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Sidney Powell, author of the bestseller “Licensed to Lie “and lead counsel in more than 500 appeals in the Fifth Circuit, in Washington on May 30, 2019. (Samira Bouaou\/The Epoch Times)<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n
BY PETR SVAB
\nThe Epoch Times<\/p>\n
Sidney Powell<\/a>, lawyer of Lt. Gen.\u00a0Michael Flynn<\/a>, said the FBI excluded crucial information from a report on their interview of her client. The report, an FBI 302 form, was used to charge Flynn with lying to the FBI, but the original draft of the 302 stated that Flynn was honest with the FBI, according to a witness who saw the draft, Powell said.<\/p>\n Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty on Dec. 1, 2017, to one count of lying to FBI agents during a Jan. 24, 2017, interview.<\/p>\n A 302 report summarizing the interview was supposed to be filed within five days. But the earliest draft Flynn\u2019s lawyers were provided was from Feb. 10, 2017\u2014more than two weeks after the interview.<\/p>\n Powell, who took over Flynn\u2019s defense in June 2019, has for months asserted that an earlier 302 must exist. Prosecutors have said they don\u2019t have it, stopping short of saying it doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n In an Oct. 24, 2019, court filing (pdf<\/a>), Powell rejected the suggestion that the 302 draft was \u201cmissing,\u201d saying neither the bureau nor its digital document system \u201closes the most important of its reports that is supposed to support the federal felony of the President\u2019s National Security Adviser.\u201d<\/p>\n On Jan. 16, Powell disclosed that she has a witness who could attest to what was in the original draft.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve now found a witness who says the original 302 did in fact say that Flynn was honest with the agents and did not lie,\u201d\u00a0she told Larry O\u2019Connor on his WMAL radio show<\/a>. \u201cSo for somebody to delete that from the 302 is just beyond outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t elaborate much further when asked by The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n \u201cCan\u2019t say more about witness but yes, person saw it,\u201d she said via email.<\/p>\n Flynn was expected to receive a light sentence because of cooperation with the government on two investigations\u2014one led by then-special counsel Robert Mueller and the other in the Eastern District of Virginia against Flynn\u2019s former business partner, Bijan Rafiekian.<\/p>\n In a Jan. 7 sentencing memo (pdf<\/a>), however, prosecutors asked for up to six months in prison for Flynn, saying he pulled back his cooperation in the Rafiekian case last year.<\/p>\n In response to the memo, Flynn asked the court on Jan. 14 (pdf<\/a>) to allow him to withdraw his original plea, saying the prosecutors violated the terms of the agreement.<\/p>\n Rafiekian was charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent based on a job that Flynn\u2019s now-defunct consultancy, Flynn Intel Group (FIG), did for Turkish businessman Kamil Ekim Alptekin.<\/p>\n Flynn wasn\u2019t charged in that case, and\u00a0Rafiekian was ultimately acquitted<\/a>\u00a0due to insufficient evidence.<\/p>\n In June 2019, after Flynn fired his original lawyers and hired a new legal team led by Powell, prosecutors asked Flynn to testify that he signed FIG\u2019s lobbying forms knowing there were lies in them. He refused, saying he only learned there was something wrong with the registration in retrospect.<\/p>\n That angered the lead prosecutor, Brandon Van Grack, notes from a June 27, 2019, conference call indicate.<\/p>\n Powell said that ever since then, the prosecutors\u2019 behavior has been \u201cretaliatory, vindictive, and in bad faith\u201d because Flynn refused to lie.<\/p>\n In a Jan. 16 court filing (pdf<\/a>), she disclosed documents that, in her view, indicate the prosecutors\u00a0knew they were asking for a false statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n She previously asked Judge Emmet Sullivan to\u00a0order the government to hand over a plethora of documents<\/a>\u00a0she said were exculpatory to Flynn.\u00a0She said the case should be dismissed<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0government misconduct<\/a>, including for withholding the documents.\u00a0Sullivan denied the request<\/a>.<\/p>\n Powell said in the WMAL radio interview that if Sullivan allows the plea withdrawal and the case goes to trial, she will call witnesses including former FBI Director James Comey, his former deputy, Andrew McCabe, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok, and the \u201cagent who cannot be named,\u201d referring to Special Agent Joe Pientka.<\/p>\n It was Strzok and Pientka who interviewed Flynn, while Comey and McCabe were involved in planning the interview. Powell previously requested Clapper\u2019s phone records to \u201cconfirm\u201d whether he communicated with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, \u201cespecially on January 10, 2017, when Clapper told Ignatius in words to the effect of \u2018take the kill shot on Flynn,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Ignatius and Van Grack, the leading prosecutor in the Flynn case, didn\u2019t immediately respond to requests for comment. An FBI spokesman declined to comment. An attempt to reach Clapper for comment was unsuccessful.<\/p>\nWithdrawing Plea<\/h2>\n
Top Brass Witnesses<\/h2>\n