DC Bar No. 472845 Argued Flynn’s Prosecution Was Legitimate before DC Bar No. 472845 Argued It Wasn’t

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As CNN reported last week, Acting DC US Attorney Timothy Shea filed last week’s motion to dismiss the Flynn prosecution under the bar number of his predecessor, Jesse Liu. That means last week’s filing was filed under the same bar number …

… as a filing Bill Barr’s DOJ submitted under the same bar number on November 1, 2019.

That filing, submitted under the supervision of a Senate-confirmed US Attorney, responded to a half-assed motion to dismiss that Flynn’s lawyers had slipped into a Brady motion. As such, it refuted Flynn’s argument that his prosecution should be dismissed for the same reasons that DOJ adopted last week.

The motion, submitted by Bill Barr’s DOJ, noted that Mike Flynn knew all the things he had invoked last fall in arguing to dismiss his case — including claims he was ambushed in his January 24, 2017 interview — when he pled guilty for a second time on December 18, 2018 and admitted he could never again complain about the circumstances of his interview.

Although the defendant now complains about the pace of that discovery, before December 18, 2018, the defendant was in possession of all of the information on which he now bases his argument that the case should be dismissed due to government misconduct. See Reply at 1-2, 16, 26; Notice of Discovery Correspondence, United States v. Flynn, 17-cr-232 (D.D.C. Oct. 1, 2019) (Doc. 123). Thereafter, on December 18, 2018, the defendant and his counsel affirmed for this Court that they had no concerns that potential Brady material or other relevant material had not been provided to the defendant.

[snip]

For all of the above reasons, it is no surprise that with the same set of facts, the defendant and his prior counsel previously represented to this Court that the circumstances of the interview had no impact on his guilt, or guilty plea. On December 18, 2018, when the Court asked the defendant if he wished to “challenge the circumstances on which you were interviewed by the FBI,” he responded, under oath, “No, Your Honor.” 12/18/2018 Hearing Tr. at 8.10 The Court then asked the defendant if he understood that “by maintaining your guilty plea and continuing with sentencing, you will give up your right forever to challenge the circumstances under which you were interviewed,” to which the defendant answered, “Yes, Your Honor.” Id. And when the Court queried whether the defendant wanted an opportunity to withdraw his plea because one of the interviewing agents had been investigated for misconduct, the defendant stated “I do not, Your Honor.” Id. at 9. His counsel likewise represented to the Court that their client was not “entrapped by the FBI,” and that they did not contend “any misconduct by a member of the FBI raises any degree of doubt that Mr. Flynn intentionally lied to the FBI.” Id. at 11-12.

That motion, submitted by Bill Barr’s DOJ, argued the circumstances of the January 24, 2017 interview were proper. The filing specifically stated that the FBI was engaged in a legitimate investigation. It stated that “agents were not in search of a crime” and specifically denied trying to trap Flynn in a lie.

Nor did law enforcement officials engage in “outrageous” conduct during the criminal investigation and prosecution of the defendant. On January 24, 2017, when the defendant lied in his interview, the FBI was engaged in a legitimate and significant investigation into whether individuals associated with the campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump were coordinating with the Russian government in its activities to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. The defendant was not “ambushed” at the interview, and the interviewing agents certainly did not engage in “outrageous” conduct that undermines the fact that he lied. Reply at 1, 7. The documents produced by the government in discovery show that the FBI asked the defendant for permission to conduct the interview, informed the defendant that the questions would concern his “contacts with the Russian Ambassador to the United States,” interviewed the defendant in his own office, and afforded him multiple opportunities to correct his false statements by revisiting key questions. See, e.g., Memorandum of Andrew McCabe dated January 24, 2017 (Doc. 56-1) (“McCabe Memo”); Strzok 302. Tellingly, the defendant supports his allegation by selectively quoting from documents. For example, the Reply states that, according to the Strzok 302, the agents decided they would not confront the defendant if he did not confirm his statements. See Reply at 8. But the Reply omits the sentence in the Strzok 302 preceding that reference, where DAD Strzok explained that “if Flynn said he did not remember something they knew he said, they would use the exact words Flynn used . . . to try to refresh his recollection.” Reply, Ex. 6 (emphasis added).

