OK, I get this. It's possible that Sullivan did, in fact, back off from the Amicus Brief gambit, and decided on this perjury gambit instead. I had been having trouble understanding why he dismissed Powell's motion--objecting to Amicus Briefs--as "moot" if it was a simple scheduling matter. This move places Sullivan on firmer ground. If AG Barr has stymied efforts to railroad Flynn on a false "1001" charge, Flynn will find another way to jail Flynn and smear him before the public.
I warned quite a while ago that pleading guilty when you actually believe you're NOT guilty--under oath--is possible perjury and is very inadvisable. No matter what. However, the factual situation in the Flynn case isn't simple. Flynn was being told by his lawyers, basically, that he was guilty under the law as it's interpreted and that he should plead. They urged him strongly to accept the "deal." He had no access to the facts of the case--the recording of his conversation with Kislyak, and was falsely told that the agents supported the Team Mueller position. And Team Mueller was threatening to prosecute Flynn's son unless Flynn pled guilty. Pretty much overnight.
Powell is well up to arguing these facts and IMO has a good chance of winning--on appeal (I assume Flynn has no chance with Sullivan).
In the current circumstances, in which Sullivan turns a blind eye to clear government crimnality and is instead intent on jailing the victim, what Sullivan is doing seems incredibly abusive to me. It's true that you shouldn't plead guilty when you don't think you're guilty, but the real world of human beings--especially for non-lawyers in a high pressure legal environment--is a helluva lot more complicated than that. That's true for many "1001 False Statements" prosecutions--I've written about the iniquity of these prosecutions repeatedly, citing Ruth Bader Ginsburg's views. It's also true for more than a few instances of perjury.
The law is not supposed to be like a rack--on which people who haven't actually committed a real non-process crime and who were investigated on false pretenses, in order to frame them on a process crime, are broken. Nothing could be more obvious than that Sullivan has no interest in this case except to see Flynn in jail, disgraced as a liar and perjurer if he can't be convicted for a crime he didn't commit. All for purely political reasons.
Welcome to the world of Liberalism.
ADDENDUM: I believe this would be Criminal Contempt. That means that Trump could pardon Flynn for the contempt. That, perhaps, is what Sullivan is aiming for--to force Flynn to accept a pardon that will leave him forever smeared as a perjurer.
UPDATE 1: Paul Mirengoff:
Before becoming a judge, Gleeson was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. In that capacity, he worked closely with Andrew Weissman, perhaps the most hardcore Trump hater on Robert Mueller’s defunct team of Trump haters.
Sullivan plainly has it in for Michael Flynn. In addition, he wants to show William Barr who’s the boss.
UPDATE 2: Yeah, weird:
Joel B. Pollak
@joelpollak
The idea that @GenFlynn would be found in criminal contempt for a “lie” in which he a) asked the court to find him guilty and punish him, and b) allowed him to help the government in a major investigation, runs against the interests of liberty, public policy, & plain common sense
8:21 PM · May 13, 2020
Could be just making an extra effort so as to not have any Democrat blowback.
ReplyDeleteIf Judge Sullivan is extremely upset Flynn lied under oath about his plea without taking into account the circumstances, then, yes, the judge wants Flynn in jail no matter what.
How in the world can anyone truly survive in our system anymore?
- TexasDude
Criminal contempt, though, still requires and actual prosecution. Sullivan can jail Flynn on contempt of court, but the first unbiased judge this case comes to will order Flynn released and the contempt charge thus dies.
ReplyDeleteI would fire back with full power on this- accuse the Mueller prosecutors of suborning perjury and extortion, and I would do it in Sullivan's kangeroo court. I think Powell may even get the cooperation in this endeavor of the DoJ at this point.
What makes you think the contempt case wouldn't be tried before Sullivan?
DeleteA finding of criminal contempt is a final judgment. It doesn't "thus die[]."
https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_42
https://www.bafirm.com/publication/federal-contempt-of-court/
I don't know which justice of SCOTUS is in charge here, but Sullivan needs to be recused from this case immediately.
ReplyDeleteMore discovery now by Powell!
ReplyDeleteOnly negative is this could push the case past the election.
I believe that's an element motivating Sullivan. But in the end, either at Appeals or SCOTUS, Flynn will be exonerated, and Sullivan may lose his bench.
Delete"Lots forthcoming on Judge Sullivan's latest moves. Bottom line--he's playing with the calendar. He's going to try to drag this beyond Nov. and hope the Dems win the WH. His order today appointing a 'Friend of the Court' is a joke given the issue before the court. He's stalling."
Deletehttps://twitter.com/shipwreckedcrew/status/1260752929415282689
If I were in involved this would just make me want to play hardball with Sullivan and his family and his friends and his relatives.
