Sunday, May 24, 2020

FISA Judge "Lawyers Up" w/New FBI Misconduct Investigation

from Wapo, "Federal judge hires high-powered D.C. attorney to defend his actions in Flynn case"
The federal judge who refused a Justice Department request to immediately drop the prosecution of former Trump adviser Michael Flynn has hired a high-profile trial lawyer to argue (*fakenews alert:) his reasons for investigating whether dismissing the case is legally or ethically appropriate.

In a rare step that adds to this criminal case’s already unusual path, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan has retained Beth Wilkinson to represent him in defending (*fakenews alert:) his decision to a federal appeals court in Washington, according to a person familiar with the hire who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is now examining the judge’s actions and the larger case against Flynn after lawyers for President Trump’s former national security adviser asked the court to force Sullivan to toss Flynn’s guilty plea.

Wilkinson, known for her top-notch legal skills and get-results style, is expected to file a notice with the court in the coming week about representing the judge. She declined to comment when reached Friday evening. Sullivan also declined to comment through his office.

A federal judge doesn’t typically hire private counsel (*fakenews alert:) to respond to an appeals court, and yet so much about Flynn’s case has been a departure from the norm. A defendant doesn’t normally plead guilty under oath and then try to withdraw that admission, as Flynn did. The Justice Department almost never drops a case once it has essentially won a conviction, a signed guilty plea, as Attorney General William P. Barr ordered earlier this month.

(*alternative FACT alert:) About two weeks ago, Sullivan pushed off Barr’s request and paused Flynn’s case to invite outside groups and a retired federal judge to argue against the Justice Department’s proposal.

Sullivan also asked retired New York judge John Gleeson to examine whether Flynn may have committed perjury while pleading guilty to lying about his pre-inauguration contacts with Russia’s ambassador. Flynn’s lawyers then accused Sullivan of bias and asked the U.S. Court of Appeals to intervene.

On Thursday, that higher court took the extraordinary step of ordering Sullivan to answer within 10 days. The court also invited the Justice Department to comment.

In asking the D.C. Circuit to intervene, Flynn’s attorneys are arguing that prosecutors have exclusive authority to decide whether to drop a case and accusing Sullivan of judicial overreach.

Sullivan’s orders “reveal his plan to continue the case indefinitely, rubbing salt in General Flynn’s open wound from the Government’s misconduct and threatening him with criminal contempt,” Flynn lawyer Sidney Powell wrote. Conservative legal analysts and commentators have weighed in on the controversy, saying the Justice Department should be allowed to undo Flynn’s conviction without judicial interference.

Wilkinson, a go-to advocate for prominent officials snared in major Washington investigations and high-stakes legal battles, now joins the fray. Wilkinson represented Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh when he was a Supreme Court nominee and battling accusations he had sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford when they were both teens. Her firm also represented the lawyer and longtime confidant of Hillary Clinton amid an investigation into whether Clinton, then secretary of state, had mishandled classified information while trying to avoid using government emails.

But the Flynn case has expanded far beyond a simple charge of false statements to federal investigators, into one used as a rallying cry for Trump to accuse a covert “deep state” of seeking to entrap him and his campaign advisers. Legal scholars argue the demand that Sullivan drop the case at this point has dramatic implications for judicial independence and the constitution’s separation of powers.

Flynn admitted his conduct under oath three times before two federal judges, including Sullivan, before reversing course.

“This case does not involve a decision by the Executive Branch simply to ‘drop’ a prosecution,” but a “virtually unprecedented decision” to dismiss a case after it has been won, wrote a bipartisan group of about 20 constitutional experts, led by Harvard law professor Laurence H. Tribe, in a brief the group requested to file Friday.

The twists and turns of Flynn’s prosecution have in many ways become a reflection of the long-running war that Trump and his allies have waged against special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Mueller’s team of investigators inherited Flynn’s case and obtained his sworn admission that he had lied to the FBI about his conversations with a Russian ambassador while serving then-President-elect Trump.

