Buy America - Remake America
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Hillary continues to resist and Obama has to/should be concerned.
Will judges allow justice to prevail or will the double standard, which has become the norm, continue?
Breaking: Hillary Clinton Resists Court Order To Produce Smoking Gun Memo On Search And Review Process That Lead To Deletion Of Her Emails
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Perhaps a judge, who apparently sought to assist liberals in keeping alive a dead issue and may well be rebuked by Justice Ginsburg, should look in the mirror and rethink:
Judge Sullivan vs. Justice Ginsburg
By inviting outside help, the Flynn jurist is acting ‘beyond the pale.’
By The Editorial Board
In his zeal to convict Michael Flynn of something, federal Judge Emmet Sullivan is harming his own reputation. He’s also violating the law, as he’d know if he had read Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s opinion last week overturning the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
On Wednesday Judge Sullivan appointed an ex-judge to explore whether former Mr. Flynn should be held in criminal contempt for perjury even though prosecutors have sought to drop the charges against the former national security adviser. The relevant case is U.S. v. Sineneng-Smith, in which the Supreme Court reversed a Ninth Circuit ruling striking down a criminal statute involving immigration as unconstitutionally overbroad. The case was overturned because instead of adjudicating the issues raised by the parties, the Ninth Circuit panel invited outside groups to brief them about a defense the defendant never raised.
This is akin to what Judge Sullivan is trying to do with Mr. Flynn by asking outside parties to make new arguments for prosecution—and even appointing former judge John Gleeson, who has shown clear public bias (in an op-ed) against Mr. Flynn, to make the case. Judge Sullivan’s abuse is more egregious given that the real prosecutors now say they don’t believe they can honestly prosecute Mr. Flynn
Justice Ginsburg’s argument is that the job of judges is to judge, not to substitute for prosecutors. As she wrote in a 2008 case, in our system of justice “courts follow the principle of party presentation, i.e., the parties frame the issues for decision and the courts generally serve as neutral arbiters of matters the parties present.” Last week in Sineneng-Smith, she wrote that “the appeals panel departed so drastically from the principle of party presentation as to constitute an abuse of discretion.”
The 9-0 ruling doesn’t bode well for Judge Sullivan on appeal, and it makes us wonder if in his rage at the prosecution he has lost his legal, and maybe emotional, bearings. Judge Sullivan is acting like Justice Ginsburg said the Ninth Circuit judges did: “beyond the pale.”
And:
Kim seeks to clear the air regarding the spurious Beltway Attacks on Barr which you knew were coming:
Barr vs. the Beltway
Swamp creatures heap abuse on him for exposing abuse at the Justice Department.
By Kimberley Strassel
In the Bible, we are told that the truth will set us free. In the Beltway, we find that the truth-tellers get hammered.
Take William Barr. The attorney general in recent weeks has made good on his pledge to be transparent about the Justice Department’s actions in the 2016 election and to right wrongs. The department’s decision to withdraw its false-statements case against former national security adviser Mike Flynn was its first public acknowledgment that past leaders sullied their mission.
That’s not an opinion, but the reality as shown by new documents released in the Flynn case. Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation debated if the goal of the interview with Mr. Flynn was to “get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired.” Then-Director James Comey refused to brief the Trump administration about the bureau’s Flynn concerns. The interviewing agents encouraged Mr. Flynn to forgo legal counsel and denied him the standard warning that lying was a crime. Prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence from Mr. Flynn’s defense attorneys. No self-respecting lawyer could defend any of this.
Thanks to acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, we also got a document this week showing the Obama political team was in on the Flynn sandbagging. The list of Obama partisans who “unmasked” Mr. Flynn—snooping on his phone conversations—include Vice President Joe Biden, White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew. The dates suggest the administration was listening in on Mr. Flynn from the start.
Yet instead of applauding Mr. Barr for divulging these facts, the Beltway has responded with ire. Mr. Barr’s transparency threatens to reveal further that the Russia-collusion narrative was pure fantasy, to puncture the self-righteousness of the likes of Mr. Comey and his scribes, to question the appropriateness of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, and to expose how hatred of Donald Trump drove people of power to break rules and destroy norms. Thus the vicious campaign to undermine Mr. Barr’s credibility, an operation that has now been joined not only by Democrats and the press, but also by Justice Department alumni and even the federal judge presiding over Mr. Flynn’s case.
