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Michael Flynn Seeks to Withdraw Guilty Plea
Michael Flynn at the 2016 GOP Convention
Photo credit: mark reinstein / Shutterstock.com
Tuesday afternoon, Michael Flynn filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea “because of the government’s bad faith, vindictiveness, and breach of the plea agreement.” The motion, filed by Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, also alleges the lead DOJ lawyer “knowingly sought to induce false statements from Flynn.”
As has been discussed in prior posts, this motion was expected because Flynn has no more cards to play before scheduled sentencing at the end of the month. He is in a difficult procedural situation since he twice admitted his guilt in open court even as the judge invited him to recant, and the most recent defense ploy, seeking additional government disclosure but not withdrawing the plea, seems to have antagonized the Court. It is at the judge’s discretion whether to grant the motion. In the event he does not it should become an appealable issue.
The full motion can be found here. I’ve not yet read it all.
Published in General
Should be fun to watch going forward.
Does he have the option of an affidavit under 28 U.S. Code § 144. “Bias or prejudice of judge” to force recusal?
Probably the right move. I hope he can do better than “knowingly” inducing false statements. Otherwise known as a perjury trap. You give your answers truthfully and you take your chances.
Don’t know. On what grounds?
Flynn should just go, dump on Trump and get his life back.
Flynn played this poorly from the start. He was too quick to buckle and gave away all his leverage. He should have found unbiased legal representation from the start and used his public profile to raise money. I still can’t tell if Flynn realizes that people in Washington DC are out to get him and won’t play fair.
Two items of evidence of irrational bias are the prior rant about treason and the more recent and also legally erroneous rant about Sidney Powell plagiarizing.
Would “abuse of discretion” be the standard of review on appeal? That’s a really tough standard for an appellant to face.
I don’t know too much about this, but I have heard they threatened to prosecute his family members and we’re sending him to the poorhouse. They probably promised to “go easy” on him if he pled-out. If this is true, and I absolutely wouldn’t put it past them, he just chose the wrong option out of two very bad options presented. He may have been snookered by his own legal team in some way as well. I can’t blame him, and I absolutely despise the argument that he should have been smarter. It’s akin to you should have gotten a better burglar alarm or you should have been carrying a better weapon. in this case, even worse because poor Flynn actually TRUSTED people we are all supposed to trust. Silly him!
The prosecutors in this case should be fired. I will laugh if anything bad happens to them, and if I were in a position to save their lives, I would let them die.
Can’t Barr order them to hand over the discovery?
I have basic procedural questions about the state of the case: having entered a plea, if the judge rejects the request to withdraw the plea, is the defendant eligible to appeal the judge’s sentence when rendered? If the withdrawal is accepted, does the case then go back to a trial posture? Same cast of characters- judge and prosecutors? If the case, after sentencing, is eligible for appeal, what’s the venue?
It seems that many suggest that the next step (after inevitable sentencing) is a pardon, but it also seems that there should be more procedural things available. Help from those who know, please……
Unless Durham unveils a bombshell soon, I think Flynn is in a tough spot. The DOJ is doubling down and will fight the release and introduction into evidence of any additional evidence of FBI/DOJ wrongdoing up to the point of criminal contempt. Never, ever underestimate the combined inertial forces of careerism and institutional arrogance when facing federal prosecutors.
His ideal path is new evidence of a deliberate effort to set him up leading to a Presidential pardon or USAG dismissal. Otherwise, he may well get convicted and hope to have his sentence commuted (a la Scotter Libby).
I have never seen my own attitude toward these jackboot thugs put in more fitting words–thank you! Starting with reading Sidney Powell’s incredible book Licensed to Lie and then trying to carefully follow the Byzantine tortures these cretins have imposed on a man who gave 33 years of his life to his Nation, I had thought I had run out of ways to express the rage I felt for them, but you have “shown me the way” to stating just how I feel about them. They are, quite simply, despicable [followed by many words the C of C will not allow] and, as a person who practice law (actual law, not just on billboards and TV sets) for over 10 decades, there really are no words to describe the level of disgrace they represent to an already-beleaguered profession.
Unless Durham unveils a bombshell soon, I think Flynn is in a tough spot. The DOJ is doubling down and will fight the release and introduction into evidence of any additional evidence of FBI/DOJ wrongdoing up to the point of criminal contempt. Never, ever underestimate the combined inertial forces of careerism and institutional arrogance when facing federal prosecutors.
Only a person with an almost bottomless personal fortune can possibly keep up with the money these thugs can spend once they decide they will ruin your life and clearly Gen. Flynn had to finally give up after having his own son threatened with prosecution if he did not plead and also after having to sell the family home to pay fees to the previous attorneys– who got paid millions for continuing to represent him after it was clear to everyone that they were hopelessly conflicted. True story– a fellow attorney told of meeting with a US Attorney in behalf of a client who, as I recall from many years ago, was a very small businessman with very limited resources, and the Federal prosecutor told the attorney that if the client did not plead guilty they would bankrupt his business and ruin his family. Again, a true story. There is no limit to the extent of the damage they can do to an ordinary citizen, which is why I took the theme of Kafka for one of my previous posts on this entire sordid affair, The Kafkaesque Persecution of Gen. Flynn. Once they decide to break you, they will, just as night follows day, break you. But, you say, “It Can’t Happen Here” — ask Gen Flynn.
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They agreed not to pursue charges against him for being an unregistered foreign agent of Turkey, so there was a carrot in that regard. Not sure what will happen to that now or if it’s just old news.
Latest:
https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2020/04/25/flynn-lawyer-files-new-motion-prosecutor-made-side-deal-with-flynns-now-fired-legal-team-to-force-guilty-plea/
https://www.scribd.com/document/458158482/SUPPLEMENT-TO-MR-FLYNN-S-MOTION-TO-DISMISS-FOR-EGREGIOUS-GOVERNMENT-MISCONDUCT