Trump and his supporters, and Flynn’s defenders, later argued Flynn had been set up by the FBI. But during a dramatic hearing in 2018, Flynn repeatedly assured Sullivan that the FBI did not trick him, that he was responsible for his lies about the calls and he was pleading guilty willingly.

However, Flynn later fired his lawyers and argued he was a victim of FBI overreach. This year, after Mueller completed his investigation and disbanded his team, Barr sought to scrap the case, arguing the agents who questioned Flynn about his contacts with the ambassador didn’t have a legitimate investigative or counterintelligence basis to do so, so any lies Flynn told were neither important nor criminal.

49 comments:

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

So Flynn didn't lie? Did he not tell Kislyak that Dotard would reverse sanctions imposed by the Obama administration (in violation of the hatch act)? I guess Flynn also must not have acted as an unregistered foreign agent for Turkey. Judge Sullivan will not be "spanked".

Joe Conservative said...

No, he won't just be spanked. He'll likely also be "indicted".

Joe Conservative said...

Remember the Contreras recusal? Sullivan called Flynn a "traitor to his country". So much for an impartial judiciary...

Joe Conservative said...

Now the judge has "lawyered up". Things don't look good for Flynn's judge/prosecutors...

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

And Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, James Comey, James Clapper, etc are all going to end up in prison. LOL.

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

You (at the time) argued that Sullivan meant Flynn was a traitor for pleading guilty and cooperating. Did you forget?

Joe Conservative said...

Obviously I'm not as adept as mind reading as you and I could have been wrong at the time as less information was available. You've never missed on your mind reading of other people's good/ bad intentions? I was giving him the benefit of the doubt (caritas). That's always my first "go to" guess til proven wrong (yours being the opposite if they're known Republicans and even then, never admitting your mistakes even after all the facts are known).

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

What happened was that you told a ridiculous lie. No mind reading was needed to know that isn't what Judge Sullivan meant. Cooperating with the FBI isn't selling out the United States. The FBI is a PART of the United States government.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

...and so is a corrupt FBI leadership following the political orders of Barrack Obama and Joe Biden to spy on and investigate w/o proper predicate the Trump Campaign. :)

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

IG Horowitz's report says otherwise. The bipartisan Senate report that affirmed the intelligence findings that Russia meddled in 2016 election also says otherwise.

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

AKA your comment is 100 percent false.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

IG Horowitz wasn't allowed to investigate matters outside the purview of the DOJ and FBI. And all the OCONUS lures (Misfud/Halper) that Strozk ran against Popadopolous were CIA/foreign assets.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

in the testing words of Lisa Page to Peter Strozk, ‘You get all our oconus lures approved? ;)’

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

Was that an actual text message, or "words" you IMAGINE were exchanged? There was no "setup". You can't set someone up re something they're already doing! You try to catch them. Which is what happened here. Explaining why Papadopoulos plead guilty. There is no evidence that Mifsud was a "CIA/foreign asset".

Quote: ...Papadopoulos [has] continued to assert that Mifsud was an Italian intelligence "operative handled by the CIA". [However] According to the Italian intelligence adviser, Mifsud didn't work with or for either the country's internal service, AISI, or the external service, AISE. (excerpted from the article "Trump Sent Attorney General William Barr to Rome in Search of a Deep State Plot. ITALIAN INTELLIGENCE SAYS THERE'S NOTHING THERE".

Joe Conservative said...

:)

Joe Conservative said...

As for Misfud, if he wasn't an American asset, then why didn't Robert Mueller charge him for lying to the FBI as stated in the Mueller Report? He charged Popadopolous. He charge Flynn. He charged Manafort. He charged the Russian Troll Farm. But he didn't charge Joseph Misfud...

Joe Conservative said...

At least John Durham has his phones. :)

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

Quote: The Justice Department describes a lure as a technique used to "entice a criminal defendant to leave a foreign country so that he or she can be arrested in the United States".