The press spent all week flogging an open letter from 1,900 former Justice Department employees calling on Mr. Barr to resign for having “assaulted the rule of law” by withdrawing the charges against Mr. Flynn. Never mind that this crew is an insignificant fraction of the tens of thousands of former department employees who didn’t sign a letter. Many stories also conveniently neglected to mention that the letter was organized by Protect Democracy, a nonprofit formed in 2017 by former counsels for President Obama.
The proof of the skullduggery behind these attacks and press stories is in the name they don’t mention: U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen. He’s the man Mr. Barr tapped in January to review the Flynn case, and who made the recommendation to withdraw the charges. Career prosecutors worked on the withdrawal brief. No one has dared suggest Mr. Jensen is anything but a fine lawyer—because they can’t. He spent 10 years at the FBI and 10 as a career prosecutor. His involvement refutes the critics’ assertion that this was a “politicized” decision by Mr. Barr on behalf of Mr. Trump. So they’ve excised him—and the career prosecutors—from the story.
Then there’s Judge Emmet Sullivan’s decision to join the smear campaign against Mr. Barr. Rather than grant the prosecution’s request to withdraw the Flynn case, Judge Sullivan appointed a retired judge, John Gleeson, to oppose the effort and to investigate whether Mr. Flynn engaged in perjury—an offense with which he wasn’t charged—by changing his plea. Mr. Gleason is singularly unsuited for this task. A former prosecutor, he once worked alongside Mueller “pit bull” Andrew Weissmann, who as a member of Mr. Mueller’s team helped railroad Mr. Flynn. And Mr. Gleeson has admitted his palpable bias in a Washington Post op-ed this week that urged Judge Sullivan to deny the prosecution motion and leave Mr. Flynn’s conviction in place.
All this highlights the nakedly political nature of Judge Sullivan’s actions. From a purely legal perspective, this is an insignificant case; “lying to the feds” charges are a dime a dozen, and even Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors initially recommended little or no prison time for Mr. Flynn. The judge’s moves are simply over the top. More important, they are legally and ethically dubious. As no less than Judge Gleeson once wrote in an opinion: “The government has near-absolute power . . . to extinguish a case that it has brought.” Judge Sullivan is providing ample evidence of hostility toward a defendant—of a malevolent intent to punish—that would be strong grounds for appeal.
The only reason to do it is to provide Mr. Barr’s critics a talking point to counter the ugly truths the attorney general is revealing.The bright light in this morass of rough justice and partisan slander is Mr. Barr himself. He knew what was coming and appears unfazed and unwilling to be rolled into meekness. The country is lucky to have a top law-enforcement officer who cares more about justice and his department’s reputation than about the former officials who abused its power. The more they howl, the more obvious their guilt.
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Powell to Obama:
From: Sidney Powell
Re: Your Failure to Find Precedent for Flynn Dismissal
Regarding the decision of the Department of Justice to dismiss charges
against General Flynn, in your recent call with your alumni, you expressed
great concern: “there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone
who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind
of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional
norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk.”
Here is some help—if truth and precedent represent your true concern.
Your statement is entirely false. However, it does explain the damage to
the Rule of Law throughout your administration.
First, General Flynn was not charged with perjury—which requires a
material false statement made under oath with intent to deceive.1 A perjury
prosecution would have been appropriate and the Rule of Law applied if
the Justice Department prosecuted your former FBI Deputy Director
Andrew McCabe for his multiple lies under oath in an investigation of a leak
only he knew he caused.McCabe lied under oath in fully recorded and
transcribed interviews with the Inspector General for the DOJ. He was
informed of the purpose of the interview, and he had had the benefit of
counsel. He knew he was the leaker. McCabe even lied about lying. He lied
to his own agents—which sent them on a “wild-goose-chase”—thereby
making his lies “material” and an obstruction of justice. Yet, remarkably,
Attorney General Barr declined to prosecute McCabe for these offenses.
Applying the Rule of Law, after declining McCabe’s perjury prosecution,
required the Justice Department to dismiss the prosecution of General
Flynn who was not warned, not under oath, had no counsel, and whose
statements were not only not recorded, but were created as false by FBI
agents who falsified the 302.
Second, it would seem your “wingman” Eric Holder is missing a step these
days at Covington & Burling LLP. Indelibly marked in his memory (and one
might think, yours) should be his Motion to Dismiss the multi-count jury
verdict of guilty and the entire case against former United States Senator
Ted Stevens. Within weeks of Mr. Holder becoming Attorney General, he
moved to dismiss the Stevens prosecution in the interest of justice for the
same reasons the Justice Department did against General Flynn—
egregious misconduct by prosecutors who hid exculpatory evidence and
concocted purported crimes.
