Article by Victoria Taft in "PJMedia":
The government lied, "framed,"
hid favorable evidence, and showed "contempt for the law at every turn"
in their treatment of Michael Flynn, the retired three-star Army general
and former Trump White House national security adviser.
Those
charges were contained in a new filing in the government's case against
Flynn. And his attorney, Sidney Powell, was just getting started.
In the 27-page-filing,
an add-on to her previous motions, Powell demanded charges be dropped
against Flynn based on previously withheld exculpatory documents by the
government and the IG report on FISA abuse.
The net result was that federal
prosecutors publicly considered, for the first time, that Flynn would
get no jail time and instead be put on probation for his previous guilty
plea in what we now know was the beginning of the FBI's "Crossfire
Hurricane" operation against the Trump White House.
Powell
asserted that Flynn was innocent, claiming the "IG Report is replete
with exculpatory information that, had it been know to Mr. Flynn, he
never would have pled guilty."
The filing included a statement by the retired – and now financially ruined – Army general to that effect. As Fox News reported:
"In truth, I never lied," Flynn wrote in a new supplemental motion to withdraw his guilty plea filed Wednesday. "My guilty plea has rankled me throughout this process, and while I allowed myself to succumb to the threats from the government to save my family, I believe I was grossly misled about what really happened."
Powell's allegations of Flynn being "grossly misled"
by his own attorneys were just the beginning. Powell averred that
Flynn's first set of lawyers had a "conflict of interest" and worked
against Flynn's interests by having him plead guilty to a charge of
lying to FBI, a charge that itself was trumped up by Peter Strzok and
another FBI investigator. That second investigator, identified by Powell
as Agent Joe Pientka, it turns out, was in charge of the
Crossfire Hurricane op against Trump. Powell claims they later lied and
said their visit to the Trump White House was a defensive briefing and
not a probe. Former FBI chief James Comey publicly
laughed at the Flynn meeting saying he'd sent his investigators over
there on purpose at the chaotic transition time in order to take
advantage of them. Video of his scoffing appears to have been scrubbed
from YouTube.
Powell accused
Pientka of lying on FISA warrants and withholding information favorable
to Flynn from official government documents.
The filing on
Flynn's behalf was possible in part due to the Inspector General's
report on FISA abuse. Powell claimed that the IG report is "replete with
information that is exculpatory to Mr. Flynn and damning of the conduct
the FBI used against him. Flynn is one of the four original targeted by
Crossfire Hurricane and unmasked by previous administration because of
'his puported ties to Russia.'" Furthermore, the FBI got access to
Flynn's information because of the Carter Page FISA warrant, at least
two of which we now know were illegally obtained.
Powell
believes that the original "302" report on the Flynn meeting, in which
FBI agents believed that Flynn was telling the truth, have been lost or
worse.
Powell called for
all charges to be dropped against Flynn citing "government misconduct
dishonestly wielded to destroy the National Security Advisor to
President Trump as part of their larger anti-Trump scheme." She called
the case against Flynn a "mockery" of due process:
The government's suppression of evidence, drove a three-star-military veteran of multiple conflicts to plead to a crime he did not believe he committed. It now raises the foremost intelligence officer of this generation, a combat veteran and war hero, will spend time behind bars. This is not only manifestly unjust, it makes a mockery of Brady [exonerating evidence] and due process.
She
believes that the DOJ's Durham investigation into the underpinnings of
the spying operation against the Trump campaign and presidency will
uncover more information showing that Flynn is innocent.