"They're going outside of the U.S. to conduct a lure to bring them together with somebody in the hopes of gathering information about whatever case they're working on", Gomez [an ABC News consultant and former FBI special agent in charge] said. Nowhere in the texts is Russia, Trump, or the Trump campaign mentioned. [end quote]

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

No evidence what-so-ever that this text had anything to do with Misfud. No proof that Misfud is or was an Italian intelligence "operative handled by the CIA". Denied by Italian intelligence.

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

Conducing sting operations using lures is a perfectly legal way to catch the bad guys :)

Although, re the video link, a beating isn't.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

As for Judge Sullivan: The confused judge who has unconstitutionally inserted himself into the Justice Department’s case against General Flynn made some actions behind the scene that are just as troubling.Judge Sullivan helped Jim Comey get his speaking gig at Howard University for $100,000. How much more corruption can America take. The corrupt judge who inserted himself into the General Flynn case, who insinuated the General was a traitor, has a lifestyle that matches his actions in court. (Snip)But at the same time as the challenges with tuition for many of Howard’s students, Judge Sullivan worked with President Frederick to get Jim Comey as a guest speaker for a $100,000 fee.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Quote: The Justice Department describes a lure as a technique used to "entice a criminal defendant to leave a foreign country so that he or she can be arrested in the United States".

You mean like the $10k Israeli payment to Popadopolous and subsequent arrest fail at Dulles when the money wasn't found?

Mrs. Grundy said...

:P

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

Sullivan did not "insert himself", he's doing his job. Did he request the case? He isn't even rejecting Toady Barr's absurd rational for dismissing the case. He only wants to hear the arguments before making a decision. Sounds totally reasonable to me. You may even end up being happy with his decision.

BTW, "Epoch Times" is another pro-Dotard propaganda outfit that recycles Russian misinformation. I wonder how many of them will go out of business after Biden assumes the presidency. There certainly is a glut in the market. I'd say we are definitely PAST the point of over-saturation.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Why's he getting Comey speaking gigs at HBCUs?

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

I haven't heard anything about it. Maybe because he wants to telegraph to the right that he's a member of the "deep state"?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

or to the resistance that he's one of them.

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

Are we talking about something that even happened? No links from you yet. btw, Flynn still plead guilty. And he did so because he wanted the more serious charges dropped.

Quote: In a Dec. 2017 legal filing... Flynn admitted lying in the March filings to the Justice Department, including by falsely stating that the Flynn Intel Group did not know to what extent the Turkish government was involved in the project [to get the US to extradite Muslim cleric named Fethullah Gulen to Turkey] and that the op-ed was written on his own initiative. [end quote]

Looks like the DOJ "entrapped" Flynn too. I mean, that is the only reason Flynn lied so much, right? It couldn't possibly be because he knew he broke the law and didn't want to get caught.

Joe Conservative said...

I posted a link at another sites for you. You ignore them. Not my problem.

...and who-knew that Op-Eds were sworn testimony?

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

In court under oath isn't the only place you can get into trouble for lying. And I don't know anything about this link on "another sites". I'd have to have seen it to ignore it. I did try to use Google to confirm what you wrote but couldn't find anything. I'll assume it didn't happen.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

I'm sure that Google is keeping you in your bubble. They know how triggered you get.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

link

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

"I'm sure that Google is keeping you in your bubble"... I doubt it. As a result of watching the videos you post, YouTube probably thinks I'm a rightwinger. I get suggestions for more of the same pro-Dotard videos whenever I visit that site.

Excerpted From your link...

...Judge Sullivan worked with President Frederick to get Jim Comey as a guest speaker for a $100,000 fee. The former FBI Director’s presentation was interrupted numerous times... [end excerpt]

"FBI Director's presentation was interrupted" is a link (to a CBS news story).

"Judge Sullivan worked with President Frederick to get Jim Comey as a guest speaker" is NOT a link. I'm not saying this didn't happen, but the Gateway Pundit article presents no evidence that it did (that I can see).

And for some reason the article starts off by whining about t-shirts made by Sullivan's son. Perhaps to fill out the article and distract from the fact that they have no evidence to back up the claim made in the title of the article. Unless the fact that Sullivan has friends is supposed to be the "evidence".