The interviewing agents’ handwritten notes and report provide further confirmation that the defendant was not “trap[ped].” Reply at 1. The interviewing agents repeatedly sought to prompt the defendant to provide a truthful response. When the defendant first failed to mention his calls with the Russian Ambassador about the UN Vote and U.S. Sanctions, the agents raised the topics themselves. When the defendant then denied making a request to the Russian Ambassador about the UN Vote, the agents nevertheless asked him if he made any comment to the Russian Ambassador about voting in a particular way. And when the defendant specifically denied talking at all about U.S. Sanctions, the agents nevertheless asked him whether the Russian Ambassador told him that the Russian government had taken the defendant’s request into account. Such conduct demonstrates that the agents were not in search of a crime, but the truth about what had happened and why—which the defendant failed to provide. Had they wanted to “trap[]” the defendant into a false statement charge, they would not have prompted him repeatedly to correct his statements. [My emphasis]

D.C. Bar No. 472845 has already weighed in on whether Mike Flynn’s prosecution was legitimate. D.C. Bar No. 472845 made an aggressive defense of this prosecution little more than six months ago.

Given that Bill Barr’s DOJ already argued this prosecution was proper, given that Bill Barr’s DOJ has provided no evidence any of this is new — on the contrary, Bill Barr’s DOJ has already argued Flynn knew all about this before he pled guilty a second time — Judge Emmet Sullivan might be forgiven for finding the initial argument D.C. Bar No. 472845 made in his court more persuasive than the one D.C. Bar No. 472845 made last week.

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57 replies
  1. Alan says:

    Shea deserves to be and hopefully will be sanctioned by the Court. In the meantime, maybe the Court will drag out the proceedings on the motion to dismiss until at least January 20, 2021.

    • Maureen A Donnelly says:

      my crazy corona dream for the nation is that Judge Sullivan postpones his decision on Flynn until February, 2021. a girl can dream . . .

  3. Charlevene says:

    Another excellent piece, the kind found nowhere else in the media. I visit emptywheel daily, often more than once, and share your work more than I do that of any other source. However, your unique and superlative work is much too limited to the “choir.” I understand that you are an investigative journalist, but wish you’d enter the list and confute the many misrepresentations of the same subject matter you present. I read rightwingnut journalism every day, and see false arguments already swatted down by you. The cause you advance, and that I share, would be well-served by your countering directly an opposition whose work, unfortunately, is more widely circulated than your own. Here are three very recent pieces that contradict directly, albeit feebly and erroneously, what you have written. What the left has failed to do is take on an opposition that too often goes unexamined and unscathed. While it might be outside your normal purview, responding to distortions like the those by shipwreckedcrew would be invaluable to advancing the truths targeted for obfuscation and erasure by an industry that is too seldom countered directly.

    ht tps://www.redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2020/05/09/what-happens-at-lawfareblog-when-ben-wittes%E2%80%99-baby-cannon-explodes-in-his-face/

    ht tps://www.redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2020/05/10/lawfareblog-doubles-down-with-an-actual-legal-author-but-gets-same-results/

    ht tps://www.redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2020/05/11/834832/

    [FYI, links ‘broken’ with a blank space to prevent accidental clickthrough by community members. Users can copy the URL into their browser, remove the blank space if they wish to read those pages which are not vetted by this site. /~Rayne]

    • emptywheel says:

      I do respond to such things on Twitter. But in short:

      1) No one knows specifically what Flynn said, so in fact Red State has no basis to claim Lawfare lied. Relying on WHAT FLYNN SAID in an interview where (everyone agrees) he lied is utterly ridiculous.

      2) The classifications in the Sally Yates 302 make it clear DOJ is still hiding parts of what FLynn said.