ReplyDeleteI get everything that you're saying about the significance of pleading guilty.
ReplyDeleteBut Flynn had been persuaded that he was guilty of a technical crime, or I guess you would say a process crime. As a non-lawyer he was completely dependent on his counsel's recommendation to accept this interpretation and agree to the plea deal.
You're talking about the real world. That's different. This is Sullivan's world, and judges are tyrants in their courtroom.
DeleteA previous theory, I thought the was the doj wanted this dropped so they did not have to show all the deep state dirty laundry?
ReplyDeleteOr has this changed due to what the doj released?
If you want to discuss that you'll have to go to CTH.
Deletehttps://wvinnocenceproject.law.wvu.edu/innocence-project-blog/our-voices/2018/09/24/introducing-the-guilty-plea-problem
ReplyDeleteExoneree Rodney Roberts said, “Innocent people plead guilty, not out of ignorance, but out of fear.”
- TexasDude
I want to repeat what I have opined several times already today. Just to go 'on the record'.
ReplyDelete1. Flynn was innocent. Further discovery will establish this beyond doubt.
2. If Sullivan refuses to accept Flynn's plea or finds Flynn in contempt...and he enters judgment against Flynn and sentences him, Flynn will appeal.
3. Flynn will win in the Court of Appeals and, if he doesn't, he will win in the Supreme Court. Neither a perjury finding by Sullivan nor a 1001 plea will stand in light of a) his factual innocence, b) gross prosecutorial misconduct and c) his own initial counsel's malpractice.
4. The appeals process will allow Powell and Barr to develop the case for prosecutorial misconduct and conspiracy...against the Mueller/Weissmann team and against the Obama White House.
5. Flynn will ultimately be vindicated and Obama will find himself in grave peril.
@ Tex @ Cassander, I'm on board with all that. I was just listening to Will Chamberlain and at a certain point he said something like: What Sullivan's doing that's really obnoxious is, here's a guy who's saying 'I pled guilty because I was coerced' and Sullivan says, 'Fine, we'll slam you because you lied while being coerced.'
DeleteThat's just sick.
to summarize: any person who submits a guilty plea while under duress due to coercive pressure from the executive shall be held in criminal contempt by the judiciary.
DeleteHow did Madison miss this?
Search the constitution using these terms: Heads I win, tails you lose.
Delete“ Prosecutors deserve a “presumption of regularity” — the benefit of the doubt that they are acting honestly and following the rules. But when the facts suggest they have abused their power, that presumption fades. If prosecutors attempt to dismiss a well-founded prosecution for impermissible or corrupt reasons, the people would be ill-served if a court blindly approved their dismissal request. The independence of the court protects us all when executive-branch decisions smack of impropriety; it also protects the judiciary itself from becoming a party to corruption.”
ReplyDelete- Judge Gleeson, May 11, 2020, WaPo
Gleeson is not talking about the well documented prosecutor misconduct prior, but is asserting that the current prosecutors are corrupt and political and that the request to dismiss is corrupt and political.
Yet, Judge Sullivan tasked Gleeson to determine Flynn’s fate?
Sigh. Just Sigh. I am not a lawyer, but this screams wrong.
Oh, I do not believe in coincidences.
- TexasDude
Let's see. He just said:
Delete"The independence of the court protects ... the judiciary itself from becoming a party to corruption."
Please. There's no magic in that. Independence can LEAD to corruption. Why should we believe that an independent judiciary is more immune to corruption by virtue of its independence that either the Legislative or Executive branches, which are also independent. Separate but equal, or some other bit of mythology.
What twaddle.
Sounds like he is referring to Van Grack as he submitted false statements in many of his filings. He also failed to tell Sullivan about the side deal with Flynn's attorneys. I would send Jenson into that courtroom to confront Gleeson. Let him say that to his face.
DeleteRob S
Yeah, Mark, to overstate it a tad, he may as well have said
Delete"The independence of the court all-but *guarantees* ... the judiciary itself *into* becoming a party to corruption."
I wonder how Barr and Trump are going to leverage what Sullivan did to their advantage?
ReplyDeleteThe backers of the fight against Flynn are going to regret what they did. They should have just let the case against Flynn be dismissed. Barr and Trump, are going to make the rubble bounce. And the longer this goes on, the harder it will be for the press to not cover this travesty of justice.
My guess is Trump is going to use this as a cudgel for judicial reform, going after the Black Vote. I see huge opportunities for Trump to position himself as a defender of people's rights, against a corrupt judicial system. Title IX is an associated opportunity for due process reformation, that Devos has done, that the Democrats hate.
My guess is a lot of people are very worried about a two track system of justice, one where you are guilty until proven innocent, and the other where it's almost impossible to get convicted.