by Debra Heine
Attorney Sidney Powell announced Friday that she has a witness to exculpatory FBI notes (known as a 302) from former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s FBI interview with Peter Strzok and another agent.
“We don’t have the original 302 that the FBI agents created and I’ve now found a witness who says the original 302 did in fact say that Flynn was honest with the agents and did not lie,” Powell, who has been representing Flynn for about six months, told WMAL’s Larry O’Connor.
“So for someone to delete that from the 302 is just beyond outrageous, but that is the only reason I can think of as to why it would have been deep-sixed,” she added.
The unidentified FBI supervisory special agent (SSA) mentioned in Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on FBI and Justice Department surveillance abuses is widely believed to be Joe Pientka, who is still with the Bureau.
The special agent, according to the report, made a series of serious “oversights” in the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into the Trump campaign. And he is the agent who, along with Peter Strzok, interviewed Flynn at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017, fooling the general into thinking that the FBI interview (being conducted without a lawyer present) was just a casual conversation between allies. That conversation would later become the basis for Flynn’s criminal prosecution.
“The Court summarily disposes of Mr. Flynn’s arguments that the FBI conducted an ambush interview for the purpose of trapping him into making false statements and that the government pressured him to enter a guilty plea,” Sullivan wrote in his Dec. 16 decision. “The record proves otherwise.”
Powell told O’Connor that Judge Sullivan did grant a 30-day continuance of the sentencing with the government’s agreement. “Two days ago we filed a motion to withdraw his plea of guilty because of the government’s breach of the plea agreement,” she said.
Because prosecutors from the Special Counsel’s office pressured Flynn to lie in court, Powell said there was no way she would let him do that.
“If he had done what they asked, it would have caused true false statements that we found would have directly contradicted an FBI 302 that they held in their hand from his own lawyer saying at the time that what we’re telling them was correct,” she told O’Connor. “It is beyond outrageous.”
In retaliation, the Justice Department recommend up to six months of prison time for Flynn, alleging he was not fully cooperating or accepting responsibility for his actions.
That “lack of cooperation” is essentially Flynn’s refusal to lie under oath in the government’s case, Powell told O’Connor.
A year ago, the prosecution stated that Flynn had fully cooperated and recommended only probation.
“And then, simply because he would not lie for the government in the case—the Rafiekian case—and testify the way they wanted him to testify despite all the evidence that we showed them that it wasn’t true … they retaliated by naming him as a co-conspirator in that case and causing one problem after another,” the lawyer said.
Before Flynn joined the Trump administration, Bijan Rafiekian and Flynn did lobbying work together as part of the now-dissolved Flynn Intel Group.
Rafiekian was convicted last July, but a federal court in Virginia acquitted him two months later.
Judge Anthony Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia dismissed the indictment against Bijan Rafiekian, citing insufficient evidence to sustain his conviction on either count.
“The evidence was insufficient as a matter of law for the jury to convict Rafiekian on either count,” Judge Trenga wrote in his opinion, adding that a new trial would be warranted “in the interest of justice should the Court’s judgment of acquittal be later vacated or reversed.”
“What’s the deal with General Flynn pleading guilty in the first place, if he didn’t make a false statement?” O’Connor asked. “Why did he plead guilty saying that he did?”
Powell answered that the reason would become “more evident when we complete our next filing,” but for the time being offered a number of reasons, including Flynn’s financial distress, and team Mueller’s threats against his son.
Now I can tell you that a number of things were substantially misrepresented to him, including the fact that there were even any false statements in the FARA filing to begin with.
And of course, the FBI had to rewrite the 302 to create the existence of any false statements in his statements to the agents. He was honest with the agents. But in the process of the litigation before, he was horribly misled, not to mention threatened with the indictment of his son who had a four month old baby, bankrupted already by the legal fees, had to sell his house, the stress, you know, wanting to end it all for his family and completely misled on the factual situation.
O’Connor asked Powell who at the Justice Department was allowing the persecution of Flynn to continue.
“Well, specifically, it’s happening under Jessie Liu, the United States attorney for the District of Columbia,” Powell answered. “It’s her office that is supposedly supervising this conduct.”
“Another big thing that we found is that Mr. Van Grack, the lead prosecutor for the special counsel’s office himself, had made changes to the statement of offense they made Flynn sign and deleted the very language … that they wanted Mr. Flynn to lie about,” Powell added. “It’s just mind-blowing the things we’ve found.”
O’Connor said that there seemed to be a continuous flow of government misconduct going on, not only with the Flynn case, but with the entire Russia collusion hoax, along with the Kavanaugh debacle and the impeachment scam.
“What we are witnessing as Americans right now from Congress to the Justice Department to prosecution teams to the Intelligence Community—it just continues!” he lamented.
“It’s the political weaponization and destruction of the rule of law,” Powell replied. “And it’s aimed at anyone who gets in their way.”
When asked if she has faith in Attorney General William Barr, Powell said, “I really like Attorney General Barr, I think the world of him, but he really needs to hurry up!”
Listen to the full segment:
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Debra Heine is a regular contributor to American Greatness.
Photos “Mike Flynn” by Gage Skidmore and “Sidney Powell” is by Sidney Powell.
