One Angry American<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Judge Emmet Sullivan of the Federal District Court in the District of Columbia is an angry man. Sullivan, the judge presiding over the Michael Flynn case, was supposed to sentence Flynn as part of a plea bargain agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s office. It was a \u201csweetheart deal;\u201d Flynn pled guilty to one count of lying to FBI agents, the rest of his many (many) potential crimes were wiped away, and he was liable to serve up to six month in jail. The Mueller team recommended zero time based on the amount of cooperation Flynn gave them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In attempting to further mitigate any possible jail sentence, Flynn\u2019s attorneys posited that the General had been \u201cset up\u201d by the FBI during questioning.\u00a0\u00a0They suggested that Flynn was not warned of his right to an attorney, and that the questioning was what Rudy Giuliani would call a \u201cperjury trap\u201d (note:\u00a0\u00a0the way to avoid any perjury trap; don’t lie.)\u00a0\u00a0they also claimed that two of the three FBI personnel that were involved with the\u00a0\u00a0Flynn questioning, Deputy Assistant Director for Counter-Intelligence Peter Strzok and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, were involved in some other improprieties that\u00a0raised questions about their actions.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part of any plea bargain is the defendant accepting responsibility for the offenses. Flynn had done so, pleading guilty to lying to the FBI. But now, his attorneys seemed to be raising questions about the validity of that plea. Judge Sullivan\u2019s primary job in a courtroom is to make sure that justice is served. If Flynn wasn\u2019t guilty, then Sullivan couldn\u2019t allow him to take the plea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So Sullivan swore Flynn in, and placed him under penalty of perjury: if he didn\u2019t tell the truth it could be a five year maximum sentence.\u00a0\u00a0Sullivan asked him if he felt he was \u201cset up\u201d by the FBI.\u00a0\u00a0Flynn said no.\u00a0\u00a0Sullivan asked him if he knew it was against the law to lie to the FBI.\u00a0\u00a0Flynn, at the time National Security Advisor, a three-star general and former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said he did.\u00a0Sullivan asked Flynn if he felt the FBI personnel involved were in some way biased against him.\u00a0\u00a0Flynn said no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Flynn took full responsibility for his lies to the FBI.\u00a0\u00a0He should have; he must have known that the FBI had transcripts of his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.\u00a0\u00a0The phones of Russian officials in the United States are routinely tapped, he would have seen similar transcripts as the DIA director.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0From the transcripts of the FBI interview, we know that the agents quoted verbatim from the conversation.\u00a0\u00a0Inexplicably, Flynn continued to lie about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Judge Sullivan was assured that Flynn was accepting responsibility for his actions. But the Judge had been given access to all of the unredacted information given to him by the Mueller team. He also was made aware of an indictment filed the day before in Alexandria, Virginia, where Flynn was an unindicted co-conspirator. If that indictment was charged to Flynn, he would be subject to years in Federal prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Flynn was a good general gone bad.\u00a0\u00a0He was fired by President Obama from the Defense Intelligence Agency job, then retired from the military.\u00a0\u00a0He immediately moved to monetize his skills and experiences, and soon made deals with the Turkish government.\u00a0\u00a0Ultimately he was acting as an unregistered agent for Turkey, representing their interest in trying to gain custody of Fethullah Gulen, a US resident who was the longtime antagonist of Turkish President Erdogan.\u00a0\u00a0That representation may have continued while he was serving as National Security Advisor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also had contacts with Russia, including making paid speeches in Russia and literally sitting at the right hand of Vladimir Putin.\u00a0\u00a0His Russian connections ultimately led the FBI to him, as one of the four \u201cpersons of interest\u201d in the original investigation of Russian contacts with the Trump campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Judge Sullivan saw all of this, and much more in the unredacted Special Counsel Report. He recognized the obvious: a man who had dedicated himself to service of the United States was now serving other nations while taking one of the highest national security jobs in our government. Sullivan reached a reasonable conclusion: Flynn was an agent of foreign powers while acting as the President\u2019s chief advisor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sullivan was clearly outraged.\u00a0\u00a0He stated that Flynn \u201c\u2026sold his country out.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0He asked if Flynn could have been charged with treason.\u00a0\u00a0He made it very clear, that regardless of the \u201cdeal\u201d made with the Special Counsel, he was seriously considering putting Flynn in prison.\u00a0\u00a0He even intimated that the sentence might be longer than the \u201csentencing guidelines,\u201d and suggested to Flynn that, \u201c\u2026the more you assist the government, the more you help yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Defense accepted a recess, and then asked for a delay in sentencing.\u00a0\u00a0Judge Sullivan pushed the hearing into March.\u00a0\u00a0And, probably, he will then be more convinced of reasons for giving Flynn a deal.\u00a0\u00a0But Sullivan was expressing what many Americans feel:\u00a0\u00a0that this General has disgraced the uniform he served, and abandoned the flag he honored.\u00a0\u00a0Sullivan made it clear that Flynn was getting off far too easy for the crimes he committed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We don\u2019t know what Flynn has told the Mueller Team.\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps his testimony is so significant, that it is worth the \u201ccost\u201d of giving him a pass.\u00a0But Judge Sullivan didn’t think so, and he might not be wrong:\u00a0 Mueller is going to have to really prove it\u2019s worth it, or Flynn\u2019s going to jail.\u00a0\u00a0It’s where he belongs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"