Might be why you didn't want to give me the link.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

lol! What, you only accept facts backed up with REAL fake news? lol! I can link to a thousand articles claiming Trump colluded with Russia, but not a single one citing any direct evidence that doesn't require a suspension of belief in the meaning of the word "collusion"...aka a joke to fake news reporters.

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

collusion: Law. a secret understanding between two or more persons to gain something illegally, to defraud another of his or her rights, or to appear as adversaries though in agreement. [end definition]

An UNDERSTANDING. Dotard demonstrated that he understood Russia was helping him when he said "Russia if you're listening". The republican Mueller raised the bar to conspiracy, stating there was no EXPLICIT agreement and Toady Barr let him off the hook for the obstruction of justice. But there is plenty of evidence for both.

Dotard's son took a meeting after reading an email concerning the Russian GOVERNMENT'S support for his father. Paul Manafort handed off internal polling data to a Russian Oligarch. Roger Stone communicated with Julian Assange re the Russian hacked DNC data. Suspension of disbelief is required to believe there wasn't collusion.

Inspector AIPac said...

"SECRET", as opposed to telling 100 news reporters to relay the info to Russia...

Inspector AIPac said...

Paul Manafort handed off internal polling data to a Russian Oligarch.

Okay, there's some "quid"... but where's the "pro quo"?

Julian Assange is a reporter. Again, the SECRET part is missing, along with any "pro quo".

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

I don't know if your Sullivan/Comey story is true or not, but I am absolutely not going to take the word of the "Gateway Pundit". Flynn plead guilty under penalty of perjury. Twice. In exchange for the more serious charges being dropped. I say those charges should be refiled after Biden appoints the AG he wants (I think Glenn Kirschner would be an excellent candidate). btw, I applaud Judge Sullivan for not immediately folding to the Barr DOJ's request to drop the charges.

Flynn lied to cover for Dotard's collusion. "Thank you for your help, Putin. Don't worry about the Obama sanctions, they'll be taken off as soon as Dotard is inaugurated". Flynn needs to receive some serious prison time. Along with Dotard and Toady Barr.

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

The "secret" part is in there because the law assumed nobody would be stupid enough to collude in public. It isn't a qualifier that makes collusion OK if done in public. btw, you say it didn't even happen -- that what Dotard said was "sarcasm". So which is it? Was it sarcasm, or does it not count because it wasn't secret?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

lol! A transcript of Flynn's actual conversation w/ Krysliak was unclassied and released last week. There was nothing improper about their conversation.

As for your 2nd question, the answer is BOTH.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Heres my source. Where's yours backing the allegation?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

lol!

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

The transcript confirms Flynn lied.

Joe Conservative said...

where?

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

From Page 10...

FLYNN: And please make sure that it's uh - the idea is, be - if you - if you have to do something, do something on a reciprocal basis, meaning you know, on a sort of an even basis. ...

He told the FBI he didn't talk about sanctions with Kislyak.

Quote: The declassified documents show that Flynn discussed in detail Russia's response to the Obama administration's sanctions, despite public denials at the time from senior Trump administration officials. Flynn later lied about discussing sanctions to the FBI, leading to his guilty plea secured by former special counsel Robert Mueller's team in 2017... [end quote]

Thersites said...

Sanctions are the only type of actions that could be reciprocal? Who knew? I thought kicking out embassy personnel was also a possible action... or withrawing political support on a foreign policy issue might be another...

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

The reciprocal actions you refer to would have been in response to the Obama administration SANCTIONS. Flynn wouldn't be talking about Russia doing anything reciprocal if there had been no SANCTIONS. Flynn discussed SANCTIONS then lied to the FBI and said he didn't.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Flynn wasn't representing the Obama Administration. And he didn't threaten the Russiasn with future Trump Admin sanctions. Sanctions weren't discussed.

The Prophet Dervish Z Sanders said...

Bullshit.