Powell is a veteran DoJ whistleblower, and Barr knows it
(TNS) When President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, retained the services of former federal prosecutor and Justice Department whistleblower Sidney Powell, we were encouraged that he would finally get some decent legal representation.
By any measure, adding Powell to lead his legal team has paid off well.
Not only has she managed to convince a federal court to doubt the veracity of his Robert Mueller-inspired conviction for ‘lying’ to federal agents, but Powell has also managed to convince the same court to postpone his sentencing indefinitely after introducing enough doubt about his guilty plea.
Now, we learn, Powell also managed to have Flynn’s entire case reviewed — as per an order by ‘the man’ himself, Attorney General William Barr.
As the Washington Times reported on Sunday, Powell sent a ‘secret letter’ to Barr last summer laying out her client’s case, how it was brought about, and all of the legal and procedural problems associated with it. Recall that Flynn was forced to resign barely three weeks into the new administration, in February 2017, for allegedly being disingenuous with Vice President Mike Pence regarding a conversation the retired three-star had with Russia’s top diplomat in the U.S. the previous December.
The Times noted:
The unusual move by Attorney General William P. Barr to open an independent review of the prosecution of retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn came after months of legal broadsides from defense attorney Sidney Powell.
But it may have been Ms. Powell’s first salvo, a private letter to Mr. Barr in June, that alerted him to what the Flynn team believes is a miscarriage of justice.
In her first paragraph, Ms. Powell requested an outside auditor not associated in any way with former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. She argued that Mr. Mueller’s lawyers threatened Flynn’s son with prosecution to persuade the retired officer to plead guilty to lying to the FBI.
“We request the appointment of new government counsel with no connection to the Special Counsel team of attorneys or agents to conduct review of the entire Flynn case for Brady material that has not been produced and prosecutorial misconduct writ large,” Powell wrote.
The paper noted further:
…In her June letter to Mr. Barr, Ms. Powell recited her version of events. She said prosecutor Brandon Van Grack later acknowledged that the Flynn call was “perfectly legal.” It did not violate the Logan Act, which appeared to be the basis for the FBI visiting Flynn that day.
“There was no ‘Logan Act violation,’ and everyone knew it,” Powell wrote. “Yet General Flynn was illegally unmasked by the Obama administration and his call leaked to explode the ‘Russia collusion’ narrative in the press. The FBI interview was worse than ‘entrapment.’ He was led to believe he was having a casual conversation with friends about a training exercise from a day or two before, when in truth, it was a set-up-tantamount to a ‘frame, manipulated by Yates, Comey, Strzok, McCabe, and others to take General Flynn out of the administration. [Mueller team] then used it to pressure him to try to take out President Trump.” …
The Barr intervention came after U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan had rejected all of Ms. Powell’s arguments to date. She claimed that the Mueller team withheld exculpatory evidence and that the FBI maliciously edited 302 interview reports to hurt Flynn.
Flynn last month moved to rescind his December 2017 guilty plea of lying to Mr. Strzok and the other agent.
The New York Times reported Friday that Jeffrey Jensen, a former FBI agent who serves as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, was appointed by Barr and will be reviewing Flynn’s case.
Powell is a veteran DoJ whistleblower, and Barr knows it. Her persistence appears to have paid off for her client.