Michael Flynn lawyers say Justice Department acted to 'extort' his guilty plea
By Jerry Dunleavy
In a brief filed Friday at a federal court in Washington, the attorneys accused the Justice Department of "malevolent conduct," demanded access to classified Trump-Russia information, and asked the court to hold the Justice Department's prosecutors in contempt for concealing exculpatory information from their client. ...Two FBI agents, Peter Strzok and another unnamed investigator, interviewed Flynn on Jan. 24, 2017, at the White House, and the misrepresentations Flynn allegedly made about conversations he'd had with the then-Russian ambassador during the interview led to his guilty plea for lying to investigators during special counsel Robert Mueller's probe. ...
Flynn's lawyers made a number of bold assertions, contending he was swept up in a conspiracy involving some combination of FBI informant Stefan Halper, NSA abuses, a criminal leak campaign related to his conversations with Kislyak, or an illegal operation involving government "unmasking" of the names of Americans caught up in surveillance of foreigners by U.S. spy agencies. ...
Flynn's lawyers specifically focused on Flynn prosecutors Andrew Weissmann and Zainab Ahmad, claiming they were involved with Ohr at the DOJ when he worked with Steele "through his secret back-channel" after Steele was cut off by the FBI. Steele compiled his unverified dossier at the behest of the Clinton-funded opposition research firm Fusion GPS. Flynn's lawyers alleged the second agent who interviewed Flynn with Strzok was also Ohr's contact with the FBI and helped "pass along to the FBI the corrupted and false information from Ohr, Steele, and Fusion GPS." Flynn's lawyers demanded "all evidence of this circuitous and illicit operation."
Prosecutors call for Flynn sentencing amid impasse with defense attorneys
By Kyle Cheney
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.