As horrifying as the facts of the Stevens case were, they pale in
comparison to the targeted setup, framing, and prosecution of a newly
elected President’s National Security Advisor and the shocking facts that
surround it. This case was an assault on the heart of liberty— our
cherished system of self-government, the right of citizens to choose their
President, and the hallowed peaceful transition of power.
Third, the inability of anyone in your alumni association to find “anybody
who has been charged [with anything] just getting off scot-free” would be
laughable were it not so pathetic.
Many of your alum feature prominently in the non-fiction legal thriller
published in 2014: Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department
of Justice. A national best- seller, it focusses on the egregious
prosecutorial misconduct of your longest serving White House Counsel,
Kathy Ruemmler; your counter-terrorism advisor Lisa Monaco; Loretta
Lynch’s DAG for the Criminal Division Leslie Caldwell; and Mueller protégé
Andrew Weissmann. While they worked as federal prosecutors on the
Enron Task Force—under the purported supervision of Christopher Wray—
they destroyed Arthur Andersen LLP and its 85,000 jobs; sent four Merrill
Lynch executives to prison on an indictment that criminalized an innocent
business transaction while they hid the evidence that showed those
defendants were innocent for six years. Both cases were reversed on
appeal for their over-criminalization and misconduct. Indeed, Andersen
was reversed by a unanimous Supreme Court.
Fourth, even if your many alumni don’t remember multiple cases that had
to be reversed or dismissed for their own misconduct, Judge Emmet
Sullivan should remember dismissing the corrupted case against Ted
Stevens. Judge Sullivan is the judicial hero of Licensed to Lie. It is that
case that caused Judge Sullivan to enter the strong Brady order the
Mueller and D.C. career prosecutors violated repeatedly in the Flynn
prosecution.
Fifth, there is precedent for guilty pleas being vacated. Your alumni
Weissmann and Ruemmler are no strangers to such reversals. At least two
guilty pleas they coerced by threats against defendants in Houston had to
be thrown out—again for reasons like those here. The defendants “got off
scot-free” because—like General Flynn—your alumni had concocted the
charges and terrorized the defendants into pleading guilty to “offenses”
that were not crimes. Andersen partner David Duncan even testified for the
government against Andersen in its trial, but his plea had to be vacated.
Enron Broadband defendant Christopher Calger had his plea vacated.
There are many others across the country.
Sixth, should further edification be necessary, see Why Innocent People
Plead Guilty, written in 2014 by federal Judge Jed Rakoff (a Clinton
appointee). Abusive prosecutors force innocent people to plead guilty with
painful frequency. The Mueller special counsel operation led by Andrew
Weissmann and Weissmann “wannabes” specializes in prosecutorial
terrorist tactics repulsive to everything “justice” is supposed to mean.
These tactics are designed to intimidate their targets into pleading guilty—
while punishing them and their families with the process itself and financial
ruin.
Most important, General Flynn was honest with the FBI agents. They knew
he was—and briefed that to McCabe and others three different times. At
McCabe’s directions, Agent Strzok and McCabe’s “Special Counsel” Lisa
Page, altered the 302 to create statements Weissmann, Mueller, Van
Grack, and Zainab Ahmad could assert were false. Only the FBI agents
lied—and falsified documents. The crimes are theirs alone.
Seventh, the D.C. circuit in which you reside vacated a Section 1001 case
for a legal failure much less egregious than those in General Flynn’s case.
United States v. Safavian, 528 F.3d 957 (D.C. Cir. 2008). Safavian sought
advice from his agency’s ethics board and did not give them all the relevant
info. The jury convicted him on the theory it was a 1001 violation to
conceal the information from the government ethics board. The court
disagreed: “As Safavian argues and as the government agrees, there must
be a legal duty to disclose in order for there to be a concealment offense in
violation of § 1001(a)(1), yet the government failed to identify a legal
disclosure duty except by reference to vague standards of conduct for
government employees.” General Flynn did not even know he was the
subject of an investigation—and in truth, he was not. The only crimes here
were by your alumni in the FBI, White House, intelligence community, and
Justice Department.
These are just a few obvious and well-known examples to those paying any
attention to criminal justice issues.
Finally, the “leaked” comments from your alumni call further evinces your
obsession with destroying a distinguished veteran of the United States
Army who has defended the Constitution and this country “from all
enemies, foreign and domestic,” with the highest honor for thirty-three
years. He and many others will continue to do so.