      3) Covington HAD seen the 302 when Flynn pled guilty.

      4) I’ve addressed the propriety of the investigation–he’s ignoring 18 USC 951, which the entire public record says was the primary concern.

      5) The response to Litt is mostly nonsense. But it ignores (as did Litt) the investigative steps that stemmed from the interview.

      6) He argues that DOJ didn’t rely on McCord for materiality. As I note here, it relies on the transcripts w/o citing them, in part. The rest of what it relies on are refuted by this argument, and by the import of 18 USC 951 being still active.

      • Charlevene says:

        Thanks so much for your reply. Greatly appreciated. I read your work very carefully, and have noted most of the points you offered in my evaluation of the redstate pieces cited. No doubt you know that Obamagate (sic) is the next stop for the crazy train, and that Barr’s most recent forays have revisionist, more aptly put– faux, history as their ultimate intent. Thanks again for the invaluable service you provide to a nation struggling against the threat of willfully malicious deceit in the service of a wannabe autocracy. The stakes are very high. Please continue to call out the distortions, misrepresentations and outright lies that Billy Barr hopes will become our history. The future depends on work like yours on our present and past.

    • TimH says:

      Charlevene, consider responding yourself on those websites, refuting the arguments, and linking to the pieces here that support your response.

      • Charlevene says:

        Tim H.— Thanks for the advice. Actually, I used to do just as you suggest, frequently, but only once received a substantive reply, and never acknowledgement from the author. Almost always I was called a troll (guess contrarian replies equal trolling) or some variation of communist or libtard. It was like throwing purified water into a sewer. That said, perhaps I will link to refuting pieces such as Marcy’s and engage replies with anything resembling seriousness. Like many others, I suspect, I wish I had a platform from which to speak. Marcy does, although it’s not nearly as visible as it deserves to be, and my hope was that her exceptionally well-informed perspective could be deployed more prominently against the firehose of bullshit that occludes reality and deforms the truth for the willfully deluded and gullible. Honest question: do you do as you advise? If so, on what sites, and are the replies, if any, that you receive make it worth your time and effort?

        • Ollie says:

          Hi Charlevene: I wanted to share w/you that if you do Twitter? Both Marcy and Bmaz have been great folks to follow and as Marcy said? It’s a great way to not only see her/them in action but also I find others to follow as well that are of the enlightened.
          I don’t articulate well but kinder and supportive folks who frequent here cannot be found easily.
          So I also really ‘amen’ the compliments you wrote to Dr. Wheeler…
          Thank you

        • CapeCodFisher says:

          Darn right Marcy’s comments need a wider audience. It infuriates me also to see the misleading right wing offer falsehood after falsehood that has already previously been shown to be false by the writers of this blog. Absolutely insane that we live in a world of obvious deceit. Someone needs to rise up and derail these proponents of the false narrative. I write some comments on right wing sites some times. A good tactic that I use is to claim that I’m a long time republican who can’t stand “whichever right wing crap is the current topic”. Yeah seems to throw off the rednecks.

  4. Rugger9 says:

    While it would seem to be a ticky-tack hit, there is a reason that these rules exist, in order to show to the court that the person paid to be making the arguments is actually competent to argue using the laws of the jurisdiction. Shea’s argument was Ginzu’d into little bits by our professionals here so I won’t hammer that nail again.

    It was interesting to see the op-eds this weekend calling out Barr in print as a liar twisting the authors’ words, just like he did with the Mueller report. So, we see that Judge Sullivan is being asked to make a decision without the relevant transcripts which he ordered the Government to produce some time ago (it was noted in the last post). Judge Sullivan is not stupid, and I posed a question about whether Judge Reggie Walton got these transcripts as part of his Mueller Report review for the Stone sentencing. I’d hope there is a channel to discuss this.

    If the roles were reversed (say for the upcoming Biden show trials) you know darn well that every i would have to be dotted and every t crossed.

