A fair person who read the filings of Sidney Powell and then read the outrageous order of Judge Sullivan would reach no other conclusion than that Sullivan is a corrupt, tottering fool. You can read the whole sordid piece here. Sullivan insists that Michael Flynn lied and, because he acted on the advice of incompetent counsel in accepting the initial plea, he has no way out. It is a complete and outrageous travesty. This is the kind of decision making that we used to associate with Soviet kangaroo courts. If this kind of thing persists I would not be surprised to see Americans take up arms to restore and protect their rights.
Michael Flynn has two basic options--stick with his plea and "trust" the judge to go along with sentencing recommendations. In light of what happened to Rick Gates today--prosecutors recommended no jail time but the judge sentenced him to jail anyway, I would not trust Sullivan for anything. The other option is to withdraw the plea and fight it in court. Yes, that can be risky but the facts are on the General's side. A great wrong has been done to him and with the likes of Sidney Powell fighting for him he can prevail.
I would also note that Sullivan took a gratuitous swipe at the Honey Badger and accused her of "plagiarism." Simply another outrage by a Judge who is clearly corrupt and blinded by partisan hatred.
Larry,
Go figure, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan was nominated by Bill Clinton to a seat on the Federal district court.
Here's a gaff from August that includes Sullivan:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/a-federal-judge-in-dc-hit-reply-all-and-now-theres-a-formal-question-about-his-decorum/2019/08/15/551155b4-ba17-11e9-b3b4-2bb69e8c4e39_story.html?arc404=true
Guess that Sullivan is trying to operate in the realm of a Greta Thunberg without a skirt.
Posted by: J | 19 December 2019 at 10:12 AM
Larry,
In retrospect, what can be said about Trump not declassifying anything?
Flynn got railroaded. Rep. Devin Nunes was viciously attacked as a conspiracy theorist and worse for over 2 years. Brennan, Clapper and Comey kept spouting their nonsense in the national media. Mueller ran for two years. None of that would have happened if he declassified the FISA application when Nunes issued his memo on FISA abuse. No "sources & methods" would have been jeopardized. No national security would have been threatened.
It has taken Horowitz IG report to shed some but not all the light. At least it vindicated Nunes. But, why did he to suffer for over 2 years? After all he was a big backer of Trump. And exposed the truth about the election meddling by law enforcement & intelligence agencies and how they colluded with media to create the Russia Collusion hoax.
Is he such a narcissist that he only cared about his skin? At the end for what? He got impeached anyway. He has thrown those who backed him and worked for him under the bus. And has shown that Drain the Swamp was just another campaign slogan and he really didn't mean it. Such a disgrace!
Posted by: blue peacock | 19 December 2019 at 11:24 AM
Why was this man targeted?
https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/upfront/2016/05/pakistan-relationship-double-game-160527124447415.html
He is strongly arguing for the US benefit and security in the video above.
Mehdi Hasan: But three – we're not – but three years ago, let's just be clear for the sake of our viewers. In 2012, your agency was saying, quote: "The Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda in Iraq are the major forces driving the insurgence in Syria." In 2012, the US was helping coordinate arms transfers to those same groups. Why did you not stop that, if you're worried about the rise of quote, unquote, "Islamic extremism"?
Michael Flynn: [TALKING OVER] Yeah, I, I mean, I hate to say it's not my job but that – my job was to ensure that the accuracy of our intelligence that was being presented was as good as it could be, and I will tell you, it goes before 2012. I mean, when we were, when we were in Iraq and we still had decisions to be made before there was a decision to pull out of Iraq in 2011. I mean, it was very clear what we were, what we were going to face.
https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/headtohead/2016/01/transcript-michael-flynn-160104174144334.html
My interpretation is that his hands were tied in stopping the development of ISIS because the policy was in place to overthrow Assad.
“Flynn has always spoken his mind,” the intelligence officer said. “It’s a form of moral courage that he does speak up — and always has throughout his career — when he thinks mistakes are going to be made.” Nonetheless, the path Flynn has chosen is fraught with risk, said the intelligence officer who has worked with him. “It’s a dangerous road to walk,” the officer said. “You want people who have the experience of prosecuting the nation’s wars to pipe up when they think the country is making a wrong turn or a misstep, but you want [the criticism] to be couched in diplomatic and thoughtful language.”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/19/out-of-uniform-and-into-the-political-fray/
recent continuing interview on John Batchelor
https://audioboom.com/posts/7454398-the-russiagate-false-flag-op-of-march-2017-1-of-4-realslokhova
Pretty dirty stuff how it all got started
Posted by: Terence Gore | 19 December 2019 at 12:09 PM
Pleased that you weighed in, and the Sullivan decision will disappoint many, and disgust others. Time and external events seem to be moving in Flynn's favour. Convictions based on the Clinton server, Foundation, DNC election, Russia collusion and Ukraine qpq must be increasingly difficult to win, particularly insofar as investigations of the actors behind these scandals continues. Which is harder to imagine if the Democrats win the presidency.
