Embattled Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has hired well known defense attorney Sidney Powell to represent him before his sentencing hearing in Washington D.C.’s federal court. Flynn, who fired his attorney’s last week, will still fully cooperate with the government in all cases pending, Powell told SaraACarter.com.
Flynn’s former legal counsel Robert Kelner and Stephen Anthony offered no explanation for their abrupt dismissal telling SaraACarter.com they “decline to comment.”
“He is and will continue to cooperate with the government in all aspects,” Powell told SaraACarter.com.
“He and his family truly appreciate all the cards and letters of support from countless people and the contributions to the defense fund which are even more important now.”
Powell noted that Flynn’s case file, “is massive” and “it will take me at least 90 days to review it.”
Kelner and Anthony submitted a two-page motion last week to the federal judge. Flynn’s sentencing will be based on his 2017 guilty plea to special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors for one count of lying to the FBI.
The guilty plea has been a source of contention in news reports, after evidence and testimony surfaced that the FBI special agents that interviewed Flynn in January, 2017 didn’t believe he was lying. Both former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka interviewed Flynn about his phone conversation with then Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. The interview was conducted just as Flynn began his then role as National Security Advisor for Trump.
Former FBI Director James Comey joked about the bureau’s interview with Flynn.
Comey said in an interview that he used tactics he would not ordinarily use because the then fledgling Trump administration was unorganized at the beginning. Basically, he and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discouraged Flynn from asking White House general counsel to sit in on the interview. Flynn, according to several source with knowledge, had no idea he was being targeted by the FBI for an investigation.
“I sent them. Something we’ve, I probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized…administration,” Comey said. Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe made a similar statement regarding Flynn, which was uncovered by congressional investigators.
Flynn’s attorneys said in the filing that they had been notified “he is terminating Covington & Burling LLP as his counsel and has already retained new counsel for this matter.”
Powell is the author of the New York Times best seller and tell-all book Licensed To Lie,which exposed the corruption within the justice system. The book is based on the case Powell won against prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, when he was deputy and later director of the Enron Task Force.
Weissmann served as Mueller’s second in command for the special counsel investigation into the Trump campaign, despite the fact that his tactics have been highly criticized by both judges and colleagues. He was called unscrupulous and has had several significant issues raised about how he operated during the Mueller inquiry into Trump campaign officials, including Flynn.
He prosecuted the accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP, which ended in the collapse of the firm and 85,000 jobs lost world wide. Maureen Mahoney took the case to the Supreme Court, and Powell consulted. Mahoney overturned Weissmann’s conviction and the decision was reversed unanimously by the court.
Powell has openly stated in columns and on cable networks that Weissmann’s dirty tactics of withholding exculpatory evidence and threatening witnesses to garner prosecutions should have had him disbarred long ago.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2WZH2PN Tyler Durden