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FBI Edits, DOJ Paper Mess Prompt General Flynn’s Legal Team to Get to the Bottom of Russiagate Plot
from Sputnik News:
As Michael Flynn’s sentencing date nears, the retired lieutenant general’s legal team have come up with new discoveries suggesting that the former national security adviser was trapped by the FBI amid the Russiagate inquiry. According to Flynn’s defence, there’s already enough evidence to overturn Flynn’s plea deal.
Michael Flynn’s defence team signalled Monday that it has enough evidence to file a motion “at the appropriate time” to dismiss the prosecution for “egregious government misconduct and in the interest of justice” amid growing controversy over the FBI and DOJ’s handling of the retired lieutenant general’s false statement case.
FBI Agents Manipulated Flynn 302
On 24 October, Powell, raised a red flag over the apparent manipulation of the general’s FD-302 – a form used by FBI personnel to report or summarise the interviews that they conduct. According to the attorney, FBI agents made “substantial changes” to the Flynn 302.
She argues that, first, they added an unequivocal statement “Flynn stated he did not” – in response to the question whether he had asked Russian Ambassador Kislyak to vote in a certain manner in the UN. However, the agents’ handwritten notes indicate that the general had not even recalled speaking to Kislyak on the issue.
Second, the agents added a phrase: “or if Kislyak described any Russian response to a request by Flynn” to which Flynn answered “no”. However, neither the question nor the answer appeared in the FBI raw notes.
Furthermore, the general’s legal team says that messages between then Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok – who conducted an interview with the general – and FBI lawyer Lisa Page on 10 February 2017 show that both were involved in editing the Flynn 302.
Included: new Page/Strzok texts.
Discussion between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok re: editing the Flynn 302.
Strzok to Page: “I made your edits”
Also discussion of misleading leadership re: picking up 302. pic.twitter.com/w5wuU3SwZh
— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) October 25, 2019
Powell draws attention to the fact that neither Peter Strzok nor his counterpart, Joseph Pientka, who were sent by then FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to question to Flynn, discerned any physical indications of deception on the part of the general. Similarly, the agents’ raw notes do not say that Mr Flynn made the specific false statements to which he pled guilty, the attorney argues in her 4 November brief.
According to Flynn’s defence, these and other facts are raising suspicions that the former national security adviser to President Trump was framed while his interview was nothing short of a fishing expedition kicked off by McCabe and his associates “to create a false statement case”.
DOJ Got the Authors of the FBI Raw Notes Backwards
Meanwhile, Strzok and Pientka’s handwritten notes have suddenly triggered further controversy: not only do they bear no signature or date (though they should under FBI rules) – they had remained “misidentified” for 18 months by the federal prosecutors, as it turned out on 5 November.
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