It's also clear that Sullivan bore considerable animus towards Sidney Powell. Can a defence be too aggressive?
Animus evident to such an extent that one might have wondered if he were actually creating grounds for appeal, wittingly or otherwise. Of course I'm not aware that there is a path of appeal here, or that it will have any value in court should Flynn withdraw his plea.
I have found it odd, incidentally, that Flynn's name has hardly come up in connection with the Horowitz report. Beyond the ambush "defensive" briefings given to Flynn and to Trump. I get the impression that perhaps Flynn is especially feared and / or detested by the national-security state. It's conceivable at this point that he may never get justice.
Posted by: Paul Damascene | 19 December 2019 at 12:31 PM
What did they use against Flynn's son to get him to plead guilty in the beginning.
Sullivan much earlier gave Flynn ample opportunity to reconsider his guilty plea. But Flynn refused. More than once. Flynn is now falling on his own sword. Which does not excuse the very tawdry process getting to this point. But Flynn as a competent adult played his own hand in this outcome.
Can't just blame lousy prior counsel when Flynn was allegedly avoiding legal consequences to be filed against his son. We need to learn more about this attempted "extortion" quid pro quo that motivated Flynn's original guilty plea.
Posted by: Factotum | 19 December 2019 at 12:59 PM
Is it possible that the russiagate scheme/hoax started out of fear that Gen. Flynn, who IC reform interests, would have power in a Trump administration?
Posted by: Pj20 | 19 December 2019 at 01:27 PM
Saw the Honey Badger on Lou Dobbs last night. She seemed disheartened. Can the General's case go to the Supreme Court? These witch hunters have created agonizing situations for many families.
Posted by: Theymustbemorons | 19 December 2019 at 01:42 PM
Flynn's situation is one that should be reported more widely. You are correct in saying that if Sullivan gets his way, we all need to worry.
Posted by: Diana C | 19 December 2019 at 03:35 PM
Trump's campaign promise to "drain the swamp" (attack the government employee union hold on the federal bureauracy) is why the Democrats have spent every waking hour trying to take Trump down - Russiagate and now impeachment.
So Trump's threat to drain the swamp is obviously being taken seriously by the swamp creature - the entrenched fourth branch of government never contemplated by the Founders - the now massive, unelected and unionized federal administrative agencies.
Let us know how to best "drain the swamp" because look what happened just putting the swamp on notice? Give us your suggestions. This is a critical issue - there are no provisions in our entire Constitution to deal with the growing unelected power of the federally unionized swamp.
Posted by: Factotum | 19 December 2019 at 04:40 PM
Factotum
Start with the simple act of declassification of ALL of Spygate. Trump doesn't need anyone. Neither the entrenched bureaucracy or Congress to do that. Just an executive order with his signature detailing the list of documents and communications that are henceforth fully declassified with an order for it to be released to the public within 10 days of the EO under penalty of immediate dismissal. He can confer with Rep. Devin Nunes who can advise him on the list.
Sunshine will do wonders. Allow the American people to see how their federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies actually operate.
He can then start to rid all his Swamp hires. A drastic approach could be to fire the entire top echelons up to 3 layers from every department and agency and have them replaced with folks with zero DC experience and shrink the org chart as well to streamline.
Posted by: blue peacock | 19 December 2019 at 05:58 PM
As Larry Johnson outlined in an earlier thread, Horowitz declined Sen. Grassley's (IIRC) request to look into any Flynn matters because the general's case was still being adjudicated in the courts.
Posted by: akaPatience | 19 December 2019 at 07:03 PM
IMO Flynn should appeal. This judge has shown prejudice in the past, as when he suggested the general was a traitor a year ago! The judge later apologized because HE was wrong about a sequence of events, but the damage was DONE: the MSM gladly trumpeted the remark. The apology? Not so much.
People on other blogs have raised the question of why AG Barr hasn't interceded in this case; why hasn't he forced the disclosures requested by Sidney Powell? If anyone here knows the answer, I'd like to know myself. As it is, I presume there may be no precedent for an AG to get involved in an issue like this, but I'm totally clueless and really have no idea whatsoever. But it would seem to me that since Powell's request is of DOJ attorneys, the AG could be justified in weighing in, at the very least.