  5. flounder says:

    Hence the big emphasis that they have “new” information or fresh eyes on the case. They literally found a few random scraps of paper they could call new, and basically venue shopped for an attorney with fresh eyes so to speak, that would sign off on a reversal (under the wrong Bar No.)

    • Rugger9 says:

      EW staff did a post on that, there was nothing that was actually new here, which I would speculate had something to do with why none of the line attorneys signed it.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      No, Barr is not incompetent. The claim is similar to the MSM’s normalizing claim that Trump is “struggling” to do this or that. He is not trying to do something, he is refusing to do it, and does not care about the consequences. These men are actively aggressive, not passively incompetent.

      In Barr’s case, he doesn’t care about the completeness of a filing, or the correctness of an individual claim or a bar number on a filing. Those are skirmishes. His war is about protecting Trump, any GOP successor to him, and their party from prosecutorial or judicial conduct that threatens them. He’s winning that one. He is delaying a decision on Flynn, specifically. More generally, he is gutting the DoJ, as his contemporaries, such as Pompeo, are gutting their own agencies. He’s also doing oppo research through the special assignments he’s given his USAs, some of which will come out in the inevitable October through January surprises.

      • emptywheel says:

        Also, by doing it in this way, it becomes an exercise of pure power rather than of a policy that might be replicated.

        • madwand says:

          Exactly “an exercise of pure power” and I would add interest as defined by power. He’s doing it this way because he can.

        • timbo says:

          Yep. That’s really what this is about. Let’s hope that E. Sullivan doesn’t fold up under this sort of power play…

      • P J Evans says:

        Barr may be incompetent as a lawyer, but he’s very good at being a RW politician.

        • Rugger9 says:

          I concur with that, which brings us back to why this is being done now instead of months ago. Horowitz’s report was a fig leaf to cover, so what makes this time special? Is it to give the press six months to forget about this? That might be hard to do if Flynn is welcomed back into the WH.

          Barr’s too careful a lawyer to not pay attention to details like this.

        • Savage Librarian says:

          Evil is often arrogant. And both are sometimes tripped up by time, “the magic length of God” as Leonard Cohen called it. Barr, of course, is immensely arrogant in addition to being viciously evil.

        • P J Evans says:

          IANAL, which is why I used the word “may”. He’s certainly competent at being evil.

  7. MattyG says:

    Is this the kind of techincal error that Shay could simply (or is required to) re-submit the motion using his own DC BAR license? Or does Barr’s quest to dismiss kinda-sorta need Grack’s BAR in there to support Barr’s contention that a reversal has conceptual merrit since a heavy is “included” – even if improperly? In other words is Barr just playing games here, and is including Grack a calculated error or really bad judgement?

    Couldn’t Grack ask that the motion be pulled since someone has improperly used his license to certify a motion he had no part in producing? At very least this looks like a “Revise & Resubmit” situation – with grotesque overtones of deceipt and willful error.

    • emptywheel says:

      It is just procedural. But it was Jesse Liu, not Van Grack, whose bar number Shea used.

      • MattyG says:

        Thanks for the correction! But still – the applicant must match the license at very least. And by publicy resubmitting Barr will draw attention to the discrepancy to the error which will raise the issue of improprety, intentions, motive etc. This isn’t like being a digit off on a filing document for a rear deck extension..

        • bmaz says:

          This was stupid beyond belief. But a real problem? No. It will be fine procedurally. The merits of the filing are the real issue, not this stuff.

        • oldoilfieldhand says:

          “The merits of the filing”… Lots of excuses and do-overs for political appointees.
          The Attorney General may or may not be a good lawyer, he is a lousy administrator and leader.
          Having officially reprimanded subordinates who filed inaccurate reports, I reman unimpressed by the vaunted “Rules of Law”.

        • bmaz says:

          That is short sighted. Would you want some poor defense attorney to have such a bullshit fate to where his client couldn’t get the benefit of what he tried to file? I bet not. That runs both ways. The problem is the merits, not some ECF filing garbage.

