Remember Lance Ito? He was the judge in the OJ Simpson trial. What if he did what Judge Emmett Sullivan did to the innocent General Michael Flynn?
Let’s talk about it.
What’s This Whole Thing About?
President Trump has previously floated a “full pardon” of Flynn, who pleaded guilty as part of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe to making false statements to FBI agents during his Jan. 24, 2017, interview about his conversations with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, after the Justice Department said in a court filing that they had lost the initial FBI 302 from that interview.
Jan. 24, 2017
Flynn, who at the time was national security adviser to Trump, was approached by a pair of FBI agents for an interview at the White House. They wanted to discuss his communications with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak regarding sanctions in December 2016, which unbeknownst to Flynn had been picked up in wiretapped discussions. This interview would later form the basis for a false-statement charge and guilty plea.
Feb. 13, 2017
Flynn resigned from his White House post. The resignation came as he was accused of misleading Vice President Pence and other senior White House officials about those same communications with Kislyak. Pence, after being briefed by Flynn, had said in television interviews that Flynn did not discuss sanctions with the ambassador.
May 17, 2017
Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to take over the investigation of Russian meddling and possible collusion with Trump associates in the 2016 election.
Dec. 1, 2017
As part of the Mueller investigation, Flynn pleaded guilty to making false statements in his FBI interview regarding his talks with Kislyak. Flynn was charged with lying to federal investigators about whether he had talked to Kislyak about limiting the Russian government’s response to former President Barack Obama’s sanctions for election meddling.
His plea deal involved his full cooperation with investigators in the special counsel’s office.
According to the charging document, the false statements were that:
“On or about Dec. 29, 2016, FLYNN did not ask the Government of Russia’s Ambassador to the United States…to refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day; and FLYNN did not recall the Russian Ambassador subsequently telling him that Russia had chosen to moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of his request.”
“On or about Dec. 22, 2016, FLYNN did not ask the Russian Ambassador to delay the vote on or defeat a pending United Nations Security Council resolution; and that the Russia Ambassador subsequently never described to FLYNN Russia’s response to his request.”
Feb. 1, 2018
Two months after Flynn initially pleaded guilty, Mueller and Flynn’s attorneys filed a “joint status report” to Judge Emmet G. Sullivan requesting more time.
“Due to the status of the special counsel’s investigation, the parties do not believe that this matter is ready to be scheduled for a sentencing hearing at this time,” the filing from Mueller and Flynn attorneys Robert Kelner and Stephen Anthony read. “The parties shall file a joint status report by no later than May, 2018, stating whether the matter should be scheduled for sentencing or whether a deadline should be set for filing another joint status report.”
April-May 2018
A Republican-authored House Intelligence Committee report on the Russia probe was released. The eventually unredacted report said FBI agents did not believe that Flynn intentionally lied about talks with Russia’s ambassador.
“Director [James] Comey testified to the Committee that ‘the agents…discerned no physical indications of deception,” the report said. “They saw nothing that indicated to them that he knew he was lying to them.’”
After several continuance by the Mueller team (about 9 months):
Dec. 4, 2018
Mueller filed a memorandum recommending a lenient sentence, with the possibility of no prison time, for Flynn, stating that he has offered “substantial” help to investigators about “several ongoing investigations.”
“Given the defendant’s substantial assistance and other considerations set forth below, a sentence at the low end of the guideline range, including a sentence that does not impose a term of incarceration—is appropriate and warranted,” the memo said.
Dec. 9, 2018
In a panel appearance with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, former FBI Director Comey was asked how FBI agents ended up at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017, to interview Flynn. Comey’s response provided new details about the circumstances that fueled criticism of the bureau’s conduct:
“I sent them,” Comey said, adding that it was “something I probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with in a more … organized administration.”
The interview was arranged directly with Flynn, which was not typical protocol.
“If the FBI wanted to send agents into the White House itself to interview a senior official, you would work through the White House counsel, and there would be discussions and approvals of who would be there,” Comey said, describing how things normally would work.
Regarding his decision to bypass those steps, he said: “I thought: ‘It’s early enough, let’s just send a couple guys over.’”
Now what is not brought up i this timeline is that Flynn was already bankrupt and the FBI was threatening to throw his son n jail. He lost his house. A man who served for over 30 years has to have his life ruined.
Over nothing.
https://www..com/politics/michael-flynn-prosecution-a-timeline-of-trumps-ex-national-security-advisers-case
Uh..The Judge Did What?
Judge Emmet Sullivan‘s decision to allow third parties to submit amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs in former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s case after the Justice Department moved to dismiss it has struck legal experts as “unusual,” if not “outrageous,” while Flynn’s own counsel argues that it should not be allowed in the first place.
“This is an outrageous decision by a judge who’s now placed himself into that, you know, awful category of an activist who’s willing to set aside rules, set aside ethics, set aside precedent, and just go in a direction because he is politically motivated to do so,” former Utah U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman told “Fox & Friends” Wednesday morning.
Sidney Powell, Mike Flynn’s attorney said:
“A criminal case is a dispute between the United States and a criminal defendant. There is no place for third parties to meddle in the dispute, and certainly not to usurp the role of the government’s counsel,” Powell wrote.
