Turns out Michael Flynn is totally innocent! He just proved it by deleting that tweet confessing to crimes from two years ago. Sure he also confessed in writing to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador. And again under oath in open court. Twice. But actually, you guys, those were just perjuries, because US District Judge Emmet Sullivan perjury trapped him. Probably!

Because plague isn't bad enough, the unflushable Michael Flynn and his derptastic lawyer Sidney Powell are back in the timeline again. And while Powell was unsuccessful in getting the Justice Department to drop the case entirely, she did get some help from Bill Barr in polishing up this turd. Not only did Barr intervene to force prosecutors to ask for no jail time, he also tasked US Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri Jeffrey Jensen with checking for the millionth time to see if Flynn WUZ FRAAAAMED. Not because the facts are in doubt — there's no argument that Flynn lied to the FBI — but maybe Jensen could find a smoking gun memo that said, HAHA, WE WILL FRAME MICHAEL FLYNN BY ASKING HIM A QUESTION HE DOESN'T WANT TO ANSWER AND FORCING HIM TO LIE TO US! Wouldn't that be sweet?

Spoiler Alert: Jensen didn't find that memo. He appears to have found something, but whatever it is hasn't yet made its way into the public record. In his plea agreement, Flynn signed away his right to receive any further Brady materials, which is lawtalk for exculpatory evidence that must be disclosed to defendants. But Flynn has been aggressively litigating to get every last piece of paper in the FBI's files anyway, screaming that prosecutors are somehow hiding something.

We have no idea what Jensen kicked up, although considering the massive scrutiny this case has received, we're guessing there's rather less here than meets the eye. All we have is Powell hyperventilating onto the docket about a "shameful blight on the American justice system," and "incredible malfeasance," and mean FBI agents who "intended either to create an offense they could prosecute or at least get him fired."

This evidence-free howling was plenty for the Fox Flynn-fluffers, of course. Here's Devin Nunes lawsplaining to a credulous Maria Bartiromo that the evidence no one has seen will somehow prove that Flynn was framed. So, take it from these two Fourth Amendment scholars, shit's about to get real!

And remember, in our report, the report which — the House Republican report from 2018, it's the gold standard, OK, of reports. If you look at all the other reports, whether it's the intelligence community assessment, whether it's the Mueller report, whether it's the Steele DNC dossier, those are all a joke, right?

And the media has been promoting these — this Russia hoax for so long. And the reality, you have a — the former head of the DIA, who has been strung up here for year after year after year, in what was now likely, we're going to find out, he was framed. Imagine that, being framed by our own government and by political operatives who don't like you.

Yeah, and Gem is the gold standard of dairy heifers. Keep mooin', Congressman Cowpoke!

The only actual evidence Sidney Powell has provided are two heavily redacted emails from Flynn's prior lawyers at Covington & Burling, whom Flynn has recently tried to blame for his own failure to register his work for Turkey under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Citing these emails as evidence of "egregious government misconduct," Powell claims that the government failed to disclose that it agreed not to charge Flynn's dipshit son Michael "Pizzagate" Flynn, Jr., and thus it is LOCK HER UP for the prosecutors.

Disclose to whom, you are asking? GOOD QUESTION!

In one email, Flynn's former counsel Robert Kelner writes that, "We have a lawyers' official understanding that they are unlikely to charge Junior in light of the cooperation agreement." In the other, Kelner writes that "The government took pains not to give a promise to MTF regarding Michael Jr., so as to limit how much of a 'benefit' it would have to disclose as part of its Giglio disclosures to any defendant against whom MTF may one day testify." Aside from the reality that leveraging charges against family members is bog standard behavior for prosecutors, not the screaming unfairness implied by Ms. Powell's overwrought filings, there are a couple of problems with this theory.

First of all, Giglio v. US mandates disclosure to a jury of inducements provided by the prosecution when a witness testifies at trial. It's got nothing to do with a plea deal, and it's not clear exactly who Powell thinks should have been clued in to the vagaries of Flynn's prosecutorial negotiations — presumably Flynn himself knew what he was discussing with Robert Mueller.

The nutbags at (Who Funds) the Federalist can natter that "the second excerpt suggests prosecutors sought to hide evidence from other defendants by keeping the Michael Flynn Jr. part of the deal secret," but, here on Planet Earth, there were no other defendants. Particularly after Flynn backed out and refused to testify against his business partner Bijan Kian.

Second of all, these emails are both from March of 2018, more than three months after the plea agreement was signed, not, as Powell implies, during negotiations. The email says clearly that "The government took pains not to give a promise to MTF regarding Michael Jr.," from which Flynn's lawyer would like the court to infer the exact opposite, that there was a secret side deal rather than a decision not to prosecute the idiot spawn afterward.

TL, DR? It's all bullshit. There's nothing there, it's all just a smoke bomb they're throwing up to get through the summer so Trump can pardon Flynn after the election. But Flynn's good buddy Devin and the nitwits at Fox and Federalists will dutifully yank off their PPE and reach all the way up the back end of this bovine. Because it doesn't count unless you get cowshit under your fingernails like a real American!

[Motion to Dismiss for Egregious Government Misconduct / Kelner Email, March 19, 2018 / Kelner Email, March 27, 2018]

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