        • Bay State Librul says:

          My only hope is that Biden is elected then they go after Barr, after Biden’s nominee is confirmed. All this current bullshit will not be resolved until then

  8. The Old Redneck says:

    Being admitted to federal court is a separate thing from being admitted to the bar in your state or in DC. My understanding is that Tim Shea is not admitted in that federal court. If so, there are two possibilities here.

    First, that Shea wasn’t supposed to sign it. If so, it’s easily fixed be refiling it with a lawyer admitted in that court signing it under his or her bar number.

    The second possibility – and this is a lot more intriguing – is that they literally couldn’t get any lawyer in that office admitted in that federal court to sign it. And so they filed it in haste under Shea’s signature block anyway with an incorrect bar number. That is important, because it tells you that: (1) the prosecutors in the trenches would not put touch that motion with a 10-foot pole, and (2) there was some perceived urgency to getting it filed right away regardless.

  9. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Remember when we used to think it unimaginable that a newly elected Republican president would nominate, then refuse to fire a National Security Adviser who was under investigation by the FBI for his allegedly deceptive and compromising dealings with Russia?

    Imagine when we laughed at the idea that that same Republican president would fire, then defend him, and probably pardon and possibly rehire him? We’ve come a long way, baby.

    Given that Trump cares only about himself, imagine what Trump crimes Michael Flynn knows about, and that Bill Barr is helping them both hide.

    • Marinela says:

      So it probably means Bill Barr also knows the stuff that Flynn is being quiet about.

      • madwand says:

        Yep, he’s the current consigliere, and as a fixer he has to know what to fix to fix it.

  10. ThreeDayCondor says:

    Just filed [clearly they read EW]:

    “…The United States hereby files this errata to correct the signature block on the Government’s Motion to Dismiss the Criminal Information Against the Defendant Michael T. Flynn, filed on May 7, 2020. ECF No. 198. After reviewing the filed pleading, government counsel observed that that the D.C. Bar number for United States Attorney Timothy J. Shea was incorrect. Mr. Shea’s correct D.C. Bar number is 437437. The undersigned can aver that the error was not intentional….”

    Hilarous

    • ducktree says:

      ianal: but if Shea is not admitted to that district court the filing is still ripe for rejection by the court, isn’t it?

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        Without more damning facts, it’s a quibble that’s been cured. Sullivan, however, can still reject the motion on substance.

      • The Old Redneck says:

        The filing error won’t matter in the long run. With rare exceptions, courts don’t just gig litigants on technical errors any more. My point was just that the error could be an indication of some internal turmoil.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      These guys never give up; they would be a lesson to professional wrestlers everywhere.

      The “government counsel” filing that pleading says s/he “can aver that the error was not intentional.” S/he tilts the field by calling the act an “error.” In normal usage, “error” means an unintentional act, so there’s a bit of belt and suspenders. Common in legal drafting. So, too, is the presumably routine phrasing, “can aver.” In normal usage, though, there’s a big difference between being able to do something and doing it.

      • vvv says:

        mmmm, “can aver” means “will aver if required to”. It’s Rule 11 otherwise, and maybe contempt. Nobody is going to play those kind of games over ministerial issues.

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          The point is it is future action – am able to or would do in future, “if asked.” Normally, one would expect it to be done in the present, as part of a simple mea culpa to the court over a minor incorrect item on a filing. I agree, it would not normally be a game an attorney would engage in with a federal judge. But since when have Barr and Trump done anything normal?

  11. Craig Nelson says:

    If the goal is to put Flynn behind bars, then is it better to accept the plea to drop the case (for now) or deny the plea, sentence him and then have him pardoned, which presumably gets him off forever? In other words, would accepting Barr’s direction allow the case to be re-opened later (presumably without the guilty plea)?

