Free Republic

The Justice Department is recommending that former National Security adviser Michael Flynn be sentenced to up to six months in prison for lying to the FBI, telling a court that the former Trump adviser has been uncooperative in recent months. "The sentence should adequately deter the defendant from violating the law, and to promote respect for the law," the Justice Department wrote in a sentencing memo Tuesday. "It is clear that the defendant has not learned his lesson. He has behaved as though the law does not apply to him, and as if there are no consequences for his actions."...

In a stunning move, a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia overturned the conviction of ex-business partner of former National Security Advisor Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Bijan Rafiekian, Tuesday who was charged earlier this year with undisclosed lobbying that prosecutors claimed was to ensure the extradition of a Muslim cleric living in the United States back to his homeland of Turkey. Judge Anthony Trenga, who oversaw the case, stated in his 39 page acquittal decision that the evidence presented to the jury was insufficient to prove any type of conspiracy and based mainly on hearsay. He noted in...

The Justice Department reversed its prior recommendation and asked that General Flynn be incarcerated for up to 6 months. The DOJ previously asked for no jail time. The DOJ is now accusing Flynn of being uncooperative and failing to accept responsibility for his “serious” offense. The judge previously set Flynn’s sentencing date for January 28 after rejecting Sidney Powell’s request for Brady Material.

A federal judge in Virginia on Tuesday struck down prosecutors’ efforts to characterize Michael Flynn as a co-conspirator with his former lobbying partner, who faces trial on charges that he secretly lobbied for the Turkish government. Judge Anthony Trenga said in a court filing that federal prosecutors failed to provide enough evidence to show that Flynn acted as a co-conspirator with Bijan Rafiekian, a former executive at Flynn’s consulting company, Flynn Intel Group. “The United States at this point has not presented or proffered evidence sufficient to establish by a preponderance of the evidence a conspiracy for the purposes of...

When the final report of then-special counsel Robert Mueller stated that it couldn’t establish that anyone from the Trump campaign had conspired with Russia, many Americans may have failed to realize how revealing a statement that was. The recent conviction of a former partner in the now-defunct consultancy firm of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, shows how easy it would have been for Mueller to bring charges even if he could piece together only a circumstantial case. Yet he didn’t. Conspiracy Despite its ominous sound, the federal charge of conspiracy has a low...

Since his arrest last July -- he was accused of helping to plan the post-election uprisings -- Kian's family and friends have made countless appeals for clemency to the Iranian government, written letters to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pleading his innocence, and signed dozens of petitions. All to no avail. I've come now to realize that the regime probably thinks we're obtuse. Indeed, they know better than anyone that Kian is an innocent man. As the expression goes in Persian, "da'va sar-e een neest," i.e. that's not what this fight is about.