1As a “constitutional lawyer,” surely you recall that perjury (or false
statements) also requires intent to deceive. In Bronston v. United States,
409 U.S. 352 (1973), the Supreme Court reversed a conviction of perjury.
In Bronston, the defendant’s answer was a truthful statement, but not
directly responsive to the question and ultimately misled federal authorities. The Court determined: “A jury should not be permitted to engage in conjecture whether an unresponsive answer, true
and complete on its face, was intended to mislead or divert the examiner;
the state of mind of the witness is relevant only to the extent that it bears
on whether “he does not believe [his answer] to be true.” To hold otherwise
would be to inject a new and confusing element into the adversary
testimonial system we know.” Id. at 359. The FBI agents who interviewed
General Flynn specifically noted that his answers were true or he believed
his answers to be true—completely defeating criminal intent. Furthermore,
General Flynn knew and remarked they had transcripts of his
conversations.
Click here to read a PDF version of Sidney’s Open Memorandum to
Obama
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The only reason to do it is to provide Mr. Barr’s critics a talking point to counter the ugly truths the attorney general is revealing.The bright light in this morass of rough justice and partisan slander is Mr. Barr himself. He knew what was coming and appears unfazed and unwilling to be rolled into meekness. The country is lucky to have a top law-enforcement officer who cares more about justice and his department’s reputation than about the former officials who abused its power. The more they howl, the more obvious their guilt.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Powell to Obama:
OPEN MEMORANDUM
To: Barack Hussein ObamaFrom: Sidney Powell
Re: Your Failure to Find Precedent for Flynn Dismissal
Regarding the decision of the Department of Justice to dismiss charges
against General Flynn, in your recent call with your alumni, you expressed
great concern: “there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone
who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind
of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional
norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk.”
Here is some help—if truth and precedent represent your true concern.
Your statement is entirely false. However, it does explain the damage to
the Rule of Law throughout your administration.
First, General Flynn was not charged with perjury—which requires a
material false statement made under oath with intent to deceive.1 A perjury
prosecution would have been appropriate and the Rule of Law applied if
the Justice Department prosecuted your former FBI Deputy Director
Andrew McCabe for his multiple lies under oath in an investigation of a leak
only he knew he caused.McCabe lied under oath in fully recorded and
transcribed interviews with the Inspector General for the DOJ. He was
informed of the purpose of the interview, and he had had the benefit of
counsel. He knew he was the leaker. McCabe even lied about lying. He lied
to his own agents—which sent them on a “wild-goose-chase”—thereby
making his lies “material” and an obstruction of justice. Yet, remarkably,
Attorney General Barr declined to prosecute McCabe for these offenses.
Applying the Rule of Law, after declining McCabe’s perjury prosecution,
required the Justice Department to dismiss the prosecution of General
Flynn who was not warned, not under oath, had no counsel, and whose
statements were not only not recorded, but were created as false by FBI
agents who falsified the 302.
Second, it would seem your “wingman” Eric Holder is missing a step these
days at Covington & Burling LLP. Indelibly marked in his memory (and one
might think, yours) should be his Motion to Dismiss the multi-count jury
verdict of guilty and the entire case against former United States Senator
Ted Stevens. Within weeks of Mr. Holder becoming Attorney General, he
moved to dismiss the Stevens prosecution in the interest of justice for the
same reasons the Justice Department did against General Flynn—
egregious misconduct by prosecutors who hid exculpatory evidence and
concocted purported crimes.
As horrifying as the facts of the Stevens case were, they pale in
comparison to the targeted setup, framing, and prosecution of a newly
elected President’s National Security Advisor and the shocking facts that
surround it. This case was an assault on the heart of liberty— our
cherished system of self-government, the right of citizens to choose their
President, and the hallowed peaceful transition of power.
Third, the inability of anyone in your alumni association to find “anybody
who has been charged [with anything] just getting off scot-free” would be
laughable were it not so pathetic.
Many of your alum feature prominently in the non-fiction legal thriller
published in 2014: Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department
of Justice. A national best- seller, it focusses on the egregious
prosecutorial misconduct of your longest serving White House Counsel,
Kathy Ruemmler; your counter-terrorism advisor Lisa Monaco; Loretta
Lynch’s DAG for the Criminal Division Leslie Caldwell; and Mueller protégé
Andrew Weissmann. While they worked as federal prosecutors on the
Enron Task Force—under the purported supervision of Christopher Wray—
they destroyed Arthur Andersen LLP and its 85,000 jobs; sent four Merrill
Lynch executives to prison on an indictment that criminalized an innocent
business transaction while they hid the evidence that showed those
defendants were innocent for six years. Both cases were reversed on
appeal for their over-criminalization and misconduct. Indeed, Andersen
was reversed by a unanimous Supreme Court.