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      The DoJ has asked Sullivan to dismiss the case “with prejudice” (meaning the Feds could not re-prosecuted Flynn for the same conduct). Sullivan could accept that request, deny it, or dismiss without prejudice. Presumably, Barr would appeal either of the last two to the DC Circuit and Supremes. His goal, in part, is to keep Flynn out of prison without requiring Trump to take responsibility for it by pardoning or commuting his sentence.

      At any point during his presidency, however, Trump would have the authority to issue a pardon. (I don’t know whether he could pro-actively commute a sentence not yet handed down.) Unless Trump loses it completely and fails to commute or pardon him, Flynn is unlikely ever to spend time in prison.

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        Good to know, but since a president can issue a pardon for crimes that were or might have been committed but were not yet charged….

        If Trump is forced to issue a pardon, because he’s leaving office and the courts have not yet ruled in his favor, it might put him between a rock and a hard place. Not that he’d know it. His press conference today suggests he’s losing what little presence of mind he ever had. He’ll have even less left after his election loss.

        Imagine what reporters could do if they stuck together more often to challenge his empty lies. Like, oh, about Obamagate or the whopper that anyone who wants a test can have one.

  12. CD54 says:

    To both EoH and bmaz points above:

    Where is the line re: Conspiracy? Pardons/Commutations/DOJ Fraud. What is the cut-off point vs. ongoing conspiracy, post-election — including viable actions for corrupt purposes (remember Barr at his pretend confirmation hearing)?

    I know Republicans are venal in their asymmetric claims for righteousness, but after the pendulum swings what kinds of politically motivated prosecutions could the next AG pursue with similar fraud as deployed by Barr? (Yeah. I know, “Democrats are the real banana Republicans!” says FOX News.)

    — and none of that walking UP the chain; nuclear right at the top.

    P.S. The kill shot vs. Trump is to take his N.Y. property under eminent domain for affordable public housing, but take it at the TAX VALUATION which Trump claims.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      As tempting as analogies sometimes are, I like to avoid ones that suggest what yours did, regarding seizing Trump’s NYC property. Even “money shot” is an image my mind would refuse to handle. Stormy and the window women in Amsterdam are tougher cookies than I am.

      (If NYS or city ever did what you suggest, a delightful idea, developers would run to Perth Amboy. Come to think of it, that would be good all round.)

  13. harpie says:

    It’s not surprising that both bmaz and Marcy retweeted this:

    The Flynn case isn’t over until the judge says it’s over
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/11/flynn-case-isnt-over-until-judge-says-its-over/
    John Gleeson, David O’Neil and Marshall Miller
    May 11, 2020 at 6:52 p.m. EDT
    [John Gleeson served as a U.S. district judge for the Eastern District of New York and chief of the Criminal Division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in that district. David O’Neil served as the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. Marshall Miller served as the highest-ranking career official in the Criminal Division and as chief of the Criminal Division for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District.]

    • harpie says:

      They argue…as Marcy notes here, DOJ has “argued for and against the Flynn prosecution”:

      The Justice Department’s move to dismiss the prosecution of former national security adviser Michael Flynn does not need to be the end of the case — and it shouldn’t be. The Justice Department has made conflicting statements to the federal judge overseeing the case, Emmet G. Sullivan. He has the authority, the tools and the obligation to assess the credibility of the department’s stated reasons for abruptly reversing course. […]

    • harpie says:

      […] Fortunately, the court has many tools to vindicate the public interest.

      It can require the career prosecutor to explain why he stepped off the case, as another federal judge recently did when the Trump administration attempted to replace a trial team litigating the politicization of the census.

      It can appoint an independent attorney to act as a “friend of the court,” ensuring a full, adversarial inquiry, as the judge in the Flynn case has done in other situations where the department abdicated its prosecutorial role. If necessary, the court can hold hearings to resolve factual discrepancies.

      And the court could compel the department to reveal the one thing it has thus far refused to show — the actual evidence underlying the prosecution. To help Flynn, the department has made public documents it jealously guards in almost every other case, including confidential memos and internal deliberations. But it has balked at disclosing the transcripts of the very conversations with the Russian ambassador that Flynn admitted he lied about when the FBI interviewed him.

