‘Pure retaliation': Gen. Flynn's new attorney blasts government

FPI / January 15, 2020

Michael Flynn on Tuesday filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea as part of a plea deal in the Russia investigation, according to his lawyer Sidney Powell.

Powell tweeted: “We just filed a Motion to Withdraw the plea of @GenFlynn because the government acted in bad faith, with vindictiveness, and breached the plea agreement pursuant to which he has cooperated fully at great personal expense.”

"The prosecution has shown abject bad faith in pure retaliation against Mr. Flynn since he retained new counsel," Flynn’s attorneys wrote in the filing. "This can only be because with new, unconflicted counsel, Mr. Flynn refused to lie for the prosecution."

The filing continued: "Justice is not a game, and there should be no room for such gamesmanship in the Department of Justice."

The filing came just days after the Department of Justice reversed course to recommend up to six months of prison time for Flynn, alleging he was not fully cooperating or accepting responsibility for his actions.

Flynn, who had pled guilty to making a false statement to the FBI, signed a plea agreement in November 2017 with the government that, “so long as Gen. Flynn met the terms of cooperation set forth in the plea—which required TRUTHFUL testimony — the government would file a departure motion with the court,” said Powell in a statement to investigative reporter Sara Carter.

Powell also requested “a continuance of the sentencing date set for Jan. 28, 2020, for thirty days or until Feb. 27, 2020, or such other subsequent day that is convenient to the Court and counsel, and a corresponding extension of time to file any supplemental sentencing memorandum (from Jan. 22, 2020, to Feb. 21, 2020).”

"They've been abusing their power for the last year in spades, Sean," Powell told Fox News's Sean Hannity on Tuesday. "The reason this all came to this is because they tried to get him to lie in the prosecution of United States vs. [Bijan] Rafiekian — his former business partner — and with new counsel standing by his side, of course, there was no way I was going to let him do that and he didn't want to do that."

Powell said she and Flynn's other legal representatives had presented prosecutors with evidence "for hours showing them all kinds of different things that supported the fact that he was telling the truth. Instead they doubled down, came against him, tried designating him a co-conspirator, even though they had told the judge in the Eastern District [of Virginia] that he was not. They never thought he was."

"It's just been one atrocity after another," said Powell, who added that the government's recent sentencing memorandum appeared to be "full of lies and distortions."

Powell also said in a statement sent to OANN’s Jack Posobiec: “Gen. Flynn is innocent of all charges, the government’s allegations are false, and evidence the government released only recently needs to be reviewed and addressed. Mr. Flynn was always truthful, and future filings will make that clear. Gen. Flynn has been targeted by vindictive and unprincipled prosecutors.”

Powell said that Flynn upheld his end of the plea deal in being truthful, but the government did not uphold its end and tried to coerce Flynn to lie.

“When the government breaches its agreement with a defendant, counsel is obligated to seek the appropriate remedy — here, withdrawal of his plea,” Powell said.

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