Editor’s Note: For the knucklehead puppets in the mass media as well as the nitwits that belong to the DAZI cult of lunacy, sabotage, and destruction, Lt. General Michael Flynn is the consummate intelligence professional.
Flynn attorney requests ‘Brady’ material to prove feds withheld evidence
By: Rowen Scarborough
September 15, 2019
The Washington Times
Retired Army Gen. Michael Flynn is picking up where Republicans left off last year as he tries to turn the FBI inside out to find new evidence.
The House GOP in 2017-18 launched an aggressive investigation into decisions by the Barack Obama administration to put the FBI’s Russia probe squarely on President Trump and his colleagues.
Among other discoveries, Republicans found out that the FBI relied on a now-discredited Democratic Party-financed dossier to obtain wiretaps and run down its anti-Trump allegations.
The midterm elections ousted GOP House control, stopping the inquisitors.
Now Flynn’s new attorney Sidney Powell has filed court motions to try to unearth documents on how the FBI pursued not just the former general but the Trump cast.
Ms. Powell, a Texas appeals attorney, wants to prove that former special counsel Robert Mueller didn’t abide by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan’s “Brady” order in February 2018. (The term derives from the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brady v. Maryland that mandates that prosecutors turn over exculpatory evidence to the defense.)
Michael Caputo, a Trump campaign adviser, says Ms. Powell has documented Justice Department chicanery in the past.
“When the bogus Russia investigations started, many of us caught up in the hoax passed around Sidney Powell’s book ‘Licensed to Lie’ to prepare for the worst,” Mr. Caputo told The Washington Times. “She’s a real expert on the Justice Department’s habit of hiding exculpatory information. Today she’s representing all of America, shining a light on this systemic corruption and advancing our knowledge of the origins of this politically commissioned inquiry.”
Ms. Powell filed an extraordinary motion last week, listing a smorgasbord of documents she wants Judge Sullivan to force the government to relinquish.
Her aim is twofold: First, find Brady material by delving deep inside the FBI and the Justice Department’s Trump–Russia probe, akin to how Republicans did the same chore last year. Second, ask the judge to dismiss the case based on a Brady violation.
Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Van Grack quickly rejected the bid, saying the prosecution ended with Flynn’s guilty plea.
“The government has exceeded its discovery and disclosure obligations in this matter, including those imposed pursuant to Brady v. Maryland,” Mr. Grack said in an Aug. 30 filing.
Said Ms. Powell: “Not only have the prosecutors thumbed their noses at this court’s order, they have ignored the rules of ethical conduct for the D.C. Bar.”
In a list of 40-plus items, she is demanding access to FBI agent interview notes, or 302s; internal memos; wiretap transcripts; and records of any anti-Flynn leaks to reporters.
Some are tantalizing. Ms. Powell asserts that the British Embassy may have sent a letter to the new Trump White House warning that Christopher Steele, the dossier writer, was unreliable.
Flynn, briefly Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, pleaded guilty to lying to two FBI agents. They visited the White House on Jan. 24, 2017, to ask him about phone calls he conducted with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The agents, including Peter Strzok, knew what Flynn had said. Flynn committed a falsehood by saying he had not urged Kremlin restraint over Obama economic sanctions when he did in fact say that.
Flynn’s sentencing was delayed while he cooperated with prosecutors in a case tied to foreign lobbying, not Russian election interference.
Mr. Mueller concluded his 22-month probe in March with a verdict that he could not establish that the Trump campaign conspired with Moscow in 2016 election trespassing.
Since Flynn’s guilty plea on Dec. 1, 2017 — 20 months ago — new revelations emerged about how the FBI went about targeting Trump aides, including Flynn. He fired his defense team and summoned Ms. Powell, long a Brady champion.
Among new disclosures since the guilty plea:
⦁ The Republican majority on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence reported in May 2018 on closed-door testimony from then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. Mr. McCabe testified that the agents who interviewed Flynn “didn’t think he was lying.”
⦁ Former FBI Director James B. Comey said at a public event that he sent agents to interview Flynn when he knew the White House was in its early chaotic days and he didn’t have to first go through the president’s counsel. Flynn had no legal counsel to prepare him for the agents — one of whom, Mr. Strzok, held great hostility toward the new president.
Ms. Powell’s long list of Brady demands:
⦁ Stefan Halper’s role in providing the FBI with any information on Flynn. Mr. Halper is a Washington national security adviser and Cambridge University professor who was retained by the FBI to spy on Trump campaign advisers. Flynn wants “all payments, notes, memos, correspondence, and instructions by and between the FBI, CIA or DoD with Stefan Halper.”
⦁ All un-redacted text messages between Mr. Strzok and his then-girlfriend, former FBI counsel Lisa Page. They both expressed deep dislike of candidate Trump and his supporters.
⦁ Any wiretap applications that deal with Flynn. (It is known the FBI obtained four wiretap warrants on Trump volunteer Carter Page based largely on the dossier.)
⦁ Information on any U.S. intelligence spies assigned to Flynn since he retired in 2014 after heading the Defense Intelligence Agency.
⦁ All information that came from State Department official Kathleen Kavalec, one of several Obama political appointees who met with Mr. Steele or received his anti-Trump allegations.
⦁ Records of Bruce Ohr, another Obama official who met with Mr. Steele and his employer — Fusion GPS, Hillary Clinton’s opposition research firm. Mr. Ohr conveyed Mr. Steele’s allegations to the FBI and Justice Department lawyers. Mr. Ohr was associate deputy attorney general at the time.
⦁ The phone records of former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. Mr. Ignatius broke the story on U.S. intercepts of Flynn’s phone calls with Mr. Kislyak.
Conservative pundits say someone in the Obama administration committed a felony with that leak.
⦁ Any FBI records on leaks to the press on Flynn from top Obama officials.
Judge Sullivan said in a written order Sept. 11: “There is a strong presumption in favor of public access to judicial records.”
During his cooperation phase, Flynn sat down with the FBI for “multiple debriefings in 2017-18,” the final Mueller report said.
Regarding Flynn, the report focused on his time in the presidential transition as he conducted phone calls with Mr. Kislyak. There is no evidence of any Russia election collusion.
When Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017, the media, including the New York Times, wrote stories implying that his Mueller cooperation meant big trouble for Mr. Trump in the Russia probe. Flynn provided no such evidence.
The New York Times wrote: “Mr. Flynn’s decision to plead guilty to lying to investigators about those conversations marked a significant new phase in the investigation of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and a politically treacherous development for the president and his closest aides, whose activities in the West Wing are being scrutinized by F.B.I. agents, lawmakers, federal prosecutors and the media.”
“How come the lights went on before he clapped?”