      The department once argued that those conversations confirmed Flynn’s guilt. It now claims those conversations were innocuous. By ordering disclosure of the transcripts, the court can empower the American public to judge for itself — and assess why the department is trying to walk away from this important case.

      Flynn’s guilt has already been adjudicated. So if the court finds dismissal would result in a miscarriage of justice, it can deny the motion, refuse to permit withdrawal of the guilty plea and proceed to sentencing.

  14. harpie says:

    Jonathan Kravis
    I left the Justice Department after it made a disastrous mistake. It just happened again.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/11/i-left-justice-department-after-it-made-disastrous-mistake-it-just-happened-again/
    Jonathan Kravis May 11, 2020 at 9:00 a.m.
    [Jonathan Kravis was a federal prosecutor for 10 years.]

    […] As the attorney general knows, those career prosecutors and agents cannot respond. The department prohibits employees from talking to the media about criminal cases without high-level approval. Department lawyers are ethically bound to protect the confidences of their client. Barr’s decision to excuse himself from these obligations and attack his own silenced employees is alarming. It sends an unmistakable message to prosecutors and agents — if the president demands, we will throw you under the bus.

    The dedicated public servants who remain cannot respond publicly to those who claim that the department acted appropriately in these cases. But I can, and I say this. If the department truly acted because of good-faith commitments to legal positions, then

    where is the evidence of those commitments in other cases that do not involve friends of the president?

    Where are the narcotics cases in which the department has filed a sentencing memorandum overruling career prosecutors?

    Where are the other false-statements cases dismissed after a guilty plea?

    There are none. Is that because the only cases in the United States that warranted intervention by department leadership happened to involve friends of the president? Of course not. […]

  15. harpie says:

    Mark Zaid
    https://twitter.com/MarkSZaidEsq/status/1258819402629353478
    2:01 PM · May 8, 2020

    #Mueller needs to break his silence.
    “It’s not just that Bob Mueller should speak out, it’s how can he not speak out” [link]

    [links to]:
    Ukraine Whistleblower’s Lawyer Calls for Mueller to Speak Out About Michael Flynn — and Much More
    https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/ukraine-whistleblowers-lawyer-calls-for-mueller-to-speak-out-about-michael-flynn-and-much-more/
    Matt Nathan 1:42 pm, May 8th, 2020

    “Other than a very bland, highly generalized congressional appearance, former Special Counsel Mueller has remained silent. He stayed silent during impeachment when all his work and conclusions were challenged,” Zaid said in an email.
    “He stayed silent during Roger Stone’s proceedings while his former line prosecutors quit DOJ or resigned from the case in protest. Now DOJ at the highest levels has directly attacked his findings, motives and judgment.”

    Zaid pointed to the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board commenting that Mueller’s reputation now “stands self-besmirched, and the entire Russia collusion probe looks even more illegitimate and political.”

    “Our country is cracking at the seams as our fundamental institutions are being undermined from within,” Zaid added. “The ideological extremists are now successfully portraying themselves as the Rule of Law advocates at the expense of those who once were viewed by both sides as having integrity beyond reproach.”

    “It’s not just that Bob Mueller should speak out, it’s how can he not speak out,” he said. […]

  16. The Old Redneck says:

    Flynn supporters are trying to compare this to the Ted Stevens prosecution. That shoe just doesn’t fit. Stevens always maintained his innocence and insisted on a trial. He was then found guilty by a jury. However, there was serious, and in fact shocking, prosecutorial misconduct which appeared to drive that verdict.
    None of that is true here. Not even Barr has suggested any prosecutorial misconduct. And presumably, nobody recognizes these distinctions better than Judge Sullivan. It’s still a big ask, but one can hope.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      It’s not a big ask for Sullivan. He will do what’s right. The full DC Circuit is likely to do the same. That can’t be said for John Roberts and his majority on the Supremes. The question is whether it gets to them before next January 20th.

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