Judge Sullivan himself acknowledged that the local criminal procedure rules do not provide for third parties to file amicus briefs in criminal matters, but he claimed that the local rules governing civil cases — which do allow for amicus briefs — “govern all proceedings in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.”
This is adding salt to the wound.
Flynn was accused of lying to the FBI and he pleaded guilty of it, even though the investigators said he didn’t lie, not once but twice. This is something you’ll hear from MSNBC, CNN and all the other lame-stream media. What they won’t tell you is that he was bankrupt due to attorney’s fees and, second time, the FBI threatened to throw his son in prison. I’d plead guilty too.
Now he has to pay more money to attorneys, taking this to the appellate court to get it overturned.
Amicus briefs are usually only used in civil cases, not criminal cases. Can you imagine Judge Ito dismissing the “Not Guilty” verdict in the OJ Simpson case? Or the Family being allowed to speak of Charlie Manson’s innocence after the Manson trial? That’s what’s happening here.
Judge Sullivan is a Left wing hack appointed by President Clinton. This move is just to ruin General Flynn.
Well, the Obama administration might be in some trouble. Especially Sleepy, Creepy Joe. The DoJ released the list of people who requested the unmasking of General Flynn while the FBI was spying on him.
I’m not going to talk about this today. There’s just too much and I want a day to digest this whole thing. But unmasking an American citizen that was being spied on is illegal and carries a 10 year prison sentence.
Suddenly, this doesn’t seem to be a right wing conspiracy anymore.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/judges-delay-on-resolving-flynn-case-stuns-court-watchers
It Just Gets Worse
From FoxNews:
Sixteen former Watergate prosecutors have notified Emmet Sullivan, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, that they intend to file an “amicus curiae” (“friend of the court”) brief in the case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn after the Department of Justice (DOJ) moved to dismiss the charges against him.
But who are these people trying to destroy a real American hero?
Nick Akerman – Akerman, the first name on the list, is currently a partner at a New York City area law firm, according to his Linkedin account.
But that is not what the former Watergate prosecutor is famous for.
Rather, Akerman is an MSNBC contributor with a long history of criticizing Trump and a Twitter account filled with broadsides against the president.
He Tweeted:
Trump and AG Barr are masters of the “Art of the Coverup” as to Russian interference in the 2016 election — first they ensure Flynn is back in the fold by dismissing his criminal case and now they have let Manafort out of prison for “home confinement.”
Richard Ben-Veniste – Ben-Veniste is a partner at the D.C. law firm Mayer Brown for which he handles civil and white-collar criminal cases.
He does not have the kind of ubiquitous Twitter presence that Akerman has, but was a CNN legal analyst from 2017 to 2019.
In a 2019 appearance on the network, Ben-Veniste called the content of the House of Representatives’ impeachment hearings into Trump’s handling of security funding for Ukraine “extraordinarily disturbing.”
He also saw the Ukraine thing as legitimate.
Ben-Veniste also has a long history working in government outside of the Watergate prosecution. He was the chief counsel for the Democrats in the Senate Whitewater Committee in the 1990s and served on the 9/11 Commission, among several other roles, according to his biography on Mayer Brown’s website.
Ben-Veniste donated $1,000 each to Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., in 2017. He gave Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign $2,700.
Richard J. Davis – Davis has donated thousands of dollars to Democrats since 2019, including $2,800 to Joe Biden in April 2019.
Carl B. Feldbaum – Feldbaum is currently on the board of directors for BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH), a health-oriented nonprofit. Besides his Watergate service, Feldbaum was previously the chief of staff for late Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., according to his BVGH bio, and wrote the book “Looking the Tiger in the Eye: Confronting the Nuclear Threat.”
Feldbaum gave $2,800 to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in January, $100 to the Democratic National Committee in 2018, and donated to Obama’s campaign on multiple occasions.
George T. Frampton, Jr. – Frampton is the founder and CEO of the environmental nonprofit Partnership for Responsible Growth. Frampton also served in several roles within the Clinton administration, specifically as the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and as the deputy director and chief of staff for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s probe of the nuclear incident on Three Mile Island, according to his bio on the Partnership for Responsible Growth website.
Frampton has donated thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates since 2018, including $150 to Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., in 2020 and $250 to Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., in 2019.
Kenneth S.Geller –
He is also the father of Politico reporter Eric Geller and co-wrote a 2019 op-ed in the Washington Post, along with 16 other Watergate prosecutors, advocating for Trump’s impeachment.
Geller donated $200 to Joe Biden in March of this year and $100 to Biden in April of last year.
Gerald Goldman – Goldman, according to his byline on a 2018 opinion piece for NBC News, served as a volunteer attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental organization that has been sharply critical of President Trump. He is also a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice William Brennan.
Jill Wine-Banks – She Tweeted: Meanwhile, he’s trying to undermine DOJ, FBI and our rule of law and justice by having Barr dismiss Flynn charges after guilty plea and lowering Stone sentencing recommendation. Dangerous. If reelected, nothing will stop him.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/the-former-watergate-prosecutors-who-are-they
Not a Conspiracy Any More
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2020-05-13%20ODNI%20to%20CEG%20RHJ%20%28Unmasking%29.pdf
https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-list-of-obama-officials-involved-in-unmasking-michael-flynn-revealed-the-list-includes-joe-biden
https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-requested-unmasking-flynn-on-same-day-that-flynns-name-was-released-to-media-according-to-declassified-docs