Fourth, even if your many alumni don’t remember multiple cases that had
to be reversed or dismissed for their own misconduct, Judge Emmet
Sullivan should remember dismissing the corrupted case against Ted
Stevens. Judge Sullivan is the judicial hero of Licensed to Lie. It is that
case that caused Judge Sullivan to enter the strong Brady order the
Mueller and D.C. career prosecutors violated repeatedly in the Flynn
prosecution.
Fifth, there is precedent for guilty pleas being vacated. Your alumni
Weissmann and Ruemmler are no strangers to such reversals. At least two
guilty pleas they coerced by threats against defendants in Houston had to
be thrown out—again for reasons like those here. The defendants “got off
scot-free” because—like General Flynn—your alumni had concocted the
charges and terrorized the defendants into pleading guilty to “offenses”
that were not crimes. Andersen partner David Duncan even testified for the
government against Andersen in its trial, but his plea had to be vacated.
Enron Broadband defendant Christopher Calger had his plea vacated.
There are many others across the country.
Sixth, should further edification be necessary, see Why Innocent People
Plead Guilty, written in 2014 by federal Judge Jed Rakoff (a Clinton
appointee). Abusive prosecutors force innocent people to plead guilty with
painful frequency. The Mueller special counsel operation led by Andrew
Weissmann and Weissmann “wannabes” specializes in prosecutorial
terrorist tactics repulsive to everything “justice” is supposed to mean.
These tactics are designed to intimidate their targets into pleading guilty—
while punishing them and their families with the process itself and financial
ruin.
Most important, General Flynn was honest with the FBI agents. They knew
he was—and briefed that to McCabe and others three different times. At
McCabe’s directions, Agent Strzok and McCabe’s “Special Counsel” Lisa
Page, altered the 302 to create statements Weissmann, Mueller, Van
Grack, and Zainab Ahmad could assert were false. Only the FBI agents
lied—and falsified documents. The crimes are theirs alone.
Seventh, the D.C. circuit in which you reside vacated a Section 1001 case
for a legal failure much less egregious than those in General Flynn’s case.
United States v. Safavian, 528 F.3d 957 (D.C. Cir. 2008). Safavian sought
advice from his agency’s ethics board and did not give them all the relevant
info. The jury convicted him on the theory it was a 1001 violation to
conceal the information from the government ethics board. The court
disagreed: “As Safavian argues and as the government agrees, there must
be a legal duty to disclose in order for there to be a concealment offense in
violation of § 1001(a)(1), yet the government failed to identify a legal
disclosure duty except by reference to vague standards of conduct for
government employees.” General Flynn did not even know he was the
subject of an investigation—and in truth, he was not. The only crimes here
were by your alumni in the FBI, White House, intelligence community, and
Justice Department.
These are just a few obvious and well-known examples to those paying any
attention to criminal justice issues.
Finally, the “leaked” comments from your alumni call further evinces your
obsession with destroying a distinguished veteran of the United States
Army who has defended the Constitution and this country “from all
enemies, foreign and domestic,” with the highest honor for thirty-three
years. He and many others will continue to do so.
1As a “constitutional lawyer,” surely you recall that perjury (or false
statements) also requires intent to deceive. In Bronston v. United States,
409 U.S. 352 (1973), the Supreme Court reversed a conviction of perjury.
In Bronston, the defendant’s answer was a truthful statement, but not
directly responsive to the question and ultimately misled federal authorities. The Court determined: “A jury should not be permitted to engage in conjecture whether an unresponsive answer, true
and complete on its face, was intended to mislead or divert the examiner;
the state of mind of the witness is relevant only to the extent that it bears
on whether “he does not believe [his answer] to be true.” To hold otherwise
would be to inject a new and confusing element into the adversary
testimonial system we know.” Id. at 359. The FBI agents who interviewed
General Flynn specifically noted that his answers were true or he believed
his answers to be true—completely defeating criminal intent. Furthermore,
General Flynn knew and remarked they had transcripts of his
conversations.
Click here to read a PDF version of Sidney’s Open Memorandum to
Obama
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