Join Our Members List For Exclusive Reports
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell joins Jan Jekielek of the Epoch Times’ American Thought Leaders to discuss the twists and turns of her client’s Appeal case.
She says perhaps the greatest irony in the story is that she had long held the presiding judge, Emmett Sullivan in high regard for the way he adjudicated the 2008 botched ethics prosecution of former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, in doggedly requiring that the Government produce the Brady evidence (i.e., exculpatory evidence) and holding four federal prosecutors in civil contempt of court for withholding it.
She says, “What I didn’t expect was for Judge Sullivan to deny every single Brady request document we asked for. Every single one, in a 92-page decision that was just raging. I was flabbergasted.”
We have arrived at a terrifying crossroads in US history, when the finest of public servants, like Judge Sullivan can be blackmailed into destroying his own legacy.
Last Wednesday, the US Court of Appeals granted a writ of mandamus that would compel Sullivan to grant the Government’s motion to dismiss the egregious prosecution of Lt. Gen. Flynn. This was after Sullivan had refused to do so last month and had instead, appointed the very biased John Gleeson, a retired Clinton appointee to rebut both the DOJ and Flynn’s defense and to argue that Flynn should be jailed for perjury as part of his prior non-perjury charge. Never mind that it is not within Sullivan’s power to appoint a Special Prosecutor!
Astonishingly – or perhaps not – Sullivan has yet to grant the motion to dismiss Flynn’s case five days later, which like so much that is happening in these times, is utterly unprecedented, particularly as more and more exculpatory evidence is still being declassified, like the January 30, 2017 memo from the DOJ, completely exonerating Flynn of all things “Russia” – while Flynn was still in the White House!
This was withheld from Flynn because his ongoing prosecution would help gin-up the eventual “Obstruction of Justice” prosecution, aka the Impeachment Hoax of President Trump last Fall. Powell says she will take this case to the Supreme Court and do whatever it takes, as she has no doubts as to the innocence of her client.
She says some of the records she obtained in the process of defending Flynn would be relevant to John Durham’s investigation and indeed, they may have come from it, as their lack of markings could indicate that they came from a grand jury subpoena.
Contrary to what many may have thought, she says Flynn is not under a gag order, “But ‘discretion being the better part of valor’ and he is full of valor.
“He has chosen to try to let the system work its way out. That’s what I’ve been determined to see happen; to make the justice system, itself work and to pound on the Department of Justice to do the right thing and restore its own reputation, by moving to dismiss and acknowledge the wrong conduct of its agents and attorneys.
“That is hugely important to restoring people’s confidence in the rule of law, the FBI and the Justice Department. It’s imperative. It’s absolutely imperative that the Department of Justice be returned to the time when it would self-correct.”
She decries the state of today’s DOJ, compared to that of 20 years ago and the ease with which it will now destroy innocent lives. She believes that AG William Barr is “trying very hard to right the ship…It has to be done, if we’re gonna survive it’s a constitutional republic, built on the rule of law.”
Some recommendations Powell has for reform are, “I’d fire any prosecutor that intentionally violated the Brady Rule. I would make it known, immediately that if you know that you have intentionally violated the rule that requires you to produce exculpatory evidence to any defendant or you have criminalized innocent conduct or you have made up a crime, you’ve got two minutes to give me your resignation – and then otherwise, there should be a sporadic, independent file review.
“I’d like to see a Conviction Integrity Review unit set up, to review some of the more egregious cases by people, independent of the line prosecutors, whose goal is to look for errors. The Inspector General’s not enough for that. He doesn’t have the authority needed to do what would need to be done for full file reviews.
“The same needs to be done with respect to the FBI. The Inspector General is doing that on multiple FISA applications – and finding more and more fraudulent FISA applications.
“Every agent who did that should be fired yesterday. We cannot have government officials trusted with the power of the Sovereign of the United States of America lying to federal judges! It’s just – it just can’t happen! It’s completely unacceptable and there have to be immediate repercussions for that.
“And another thing, is the FBI should be required to record all its interviews. It’s a simple enough matter. They all have multiple recording devices on their persons, at all times and people should be told at the beginning that anything they say can be used against them by the FBI or a court, that it’s a federal felony to lie to an FBI agent and then decide whether they want to cooperate with the FBI or not. And if it’s not recorded it should not be used for any purpose…
“The FBI actually made up the false statements that they then charged General Flynn with. They altered the FBI report of the interview, since it wasn’t recorded – and the Government has admitted, in their Motion to Dismiss, that there are statements in the 302 that were not reflected in the notes of either agent – and they used those statements as the ‘basis’ for the False Statement charges.
“And then, there are things in the notes that I couldn’t make sense out of them until I saw the declassified transcripts of the calls. And then I knew that he had told them things about the call that they had not put in the report. So, it ran both ways. They didn’t put in things he did say that were true and they added things to it, claiming he said them, that he did not say. They made up the false statements.”
Powell’s prescription for agents that do this sort of thing is to “Fire them – yesterday – at a minimum. And frankly, what they’ve done is Obstruction of Justice, for which they should be prosecuted.
“The Department of Justice is going to have to start prosecuting agents and lawyers who lie to the Court and make up crimes against innocent people…
“By the Department of Justice, itself acting on it and the FBI acting on it, that will restore public trust. Hiding it is going to make everything worse. Nothing ever got solved by sweeping it under the rug.”
“I has to be done if we are going to survive as a constitutional republic built on the rule of law.”