client. So make the motion already.
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