The attorney for retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn says the Justice Department has provided “stunning” new evidence that proves the former Trump national security officer was “framed” by FBI agents.
Attorney Sidney Powell filed a legal notice Friday night in U.S. District Court as an addendum to her pending motion that the 2017 perjury conviction should be overturned and the entire case dismissed.
“This afternoon, the government produced to Mr. Flynn stunning Brady evidence that proves Mr. Flynn’s allegations of having been deliberately set up and framed by corrupt agents at the top of the FBI,” Ms. Powell said.
The new evidence came from U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri Jeffrey Jensen, whom Attorney General William Barr named in January to review the prosecution.
The Flynn prosecution led by special counsel Robert Mueller was under legal order to turn over any exculpatory, or Brady, material to Ms. Powell. She had filed a series of motions listing denied Brady evidence.
But Judge Emmet Sullivan so far has sided with the prosecution and said none of Ms. Powell’s document requests were relevant or they didn’t exist. Prosecutors deny any wrongdoing.
Now Mr. Jensen has apparently unearthed new evidence that remains under seal.
“Since August 2016 at the latest, partisan FBI and DOJ leaders conspired to destroy Mr. Flynn,” Ms. Powell said. “These documents show in their own handwriting and emails that they intended either to create an offense they could prosecute or at least get him fired.”
Ms. Powell said she has found further evidence that the Mueller prosecution made a side deal not to prosecute Michael G. Flynn, his son, as a part of the father’s plea agreement, but required that it remain secret. The deal was worked out with his previous attorneys, Covington and Burling. The firm has turned over to the Justice Department hundreds of pages of text messages and documents from its Flynn case file not yet made public.
Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI team set up to probe Russian election interference and the Trump campaign, picked Flynn in August 2016 as one of four Trump associates to investigate. Flynn rose to become the military’s top intelligence officer as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and had what his legal team says were approved contacts with Russian government officials.
The agents, led by Peter Strzok, had no evidence he had conspired with the Kremlin.
In January 2017, in his first days as White House National security adviser, Mr. Strzok and another agent paid him a visit. Unknown to Flynn, the FBI suspected him of violating the 1799 Logan Act in a phone call with the Russian ambassador during the transition.
Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to lying to agents when he denied discussing new U.S. sanctions from the Obama White House and how Russian should respond.
The Justice Department later concluded there was no Logan Act violation and the FBI never found evidence of a Flynn-Russian conspiracy. The prosecution threatened his son over the issue of foreign agent registration related to their consulting firm.
Flynn retained Ms. Powell and has a pending request to withdraw his guilty plea.
Prosector Timothy J. Shea informed Ms. Powell Friday afternoon of Mr. Jensen’s discoveries.
“The enclosed documents were obtained and analyzed by USA EDMO in March and April 2020 and are provided to you as a result of this ongoing review,” Mr. Shea said. “Additional documents may be forthcoming.”
