Federal prosecutors seek to delay Michael Flynn’s sentencing date
Michael Flynn moves to withdraw his guilty plea
Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn seeks to formally withdraw his guilty plea, saying federal prosecutors breached their deal with him; insight from Michael Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell.
Federal prosecutors are looking to move back the sentencing date for Michael Flynn after President Trump’s former national security adviser withdrew his plea in December for lying to the FBI.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington did not specifically call for a postponement of Flynn’s Feb. 27 sentencing hearing in its most recent filing, but it did propose delaying a number of approaching deadlines that would ultimately make his sentencing unlikely.
Prosecutors argue in the new filing that Flynn’s former attorneys should testify after he claimed to have received ineffective assistance from them. Flynn had previously hired the premier D.C. law firm, Covington & Burling. Federal lawyers also want Judge Emmet Sullivan to order that Flynn has waived his attorney-client privileges in his communications with Covington & Burling.
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“The government requests that the Court suspend the current briefing schedule concerning the defendant’s [motion] until such time as the government has been able to confer with Covington regarding the information it seeks,” prosecutors wrote. “While Covington has indicated a willingness to comply with this request, it has understandably declined to do so in the absence of a Court order confirming the waiver of attorney-client privilege.”
Flynn in January moved to withdraw his guilty plea for lying to the FBI in the Russia probe, citing «bad faith» by the government. That court filing came just days after the Justice Department reversed course to recommend up to six months of prison time in his case, alleging he was not fully cooperating or accepting responsibility for his actions.
«The prosecution has shown abject bad faith in pure retaliation against Mr. Flynn since he retained new counsel,» Flynn’s attorneys wrote in the filing. «This can only be because with new, unconflicted counsel, Mr. Flynn refused to lie for the prosecution.»
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The filing continued: «Justice is not a game, and there should be no room for such gamesmanship in the Department of Justice.»
Flynn’s case stemmed from a 2017 FBI interview, in which he was asked about his conversations with former Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to making false statements regarding those conversations during his interview, as part of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Judge Sullivan in December rejected claims from Flynn’s lawyers that he was pressured to plead guilty to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with the Russian diplomat.
