Crime

Did Michael Flynn Just Blow Up His Sweetheart Plea Deal Over A Piddling FARA Violation?

Never get high on your own supply!

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Gen. Michael Flynn (Photo by the Defense Department via Wikimedia)

When Michael Flynn fired his old lawyers last month and replaced them with Sidney Powell, a rabid Fox News personality who published a book on the Deep State cabal hellbent on taking out Donald Trump, we knew sh*t was about to get weird.

And Ms. Powell does not disappoint! Yesterday, her exciting new strategy was revealed in a set of filings unsealed in the EDVA. Surprise, the real villain is … Flynn’s own lawyers at Covington & Burling who tricked the poor, innocent General into falsely admitting that he’d violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) by failing to disclose his lobbying work for the Turkish government.

It’s always the ones you least expect!

Flynn is — or was — the star witness in the government’s prosecution of  Bijan Rafiekian, AKA Bijan Kian, Flynn’s colleague at the Flynn Intel Group. Together, they lobbied to turn the U.S. government against Turkish cleric Fethullah-Gülen. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is convinced that Gülen, a reclusive 75-year-old who lives in the Poconos and runs a network of charter schools, was responsible for a coup against him in Turkey in 2016.

Flynn and his associates were paid $530,000 during the 2016 election campaign to lobby the American government to extradite Gülen to Turkey, a cunning plan executed with the help of noted “experts” on Islam, like Sebastian Gorka, who were willing to argue with a straight face that Gülen’s ethical modernist version of Islam is exactly the same as both the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood and Iran’s Shiite Ayatollah Khomenei.

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In November of 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that, during the presidential transition, at the same time Flynn was receiving classified briefings in preparation for his role as National Security Advisor, Flynn and his nitwit son were negotiating a fee of up to $15 million to get Gülen into the hands of Turkish authorities by any means necessary.

The discussions allegedly involved the possibility of transporting Mr. Gulen on a private jet to the Turkish prison island of Imrali, according to one of the people who has spoken to the FBI.

The guy was willing to black helicopter a legal U.S. resident out of the country and into the hands of the Turkish government, and he’s pissed about having to admit he violated FARA?

Yes, in fact, now that Sidney Powell is on the case, he is. Because, despite having admitted to prosecutors he did, in fact, know that he was working on behalf of the Turkish government, his new story is that he actually believed that Inovo, the Dutch cutout firm which “hired” him, was the real client. And hocus pocus, there goes his mens rea for violating the FARA.

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Prosecutors have been adamant Mr. Flynn testify that he authorized filing the FARA form knowing and contending that it contain false statements. Mr. Flynn cannot give that testimony because it is not true.

Sure, it might have seemed like Flynn was admitting to a FARA violation all those times he told prosecutors that he knew he was working for the Turkish government. But “with the benefit of hindsight,” he realizes now that he always believed in his heart that some random Dutch corporation was just fixated on snatching up a hermit imam from the Poconos and locking him in a Turkish prison. And now that Flynn’s given it some more thought, he remembered that it was all his lawyers’ fault. Also Obama’s Deep State National Security Division goons were in on it.

Why would Powell blow up Flynn’s carefully negotiated plea agreement over a defective FARA filing which her client isn’t even being charged for? Unclear!

Needless to say, the government was not amused. Despite Ms. Powell’s dogged insistence that her client is still cooperating, prosecutors have now ditched plans to call Flynn to testify against his former colleague, filing a Notice of Correction to the Record on July 3, reclassifying Flynn as a co-conspirator and announcing their plan to introduce his prior statements at trial, rather than calling him to testify.

Rafiekian’s lawyers at Akin Gump immediately objected, rightly pointing out that government is now basing their case on the prior statements of witness whom they themselves don’t find credible enough to put on the stand.

And Judge Emmet Sullivan, who already postponed Flynn’s sentencing and sent him back to cooperate a whole lot more in the Rafiekian case, issued a minute order demanding to be told what the hell is going on right now.

He sounds a little mad.

The government’s brief yesterday strongly suggests that they consider Flynn in breach of his plea agreement.

At this time the government cannot speculate on how specifically the aforementioned records will impact the government’s sentencing position in the proceedings before this Court. Although the records raise numerous issues, the Rafiekian trial may still impact the government’s position.

God only knows what Powell’s going to drop in her response. But if she’s betting that Flynn can blow up his plea deal because he’s going to get pardoned by Donald Trump anyway, well … relying on a guy who went broke running a casino may be a risky bet.

US v. Rafiekian, No. 1-18-cr-457 (E.D.Va July 9, 2019) [Order and Unsealed Documents]
USA v. FLYNN, No. 1:17-cr-00232-1 (D.D.C. Jul 10, 2019) [Response to July 9 Minute Order]
Mueller Probes Flynn’s Role in Alleged Plan to Deliver Cleric to Turkey [WSJ]

Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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