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Flynn’s Lawyers, Prosecutors Spar Over Whether He’s Ready for Sentencing

Flynn’s Lawyers, Prosecutors Spar Over Whether He’s Ready for Sentencing

(Bloomberg) -- With a potential jail term looming, lawyers for Michael Flynn are clashing with federal prosecutors over whether President Donald Trump’s original national security adviser is ready to be sentenced for lying about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. after the 2016 election.

Sidney Powell, the Dallas lawyer hired by the retired U.S. Army general, upped the ante in court papers filed late Friday, accusing the government of deliberately withholding exculpatory evidence and asking Washington U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to find prosecutors in contempt of court.

Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017. In a bid for leniency, he cooperated with Special Counsel Robert Muller’s Russia probe and the prosecution of his former business partner, Bijan Kian, for illegally lobbying in the U.S. on behalf of Turkey.

That cooperation deal is now finished. But that’s about all defense lawyers and prosecutors agreed on in a report to Sullivan filed earlier Friday. While the U.S. said Flynn should now be punished, the defense insists it still needs to review voluminous records, some of which it claims have not yet been produced by the prosecutors.

Flynn’s Lawyers, Prosecutors Spar Over Whether He’s Ready for Sentencing

Whenever Flynn is sentenced, he could find himself ordered to serve a prison term, but the late day filing could be a harbinger of defense plans to ultimately try to withdraw the former Trump aide’s guilty plea.

Powell, whom Flynn hired after his sentencing was delayed during a tense hearing before Sullivan in December, told the court she’s still sifting through more than 300,000 documents turned over by Flynn’s now-former counsel. She also said she hasn’t gotten government clearance to review classified materials.

In the follow-up document, she accused prosecutors of willfully withholding that potentially exculpatory information, violating the judge’s order for the government to comply with its legal obligations to hand over that information to the defense.

“Not only have the prosecutors thumbed their noses at this court’s order, they have ignored the rules of ethical conduct for the D.C. Bar,” Powell and co-counsel Jesse Binall said in the court filing.

While the case is now being prosecuted by the office of Washington U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu, Flynn’s lawyers accused a trio of Mueller prosecutors of “affirmatively” suppressing such evidence, “while at the same time putting excruciating pressure on him to enter his guilty plea and manipulating or controlling the press to their advantage to extort that plea.”

The defense argument is grounded in part on Sullivan’s 2009 dismissal of criminal charges against now-deceased U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, following the revelation that prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence.

Liu’s office, in the earlier filing, said the government had fully met its legal obligations and even exceeded what was required for disclosure and discovery, producing more than 22,000 pages of documents.

“The government is not aware of any classified information that requires disclosures to the defendant or his counsel,” the prosecutors said. Spokeswoman Kadia Koroma did not immediately respond to phone messages seeking comment on the defense allegations.

While U.S. lawyers told Sullivan before the original December sentencing date they would be willing to accept a punishment without jail time, the judge harshly criticized Flynn’s conduct at the time, raising -- then retracting -- the notion the ex-general may have committed treason.

“Arguably, you sold your country out,” Sullivan said, citing his false statements and the ex-general’s uncharged, though admitted crime of working with Kian as an undisclosed agent of the Turkish government. “I’m not hiding my disgust, my disdain for this criminal offense.”

In an order issued Friday, Sullivan told both sides to appear before him on Sept. 10.

The case is U.S. v. Flynn, 17-cr-232, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Harris in Washington at aharris16@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Joe Schneider

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