Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who has yet to produce evidence of Trump campaign collusion with Russia, has turned over all of the evidence regarding Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to a federal judge, according to a report.
Investigative journalist Sara Carter reported two of her sources said Mueller’s office complied with a federal judge’s order regarding the former national security adviser.
Flynn pleaded guilty late last year to one count of lying to the FBI, even though former FBI Director James Comey stated the agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe he was lying about a conversation with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December 2016.
However, the judge who was presiding over the case, Rudolph Contreras, suddenly was removed, and the new judge, Emmet Sullivan, ordered the material delivered from Mueller to Flynn’s lawyers and the court.
Sullivan had said: “The government is further directed to produce all discoverable evidence in a readily usable form. For example, the government must produce documents as they are kept in the usual course of business or must organize and label them clearly.”
Carter wrote that the “implications that possible exculpatory evidence was withheld by Mueller’s office would be a significant development for Flynn.”
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy speculated in a National Review column that the judge might have been worried that favorable evidence was being withheld by Mueller.
Carter reported: “Contreras’ recusal raised suspicion among lawmakers that have been investigating the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation for the past year. Last week, however, congressional investigators with the House Oversight Committee discovered a series of text messages between embattled FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and his paramour FBI attorney Lisa Page revealing that Contreras and Strzok were close friends, as previously reported. Strzok was also one of two FBI agents who had originally interviewed Flynn.”
Carter said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told her, “It wasn’t a definitive answer but certainly raises significant questions.”
In one message, Page told Strzok: “Rudy is on the FISC! Did you know that? Just appointed two months ago.”
Carter said that at that point, the pair continues to discuss other issues but comes back to Contreras.
Strzok replied: “I did. We talked about it before and after. I need to get together with him.”
Later, Strzok appears to return to his discussion about Contreras.
Strzok, while leading the FBI’s investigation of alleged Trump collusion with Russia, was removed from the office of special counsel and demoted by the FBI when tens of thousands of text messages revealed he his fierce opposition to Trump.
Significantly, Carter reported, the judge’s order for Mueller to turn over documentation came after the guilty plea, and the judge said even that if Mueller thought something wasn’t “material,” it had to be included, as Sullivan would be making those decisions.
“It’s not certain what Flynn’s next steps will be but one option being discussed by attorneys, pundits and supporters is that he withdraw his guilty plea before sentencing,” Carter reported.
In February, the Washington Examiner’s Byron York pointed out the new judge in the Flynn case, Sullivan, ruled in 2009 the Justice Department had improperly withheld exculpatory evidence in its case against Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska.
Stevens was convicted of corruption in October 2008, which caused him to lose his bid for re-election, and in 2009 the DOJ dropped the case.
York recalled that Sullivan “ripped into the Stevens prosecutors with an anger rarely seen on the bench.”
“Sullivan was furious that the federal government had repeatedly withheld evidence from the Stevens defense and has been known ever since as a justice who is a stickler for making sure defendants are allowed access to all the evidence they are entitled to.”
Now Sullivan is on the Flynn case and, acting on his own, he ordered the office of special counsel Mueller “to produce to [Flynn] in a timely manner – including during plea negotiations – any evidence in its possession that is favorable to defendant and material either to defendant’s guilt or punishment.”
Flynn’s alleged lie during questioning by the FBI is a process crime and sheds no light on the underlying Democratic claims that the Russians colluded with the Trump campaign.
WND reported the media jumped on a statement on Trump’s Twitter account that the president was aware that Flynn had lied to the FBI regarding a conversation with Russian Ambassador Kislyak.
But that Twitter message came from Trump’s attorney John Dowd, not the president.
McCarthy argued that that crucial point was being ignored.
He also pointed out there was reporting at the time that the FBI had determined Flynn had told the truth about his conversations, and “to the extent that there may have been any discrepancies, it was because of honest confusion rather than criminality.”
In an analysis on Law and Crime released Wednesday, Robert Barnes wrote that, technically, Mueller’s investigation into anything but the alleged collusion should be shut down immediately.
That’s because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself only from that issue, and so he would still have authority to act on any issue unrelated to the alleged collusion.
“Paul Manafort’s legal team brought a motion to dismiss on Tuesday, noting that Rosenstein could not appoint Mueller to any investigation outside the scope of the 2016 campaign since Sessions did not recuse himself for anything outside the campaign. I agree with this take on Mueller’s authority. If we follow that argument that would mean Sessions himself as exclusive authority to appoint a special counsel for non-collusion charges, and Sessions has taken no such action.”
Barnes continued: “Sessions himself should make that clear to Mueller, rather than await court resolution. Doing so would remove three of the four areas of inquiry from Mueller’s requested interview with President Trump.”