Posted by: akaPatience | 19 December 2019 at 07:26 PM
Apologies for the missing verb - "who had IC reform interests"
Posted by: pj20 | 19 December 2019 at 07:27 PM
Factorum,
re: "Trump's campaign promise to "drain the swamp" (attack the government employee union hold on the federal bureauracy)"
Surely the Democrats are after Trump, but with some good reasons, despite a rather obvious anti-Trump direction and some foul playing. But then:
Even when a crook calls at someone else a thief or chronic liar or tax avoider and/or evader - never mind what and who the accuser is - that someone else just may in fact be a thief or chronic liar or tax avoider and/or evader.
Naturally, in that case Giuliani will gallop to rescue (to the extent he can) likely starting to yell his old "Reality Is NOt Reality" (RINOR) tale again, perhaps hoping for some really strong valium.
I propose to see it this way:
What about Trump (and likely Bannon and the various Bannonites) simply wanting to replace the current swamp with
theirhisTump loving or at least tolerating i.e. somewhat Trump loyalown?I recall someone posting here that Trump's policy works, that everything will be fine, he'll be re-elected and after some 150 judges are replaced everything will be wonderful.
Poland (that is Jarosław Kaczyński - head of the PiS, amusingly the party for "Law and Justice") tried the judge replacement thing recently by lowering the retitement age by ten or so years, making that early retirement obligatory by law.
As a result the kicked out judges sued Poland at the EuGH which found that stunt to be utterly and obviously illegal under EU laws (no surprise).
Anyway, if the prognosis for the US with a second Trump presidency comes true, I wish a lot of IMO very likely very needed good luck.
Posted by: confusedponderer | 19 December 2019 at 07:49 PM
Blue, have you ever run a large operation where you fire your entire "upper management". Plus how do you know things are not getting sabotaged much further down the food chain like we saw in the Obama IRS attack on conservative "tea party" groups. Those who know they can't lose their jobs, but are part of the 95% Clinton donors throughout our government "civil service" can do a lot of internal damage.
Sunshining the media will not reconstitute the entire, now highly partisan, civil service - all 20 million of them now on the public payroll. I like where you are trying to go; just want practical suggestions how to get 20 million Clinton supports to become neutral government employees.
Just like hating open borders but have no idea how you deport 20 million illegals prior administrations let in the back door. We all have to grasp what super-size problems we allowed to fester which you cannot hold only one man at the top to solve. But solve them we must, but I suspect with demographics being destiny, they will never be solved.
America will be facing entirely new problems once the new demographics move into more seats of power - like will there be enough paper to print all the money they will need if they also are not allowed to cut down trees and can't use fossil fuel plastics and cyber-security is non-existent no longer allowing made up electronic transfers of wealth.
Posted by: Factotum | 19 December 2019 at 09:17 PM
Blue, have you ever run a large operation where you fire your entire "upper management"
Happens more often than you think when a new CEO is brought in, in turnaround situations. The firm that I work for invests in many so-called "special situations". They are essentially turnarounds. Along with the re-capitalization, a new CEO is brought in. A complete business & management rationalization takes place and a clear narrower focus established. In the majority of the cases, the business is revitalized into a healthy, albeit initially smaller but much more profitable enterprise.
The rationale for firing the entire top echelons is that they have moved up the ranks with a certain culture that caused the failure. That culture has to be changed. You can't do that with the same folks running it. Sure, it is like throwing the baby with the bathwater but if radical transformation is required for survival then there are very few options to try to be extremely precise and surgical. The worker bees who actually make it all happen in most cases become substantially more productive as the previous sclerotic management are taken out.
IMO, this is just not possible in our federal or state governments unless there is a revolution.
However, what Trump can do now through just executive order and declassification, which could be extremely salutary is to expose the machinations of the law enforcement-intelligence-national security state apparatus which, IMO, is the most dangerous element as they operate with unfettered powers and hidden from scrutiny.
Posted by: blue peacock | 19 December 2019 at 11:58 PM
Well, Larry, disregard my comment about Flynn on your new Russia post. Scrolling backwards in time through Col. Lang's blog, I saw that post before I came to this one. Thanks!
Posted by: Seamus Padraig | 20 December 2019 at 06:45 AM
Honey Badger Sidny Powell speaks - in depth in a long interview - must see Topics: Flynn-deep state - Durham and timelines: https://www.redstate.com/slee/2019/12/20/must-listen-gen.-flynns-attorney-sidney-powell-talks-deep-wide-corruption-doj-hopes-durham-investigation-begins-process-exposing
Posted by: Factotum | 20 December 2019 at 02:21 PM
In her interview, Sidney Powell recommends reading "Why The innocent Plead Guilty" often as a direct result of prosecutorial terrorism - in her words. Helps explain why Flynn chose to enter a guilty plea early in his case, and it appears to have nothing with actual guilt but instead government abuse: https://www.aliesq.com/articles/2018/11/6/why-the-innocent-plead-guilty-amp-what-we-should-do-about-it
Posted by: Factotum | 20 December 2019 at 08:01 PM