Prosecutors Dodge Michael Flynn’s Best Arguments, Attempt To Hide Evidence

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The Federalist

Two weeks ago, in addition to filing a supplemental motion to withdraw the guilty plea Michael Flynn had entered on December 1, 2017, Flynn attorney Sidney Powell filed a second motion seeking dismissal of the charge against President Trump’s short-tenured national security advisor, based on egregious government misconduct and in the interest of justice. Yesterday, the government responded to Flynn’s motion to dismiss based on prosecutorial misconduct, but failed to address two of the retired general’s strongest arguments.

In the Motion to Dismiss for Egregious Government Misconduct and in the Interest of Justice, Powell highlighted the evidence of misconduct revealed in the then just-released inspector general’s report on FISA abuse. While Powell hit many parts of the report, two aspects of it proved especially relevant to Flynn’s claims of government misconduct.

First, as Powell stressed, the IG report detailed Supervisory Special Agent 1’s (SSA 1’s) supervisory role in filing the four FISA applications for federal surveillance of Trump campaign associate Carter Page. Those applications, the IG report concluded, included more than 20 significant misrepresentations and omissions.

Ignoring the Court’s Order

SSA 1, who is broadly reported to be Joe Pientka, was also one of the two FBI agents—the other being the disgraced Peter Strzok—who interviewed Flynn on January 24, 2017, about his telephone calls with the Russian ambassador. Yet federal prosecutors failed to provide Powell details of SSA 1’s misconduct, or oversight of misconduct, until December 9, 2019, when IG Michael Horowitz released the report on FISA abuse.

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DOJ Assigns U.S. Attorney to Review FBI’s Ambush Interview of General Flynn

Attorney General William Barr has reportedly assigned a prosecutor to review the criminal case against General Michael Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser.

Barr tapped U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, Jeffrey Jensen to look into the circumstances surrounding Flynn’s FBI interview, the people familiar with the inquiry said. The inquiry began this past month, the officials said.